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Irving Arts Center employees urge council to block plan to eliminate Tech 1 positions
Summary
Employees and longtime staff told the council a July 21 Arts Board proposal to remove part-time Tech 1 positions would increase costs and harm retention, and asked the council to overrule the board if necessary.
Staff and technicians at the Irving Arts Center asked the City Council on July 10 to oppose a proposal that would eliminate Level 1 technician positions and rely instead on outside contractors.
Chris Ospina, a technician at the Irving Arts Center, described reduced regular hours for city employees after the center began using contractors for productions and said the change pushed experienced technicians to seek work elsewhere. “We Irving Arts Center employees have slowly but surely been shoved to the side in favor of contractors,” Ospina said.
Jessica Lesser, a Level 1 technician who identified herself as employed at the center for more than eight years, told the council a proposal scheduled for the Arts Board on July 21 would remove six Tech 1 positions. She said the change is being justified by a Texas limit on part-time municipal hours (referenced by speakers as 1,000 hours per year) and that substituting contractors will in practice increase labor costs because contractors earn overtime premiums.
Lesser said the arts center charges about $40 an hour for a technician and that contractors’ pay increases for long shifts — time and a half after five hours without a meal break and double time after 12 hours — which can raise client costs. “By removing 6 tech 1 technicians, the Irving Arts Center is in fact increasing their cost of labor,” Lesser said, and she urged council members to deny the proposal if the Arts Board approves it.
Speakers asked the council to use its authority to override an Arts Board action if needed. The City Council did not take a vote on the Irving Arts Center staffing proposal during the July 10 meeting; employees asked the council to communicate opposition before the Arts Board hears the item on July 21.
