Five county officials get raises in wake of clash over past boost
Five officials who run Harris County departments are receiving salary bumps as part of a broader county push for equitable pay. The move comes two months after County Judge Lina Hidalgo clashed with her Commissioners Court colleagues over a 40% pay raise for Harris County Toll Road Authority Executive Director Roberto Trevino, a decision she criticized as unfair to other department leaders.
The court on Tuesday approved increases for Pollution Control Services Executive Director Latrice Babin, Public Library Executive Director Edward Melton, Pretrial Services Director Natalie Michailides, Domestic Relations Office Executive Director David Simpson and Office of Management and Budget Executive Director Daniel Ramos.
Babin, Melton, Michailides and Simpson were bumped from around $190,000 to $259,480, while Ramos got a boost from $275,600 to $344,531.
The new raises were approved in a 3-1-1 vote, with Hidalgo abstaining and Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey, the court’s sole Republican, opposed.
Members of the court also requested a report in the coming weeks that will assess pay for Fire Marshal Laurie Christiansen and all 16 department heads who report to County Administrator Diana Ramirez.
Hidalgo said Tuesday that while the county already has a compensation study in the works, the five department heads’ raises were proposed in response to a salary increase she previously questioned.
“There was a 40% raise for a male executive director with an explanation that does not hold water,” Hidalgo said.
In January, Commissioners Court members discussed Trevino’s salary increase in an executive session behind closed doors. When the public portion of the meeting resumed, Hidalgo revealed that the raise was intended to keep Trevino from accepting a job offer at another agency. She encouraged other department heads to ask for 40% pay increases, too.
Two months later, Hidalgo was still skeptical of the reasons behind the raise.
“It’s so clear it’s more of an excuse than an explanation,” Hidalgo said. “And I’m still going to keep looking into why.”
She argued that the 40% pay raise was emblematic of how the “old” Harris County government was run before she was first elected.
“We could just not make sense of budget documents because the way it was presented was so not transparent,” Hidalgo said. “And that’s the same feeling I got when this was first discussed.”
By contrast, she said she’s working with commissioners and department heads to create a culture of more methodical decision-making.
“There are things that are coming together that make this a good opportunity for us to move the needle on what’s at the heart of what needs to change,” Hidalgo said.
Hidalgo also questioned why Trevino was being paid more than Ramirez, his own boss. Trevino’s pay was increased to $485,000, while Ramirez earns $411,964, according to the Office of County Administration.
Hidalgo on Tuesday called for Trevino’s raise to be rescinded, a suggestion her colleagues did not address.
Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis voted for Trevino’s pay increase in January while also supporting Hidalgo’s reluctance, arguing that county employees “deserve a thoughtful process that prioritizes equity over ad hoc adjustments.”
Though Ellis supported Tuesday’s measure as well, he emphasized that department heads aren’t the only ones who deserve higher pay. “We have 17,676 people who work for Harris County, and, in addition to those people at the top who are very important, we also have to be sensitive to those people who are at the bottom,” Ellis said. “I think where you will find the greatest disparities will be with those people at the bottom.”
Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia voted in favor of the raises and continued to defend Trevino’s pay increase.
“As I have said before, directors who have done an outstanding job deserve every penny they get,” Garcia said in a statement Tuesday. “Repeated questioning of any individual employee’s pay harms the morale of the entire county workforce. It’s time to move on.”
However, all four Democrats on the court appeared to agree that the broader conversation wasn’t over. “I feel strongly that throughout Harris County at every level of the pay scale we must be equitable, and we must be competitive to recruit and retain the best talent,” Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones said. “So we have a lot of work to do from the lowest paid to the highest paid and everywhere in between.”