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Van Zandt DPS leader urges pay adjustment to retain administrative assistant as trooper staffing expands
Summary
The head of the Department of Public Safety in Van Zandt County asked commissioners to retain and reclassify an administrative assistant who performs multiple duties, saying that doing so would allow troopers to spend more time on patrol as the agency plans to add troopers later this year.
Matthew Skinner, head of the Texas Department of Public Safety office in Van Zandt County, told the commissioners court the department’s top budget request is compensation and retention for his administrative assistant, Monica McCoy.
Skinner said McCoy performs “nine jobs in one,” handling case paperwork, public information requests, crash- and arrest-related records, facility maintenance coordination and other duties that would otherwise pull troopers into the office. He said that keeping troopers on the road increases traffic enforcement, crash response and criminal investigations and that the department’s productivity would rise if clerical duties were covered.
Skinner described the current office staffing as eight troopers assigned to the county with three additional troopers expected in September (with a possible fourth). He said daytime patrols generally include one to two troopers, with additional staffing when available, and noted the agency’s statewide duties occasionally pull units away from local work. Skinner said McCoy’s current salary is essentially what the budget covers and argued that retaining a trained administrative employee is cost-effective because training and institutional knowledge are hard to replace.
During discussion, a court member said the current classification for McCoy is “clerk” at pay grade 37; another participant suggested she might qualify for a higher classification (pay grade 39) or be upgraded toward a chief-deputy/lead-clerk role (pay grade 45 was mentioned during the exchange). No formal classification change or pay adjustment was recorded in the transcript; the exchange ended with a recommendation to pursue a reclassification and with Skinner thanking the court.
Skinner also described the department’s broader role: troopers respond to crashes and criminal activity on the county’s interstates, provide mutual aid when requested by state or local agencies and are a major source of traffic enforcement in several precincts. He said telephone and in-person public-record requests, video downloads and other time-consuming administrative tasks are handled by the office staff and that reassignment of those duties to McCoy allows troopers to focus on road safety.
No formal appropriation or personnel action was recorded in the transcript; the discussion will feed into the county’s budget deliberations.
