By cutting a position from the court administrator’s office and reallocating duties, Wichita County plans to streamline a system that judges said currently overloads some employees.
Jeff McKnight, 30th District Court Judge, spoke to the Wichita County Commissioners Monday saying the district court judges discussed a plan to permanently eliminate a fourth position in the court administration office and redistribute the duties, and salary, to at least six employees in the district courts and county courts at law.
The change would not change the overall budget, but would provide a raise to court coordinators and other employees who are taking on additional duties. Additionally, about $3,000 would be returned to the court administration office and McKnight said they are working together to better distribute the workload.
In 2019 alone, McKnight said, the court administration raked up $10,000 in overtime.
McKnight said some employees in the court administration office come to work early, leave late and work through lunch and it is not a “sustainable model.” The redistribution of duties needs to be significant enough, he said, to make a sizable difference for the overworked employees.
Reallocation of the workload aims to eliminate overtime costs, cuts the cost of the position’s health benefits and essentially double the number of people working on court administration tasks.
District Clerk Patti Flores spoke during the meeting saying in the past 10 years, county chief deputies have received salary increases of only $7,245. This proposed move, she said, would mean court coordinators will have gotten raises of $13,497 in the same time frame.
Flores said she understood that when positions were eliminated in her office and the salary redistributed, that the county would never do that again.
Commissioner Jeff Watts said the court did not say what happened in the District Clerk’s office would not happen again.
Commissioner Mark Beauchamp added that in his time in office, the court has been favorable to department’s who provide a plan that is budget neutral and streamlines services.
Commissioner Barry Mahler said he was disappointed and troubled for the need to make this move because he was under the impression that the newly installed software system would create efficiencies that would provide for possible cost savings.
Watts said if the courts filled the fourth position, they would still be spending the same amount of money so he moved they approve the plan and see if it helps.
“Why wouldn’t we proceed and put the plan into place? Let them be proactive, it’s their program,” he said.
The move bumps district court coordinators salaries to $48,500 and county court at law coordinators to $47,500.
The $3,000 allocation back to the court administration office provides $1,000 each to the remaining three positions.
The move was unanimously approved by the commissioners and the new changes will go into effect during the next pay period.
Claire Kowalick, a senior journalist for the Times Record News, covers local government, military and MSU Texas. If you have a news tip, contact Claire at ckowalick@gannett.com.
Twitter: @KowalickNews
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County approves salary redistribution plan - Times Record News
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