County judge defends pay raise, commissioners remove salary increases for certain officials

County Commissioners Monday voted in favor of removing a 2.5 percent salary increase approved last week for some county elected officials: county clerk, district clerk, tax assessor-collector and justices of the peace.

Commissioner Andrew Haggerty abstained.

Commissioners did not vote on any other changes to salary decisions made so far for the Fiscal Year 2017 budget that goes into effect in October. The full budget has yet to be approved.

County Judge Veronica Escobar defended the commissioners pay increase amid criticism from the public and a public employee union representative present at Monday’s meeting.

“So our goal for elected officials is not to make the median of what is earned state wide … account for cost of living and the lower wages we experience in El Paso,” Escobar said.

Escobar said that all the pay increases, and the vote Monday to remove some increases, was based on a goal of raising all public officials pay to 70 percent of the average for that position across the state of Texas. The elected officials affected by Monday’s vote were already at or above that 70% threshold, Escobar said.

That 70 percent goal is based on a review of 10 major counties across the state: Bexar, Collin, Dallas, Denton, Ft. Bend, Harris, Hidalgo, Montgomery, Tarrant and Travis counties.

That average was calculated by consultants working for the county. Escobar said there was a misunderstanding during last week’s discussion that led to Monday’s vote to remove the pay raise for certain elected officials.

Escobar said she instructed staff to reach out to them if they wanted to respond or speak before it was changed.