Elected officials will receive a pay increase for the 201415 fiscal year following a vote from the Williamson County Commissioners Court on July 1.
Commissioners voted for a 3 percent increase for county judge, commissioners, treasurer, sheriff and constables; a 4 percent increase for county clerk, district clerk, tax assessor and justices of the peace; and a $10,000 increase for county attorney.
Several officials spoke out in favor of increasing county employee salaries.
We need to be able to give our employees a level of quality that makes them want to stay, Nancy Rister, Williamson County clerk, said.
The concern that I have is not so much the total amount of money that we have because in a $140 million budget its a very small amount, its what we do with employees that will impact our budget, Commissioner Valerie Covey said.
Rister said a 5 percent increase for elected officials would be appropriate, and advocated in favor of continuing merit pay increases for employees.
Merit pay is awarded to employees based on performance, which Judge Dan Gattis said he anticipates continuingas part of the county's master plan,.
Our plan is that we were going to go to performance pay, and we were going to do that and we would fund that every year, he said. Weve done that [for] two years. We also took elected officials and department heads and hired them to be able to know their employees and balance that out.
