After nine months of deliberation, Travis County has amended its policy for vacation accrual caps and pay upon separation for all county employees.

The Travis County Human Resources Department staff was tasked to come up with alternatives that would align the county with its peer counties and reduce the accrued vacation hours, leading to increased availability for on-the-job hours.

Staff made a few suggestions, such as increasing the vacation accrual maximum to 240 hours, implementing a buy-back program and increasing the pay upon separation to 240 hours. Commissioners ultimately voted on the following two policy changes:

  • Change pay upon separation to 240 hours for all Travis County employees, effective Oct. 1: The current policy allows the payout at 160 hours. Staff recommended increasing the hours to 240 in order to help improve business operations for the hiring and transition processes. The commissioners unanimously agreed to the change.

  • Change the vacation accrual maximum to 400 hours for all Travis County employees: Commissioners debated whether it is fair to change the accrual cap for all employees. The current policy caps regular employees at 240 hours, while peace officer pay scale, or POPs, employees have unlimited vacation accrual. Staff recommended capping the accrual at 240 hours for all employees so it is aligned with the payout.


“When you have a difference between your cap and your payout you create a rational response from employees after separation to burn down whatever the delta is between the cap and payout,” County Judge Sarah Eckhardt said. “It does create issues with being able to timely fill that position at the point of separation.”

Precinct 1 Commissioner Jeff Travillion disagreed and felt that 400 hours, recommended by the unions, was fair because it would give fair compensation to 24/7 employees who have already accrued that time. Precinct 2 Commissioner Brigid Shea echoed a similar sentiment, adding the need for an audit of these behaviors over the last three years.

“If [peace officer pay scale] employees are brought down to 240 and we have not done the recruitment effort to have enough staff then were back in the same situation where they can’t leave after their shift is over,” Shea said.

The commissioners passed the 400-hour vacation accrual cap with a 3-2 vote, with Eckhardt and Precinct 3 Commissioner Gerald Daugherty opposed.

Establishing a buy-back program 


Commissioners unanimously agreed to create a second account to hold the unlimited accrual already earned by POPs employees with a new active account set at zero to start accruing Oct. 1. The motion also included the creation of a three-year buyback program that allows any POPs employee with vacation balances over 240 hours to sell up to 40 hours in year one, 50 hours in year two and 50 hours in year three. An accelerated option would also allow POPs employees with over 400 hours in their second account accrual an opportunity to sell additional accrued vacation hours for a 50 percent value up to an additional 120 hours.

“I like the idea of a buy-back program but I think that it is fair that we do it in a way that is grandfathered for folks who have been long-term employees who came under a system of chronic over population of our jails," Travillion said. "I think there should be some kind of compensation for that."

Commissioners agreed to hold the shift differential portion of the policy until budget mark-up to give more time to consider and review all the available options.