Staff Reports
Jefferson Police Chief Tino Perez will be getting a raise along with his other officers after Council approved a $6,000 immediate lift in salary and an additional $1,000 a year raise, with annual review, for the next five years.
“I called several towns in our population range,” said City Administrator Eric Kuykendall. “Some just never even bothered to call me back. Some of these are paying an hourly rate with overtime.”
In the data Kuykendall provided Council, Jefferson’s salary for the Chief of Police ranked 7th out of 8 respondents. Waskom ranked highest at $73,979 and Lone Star was the lowest at $45,900.
Mayor Rob Baker said he used Kuykendall’s information to create a ranking and the average salary among respondents. According to the data, the average salary is $59,082.
“I’ve got a proposal if anyone would like to hear it,” said Ward 3 Alderman Richard Turner. “Anytime I do a survey I like to cancel out the highest and lowest. If you do that, and then don’t include Jefferson, that average is $60,327. With the current salary we pay, that’s a $9,184 difference. I’m proposing we give him $5,184 now and then $1,000 a year for four years. That brings him up to a salary for a 10-year experienced chief.”
Baker countered the proposal with asking Council to provide more up front.
Various alternatives were offered over the course of the 20-minute discussion, and Council ultimately voted to approve a $6,000 raise effective February 1, and then $1,000 a year raise for five years, with annual reviews. Perez will also sill be eligible for regular Cost of Living Adjustments offered across the board by Council during the budgeting process.
Friends of Jefferson Animals will receive reimbursement of $5,933.37 for the care and boarding of animals they’ve rescued this year. According to Council discussion the expenses were unexpected, thus the request. Council allocated $13,000 in funds, paid out quarterly, to help support FOJA in the 2021-2022 Annual Budget.
“This is a special, one-time case, and is not part of the budgeted amount to them,” said Turner, “and that we won’t be approving them in the future. This is a one-time approval and in the future these expenses would come out of their approved funding.”
“I think we’re setting a precedence of binding ourselves to pay any amount incurred by FJOA without prior approval and I don’t think this is a good thing to do,” said Ward 1 Alderman Jim Finstrom. “In checking their expenses for advertising and other things are not taking into account these emergencies and we should consider not paying things that are not budgeted.”
“This was presented to us in a form of seized animals,” said Baker, “and we haven’t worked out what we would and wouldn’t fund.”
Council did not indicate which budget item the reimbursement would be from, but did not reduce the $13,000 allocated in the budget.
Council approved paying the expenses 5-1, with Finstrom voting against.
The City received a Texas Community Development Block Grant three years ago to develop a Planning Study for various infrastructure work like water, electrical, streets, etc., and provides an engineering view of potential needs. The City hired SPI to create the study and it was recently delivered to the City.
“We got a call from the General Land Office as to why we had not filed certain paperwork,” said Baker. “This grant was accepted by prior council, prior mayor. It wasn’t bid out for anyone to administer it. This is the $37,000 planning grant and it’s a binder about [6 inches] thick. It was done through SPI. So this is a ‘get back in compliance’ as such. It’s obvious certain recordkeeping hasn’t been the best, but we’re going to fix it.”
Traylor and Associates has agreed to assist the City getting back into compliance for the grant, the sum of up to $1,000.
The original focus of Tuesday night’s meeting was to being the process of updating the City of Jefferson Code of Ordinances and Employee Handbook.
I’ve been in office now 15 months and I look at this a lot, but it takes a while to find it. A lot of it was written a long time ago.” Said Baker.
After Ward 3 Alderman Ted Dickson asked how many Aldermen had a copy, it was determined that most did not, and the copy the Mayor and City Secretary had were possibly the most updated.
“I use the one in City Hall,l and it’s missing pieces,” said Kuykendall. “If you use the one on the computer, it’s more up to date than our book is.”
“This one has a half-an-inch of addendums stuffed in it,” said Baker. “It’s been a while since we’ve had updated bound copies.”
Ultimately Council decided to have Kuykendall and City Secretary Melissa Boyd compare past Council meeting minutes, to the ordinances online to see what’s not up-to-date. The last bound copy was made in 2002, but some pages may have been updated since then.
Baker asked Council to think about what have been common issues brought to Council and come up with a list of those items to use as a priority list in addressing the ordinances for the next meeting in March.