WASHINGTON COUNTY CONSTABLE PAY DISPUTE

  

A dispute over differing salaries for Washington County constables is threatening to spill over into the County’s budgeting process this week.

Washington County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Kramer is asking the Commissioners Court to make the salaries equal for all four of the county constables.  Kramer says Precinct 2 Constable Carroll Butch Faske and his Deputy Constable are receiving more pay than the other three constables.  Nelson Zibilski is the Constable for Precinct 3, and Ken Holle serves Precinct 1.

Washington County Justice of the Peace James McCune Jr. of Precinct 4 has written a letter to the Commissioners Court in support of Kramer’s position.  Judge McCune says the normal protocol for elected officials is same salary and common expenses like office rent and mileage compensation.  McCune says that is not the case for Washington County’s four constables.

County Judge John Brieden says the constables are paid based on the amount of work they do for the County.  Brieden says Precinct 2 Constable Faske and the Deputy Constable William Shepherd do considerably more work, including serving many more warrants, than the other constables.  As an example, Brieden says in the month of June Faske and Shepherd served 152 civil warrants.  During that same period, he says Kramer served 3.

The Washington County Commissioners are in the middle of the budgeting process for the upcoming year, and Constable Kramer is presenting his budget to them this Friday.

Currently Kramer, Zibilski, Holle and Faske are each paid a $15,000 salary for their personal services.  Shepherd, the civil warrant deputy assigned to Precinct 2, makes a salary of just under $44,000.  Kramer says Faske’s salary is also supplemented by an $8000 office allowance for using his jewelry store as his office.  None of the other constables are given an office allowance.  There is also another line item in Faske’s budget titled “salary supplement” for an additional $10,113.  Kramer is also requesting money for a vehicle for his position, and for proper equipment for the vehicle such as lights and radio.  Currently only Precinct 2 has a $29,500 allowance for machinery and equipment.

The total current 2014 budgets for the four constable positions vary only slightly for Kramer, Zibilski and Holle.  Kramer’s is the lowest at just under $24,000.  Zibilski’s is the highest at just over $27,000.  Holle’s is right at $24,500.  The total budget for Faske and Shepherd is over $117,000.

Kramer will present his budget to the Commissioners Court this Friday.

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6 Comments

  1. The entire concept of a constable seems antiqued to me. I am not sure why this function could not be rolled into one of our existing law enforcement agencies and allow us to us this money more efficiently. Paying for 4 people to serve warrants when several appear to have very little to do seems a waste of money. Let’s get rid of the whole concept and start over with a more efficient arrangement.

  2. I am a taxpayer but not a resident of the county

    Criteria for pay (used to) include, work load, competency (at least some of which is obtained through experience doing the job) time and effort dedicated to the job, hazard exposure; among others.
    Equal salary for unequal work is right of the current federal government playbook. Equal pay SCALE is proper but that does not translate into equal PAY.

    (1) Faske has been doing his job for many years. (over 20, I believe) (2) Faske’s precinct and residence is the most populous and stands to reason, most active. (3) Delivering warrants is no longer a duty without hazard, as evidenced by the deputy in the adjoining county recently. By the workload quoted Precinct 2 is UNDERPAID compared to Precinc 4.

    It also makes no economic sense for the County to have a constable from near the Fayette County line come pick up a warrant to deliver to say Old Washington or Chappell Hill (or IN Brenham) in order to equalize the amounts of warrants to get equal pay, all the while paying HIM mileage.

    1. To “Interesting”, would you also agree that it makes no sense to pay a deputy constable when there is barely enough work for a constable to perform in any given month?

  3. In response to the salary breakdown above, the base salary is $15,000. Pct. 2 Constable gets a suppplement salaray of $10,100 plus an $8000 office allowance to work out of his jewelry store. His total salary is $33,100 as compared to $15,000 base pay for the other 3 constables. As a taxpayer, where is the justification for this?

  4. Judge Brieden is missing the point, if 152 warrants were served by pct 2 constable and his deputy, we could have devided that into 4 groups and that would have given each constable 38 warrants to serve. Also, the salary supplement for pct 2 constable is $10,113.00 and his office rent is the $8,000.00. His combined salary for 2014 is $25,113.00 yearly as compared to the base salary of the other constables at $15.000.00 yearly. The deputy constable gets office rent at $1200.00, as well. The duputy constables salary lacks $1,000.00 of being equal to three of our contables yearly wages? Somethings missing,

    1. Thank you Judge McCune. This situation was explained in detail to County Commissioners by other Constables in the past but was brushed aside by County.

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