Court hears elected-official pay, law enforcement and benefits reports as budget season approaches

Human Resources presented a bundle of compensation and benefits briefings to help the court prepare for the FY2026 budget, covering elected-official compensation, county ancillary benefits and law-enforcement pay and staffing.

Cynthia Jacobson, HR director, led an elected-official compensation briefing that examined the county's new compensation policy (which compares the county to the fifth- and sixth-ranked peer counties) and flagged statutory changes that will require significant increases to supplements paid to county court-at-law judges.

Why it matters: The county must reconcile statutory mandates for judicial supplements and the court's own compensation goals while managing an overall budget under the county's tax-growth cap. Changes to elected-official pay and statutory supplement obligations have multi-department and multi-year budgetary effects.

Elected-official compensation Jacobson said the court put a new policy in place that uses the average of the fifth- and sixth-ranked peer counties as a compensation marker. She reported two elected officials (the county judge and the sheriff) currently exceed both markers, while other elected officials fall above or below the markers to varying degrees. She highlighted a state legislative change that raised district judge pay; that change requires counties to raise supplements for county court-at-law judges and privately appointed judges, producing an estimated required increase in county supplement expense approaching several hundred thousand dollars.

Jacobson recommended the court consider clarifying the policy (for example, excluding Collin County explicitly from comparisons and deciding how to treat officials who exceed the fifth-sixth marker) so commissioners know whether they intend to pursue a pathway to the fifth-sixth benchmark in future years.

Ancillary benefits and employee leave Erica Johnson of HR reviewed ancillary benefits including paid leave, premium and straight compensatory time policies, short- and long-term disability, life insurance, long-term care, and workers' compensation. Key points: - In 2024 the county paid roughly 94,000 overtime hours at a cost of about $4.2 million; total overtime hours declined about 8% year-over-year but total cost stayed roughly the same. - Premium comp liability and employees exceeding the 200-hour premium comp cap increased; 131 employees had premium comp balances above 200 hours at year-end 2024 (a 60% increase from 2023), with 144 of the highest comp balances at year-end in the sheriff's office. - Workers' compensation costs rose significantly (about a 78% increase year-over-year). - The county continues to offer long-term care benefits not widely provided by comparable entities.

Law enforcement compensation and staffing Staff presented competitive benchmarking for detention officers, deputies, sergeants, lieutenants and command staff. The county added 67 sheriff's department positions since FY2024 (55 detention officers and seven deputies) and staffing turnover improved for law enforcement categories in 2024 compared with the prior year, though the jail continues to lose a majority of new detention hires within their first two years of service.

Legal and attorney positions A separate presentation summarized attorney positions across the district attorney's office and county operations. The DA's office added two felony prosecutor positions in the current budget year and several higher-level legal positions show differing ranks relative to peer counties; some positions are close to the 70th percentile benchmarking marker used for non-elected staffing.

Next steps for budget planning HR asked the court not to be surprised by required statutory adjustments and recommended any policy changes be decided before or during the budget process. Commissioners asked clarifying questions about which comparator metric (compensation ranking vs. population) is being used and were told the metric is compensation-based. Jacobson said she is not asking for action today but wants the court to be aware of potential FY2026 budget impacts and to consider whether to amend the policy to better meet the court's stated goal of reaching the fifth-sixth peer benchmark.

Ending The court received the presentations for budgeting considerations and asked staff to provide more detailed line-item impacts before final budget decisions.