Salary Adjustments for State Agency Employees
Emergency Merit, Disciplinary Reductions, Restorations (Reason Codes 039, 027, 028)
Emergency One-Time Merit (Reason Code 039)
This one-time merit payment is awarded for employee performance during a natural disaster or other extraordinary circumstance. The chief administrative officer of an agency must document the natural disaster or other extraordinary circumstance.
Qualifications
To qualify for this merit payment, a classified employee must be employed by the agency for at least six months before the effective date of the emergency one-time merit.
Eligibility
Prior merit salary increases or one-time merit payments do not affect the eligibility to receive an emergency one-time merit payment. However, an emergency one-time merit payment does impact eligibility for a regular one-time merit payment or merit salary increase.
Amount
Furthermore, there is no limit on the amount of an emergency one-time merit payment. As it is a one-time payment and not added to the employee’s base salary, the maximum of the salary group is not impacted.
Salary/Rate Reduction for Disciplinary Reasons (Reason Code 027)
If justified by an employee’s job performance, state agencies are authorized to reduce an employee’s salary or rate of pay. Only the administrative head of the agency may authorize the action.
The salary may only be reduced within the employee’s salary group; an employee cannot make less than the minimum salary for their salary group after the reduction.
A salary reduction action cannot change the job classification or salary group the employee is assigned to (see Demotions section above.)
In addition to employees in regular positions, a salary or rate reduction may be applied to employees in temporary assignments as well.
An agency may authorize multiple salary reduction actions. The law allows consecutive salary reductions, and there are no requirements for specific timeframes between reductions or a return to a higher salary before a reduction action.
Salary/Rate Restoration (Reason Code 028)
Following a salary/rate reduction and as an employee’s performance improves, an agency’s administrative head can decide to restore all or some of the employee’s salary. The employee’s performance is the determining factor for allowing this action.
The agency can choose to restore the employee’s salary to any rate within the salary range; however, it may not exceed the employee’s salary before the reduction.
An employee may have multiple restorative actions if the agency decides to incrementally increase the employee’s salary based on improved job performance standards; however, the rate is not required to return to the original salary.
As with the reductive action, there is no specific timeframe required between salary restorations; they may occur as needed based on the employee’s job performance improvement, at the agency’s discretion.
Sources
Texas Government Code, Sections 659.251-259, 2101.035 and 2101.037; General Appropriations Act, Article V, Rider 7 – Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Rider 21 – Texas Juvenile Justice Department, Article IX, Part 2, Article IX, Parts 3.01-3.04 and 3.07; Texas Administrative Code, Section 5.41.