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Commissioners approve 4% COLA for county employees, debate further pay-scale changes and elected-official raises
Summary
After a lengthy debate over retention and compression, the court approved a 4% COLA for full- and part-time county employees and discussed step-and-grade changes for commissioned staff, elected-official salary tiers, and targeted raises for constables and JPs. Several motions carried and some failed; staff reported the projected fund-balance draw for FY26.
Parker County’s Commissioners Court spent much of its Aug. 25 meeting on employee pay and FY26 salary planning, approving a 4% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for full- and part-time employees and taking multiple additional pay-scale actions.
Budget staff presented cost impacts and committee recommendations. Becky (budget staff) summarized the estimated dollar impacts of different percentage increases: a 4% increase for all staff was estimated to add roughly $1.6 million to salary lines (non-elected). After discussion and compromise motions, the court approved a 4% COLA for full- and part-time employees.
The court also considered a commissioned pay-scale step-and-grade proposal requested by law enforcement leadership. The sheriff’s office presented a 'step-and-grade' compensation plan that would increase commissioned pay; figures offered to the court included a commissioned pay-scale request of $610,619 and non-commission adjustments of $168,150. Commissioners discussed compression and retention tradeoffs; some members described the plan as necessary to keep deputies competitive in the market.
Elected-official pay prompted separate debate. One commissioner moved to keep elected-official salaries flat to 'lead from the front' while bond measures are being presented to voters; that motion failed on a recorded vote. The court later adopted a tiered approach that tied some county-wide officer salaries to appointed-office benchmarks (auditor/purchasing) for specified tenures and advanced constables and justices of the peace to a separate 5% tier intended to address long-standing disparities.
On funding, staff later summarized the combined salary adjustments discussed during the session and the planned use of fund balance: total salary adjustments were estimated at about $2.96 million and the proposed fund-balance draw was about $4.29 million. The court set a timeline to finalize decisions in time for budget adoption on Sept. 22.
Quotes from the meeting reflected competing priorities: one commissioner said, "We're gonna be coming to the voters for a couple of significant bonds ... we should lead from the front," while a budget member emphasized affordability and recommended 3% as reasonable given CPI and budget constraints.
Next steps: staff will incorporate the approved COLA, the step-and-grade decisions that carried, and the elected-official tiers into the draft FY26 budget and return updated fund-balance impacts before the Sept. 22 adoption meeting.
