Legislators want to tie TxDOT salary to ‘market’

$192,500 ‘ridiculously low’

David Crossley, May 24, 11.

The new leader of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), whoever that turns out to be, could make a much higher salary than current agency chief Amadeo Saenz, according to a House-Senate panel hammering out a final state budget, says a story in the Austin American Statesman.

But one legislator questioned the timing of the move to allow the salary of TxDOT’s executive director to be pegged to the market for executives, rather than being limited by state salary scales. State Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, noting that the House had just voted to allow teacher salaries to be decreased, said “I just can’t get there now.”

“How do I do that now when people are losing their jobs?” Turner said during a meeting of the conference committee on House Bill 1. That 10-member group is working on the final version of that state spending plan for the 2012-13 biennium, and the TxDOT salary measure was offered as a “rider,” or amendment.

Saenz, who announced earlier this year that he will retire in August after almost four years leading TxDOT, makes $182,500. The maximum salary for that position, set by the 2009 Legislature, is $192,500. Howard Wolf, a confidant of Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst who served on a special TxDOT management oversight committee, in January called that figure “ridiculously low” for a position with that much responsibility.

Under the rider, approved today 9-1 over Turner’s objection, TxDOT will conduct a salary study of comparable jobs for the executive director, as well as other senior executive positions in the 12,000-employee transportation department. Then, with the permission of the Legislative Budget Board and the governor, the Texas Transportation Commission could offer a salary beyond the top of scale to a prospective executive director, which if the Legislature had not capped the TxDOT salary would have been $292,500.

The agency would have similar flexibility in salaries for other top positions.

State Finance Committee chairman Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, said the flexibility is necessary for the commission to find the talent it needs to complete an overhaul of the agency.

“The type of people you need to run TxDOT, the salaries we’re paying are so far below the market that we don’t have a large enough talent pool,” Ogden said.

State Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, who chairs the Senate’s transportation committee, said that while he is “sensitive” to what Turner said about teachers, the austerity push shouldn’t matter in this case.

“You can hardly compare someone who’s running a $17 billion agency to a classroom teacher, as important as that job is,” Williams said. Allowing a larger salary “is entirely appropriate.”

Note: The Texas Governor makes $150,000, according to The Council of State Governments The Book of States 2010 Table 4.3