Brittany Kelley
KYLE — The Compensation Committee for the city of Kyle discussed potential recommendations regarding expenses and reimbursements at its May 28 meeting.
Prior to discussion, members recapped the decisions made at the end of the April 17 meeting, noting that they opted to recommend removing the stipend title all together and instead, consolidating the stipend — $500 — and monthly compensation — $1,000 — to $1,500, with regular cost of living increases.
“It sounds like you guys are pretty much centered around what you want to go with general comp[ensation], but the full charge is take a look at everything, so that includes the reimbursements, the receipts [and more],” said assistant city manager Jesse Elizondo. “That’s what we’ll take a look at today.”
Currently, travel, training, transportation, memberships, subscriptions, supplies and legal expenses are available for reimbursement, while entertainment, recreational and personal expenses, expenses without itemized receipts, incomplete reimbursement requests and more are not.
Elizondo noted that the only real limitations are budget constraints. The budget, which has been decided based on usage trends for staff, includes the following:
• Personnel services: $19,377
• Contractual services: $6,700
• Commodities: $3,340
Due to the budget being the only limitation, committee member Melissa Spence recommended setting a maximum or requiring council pre-approval for certain items, such as travel, as this is a system that is set up in many jobs.
Although they chose to not change the budgets, the committee also wanted to have a report after traveling and ensure that the lodging and meals are done through U.S. General Services Administration, rather than the Internal Revenue Service rate.
There is also a category for “extraordinary expenses,” which states that “there may be isolated occasions when extraordinary expenses beyond ordinary costs can be justified as having a direct bearing upon city programs or which otherwise could be of benefit to the city.” This term is very broad, said Elizondo, and he couldn’t think of examples where it has been used in recent years, but chairwoman Diane Hervol shared that perhaps the time council members used their own funding to aid residents in Steeplechase Park — who experienced Hurricane Harvey flooding — could qualify as extraordinary.
Although there are the aforementioned categories, committee member Julianne Orgish shared that she felt there should be more guardrails, so that council isn’t questioning what could qualify and what wouldn’t, “just for transparency for them and for the city.” Spence would like these guardrails to include who was at events, such as lunch meetings, to ensure that taxpayers are not funding lunches for family members.
Continuing on the topic of guardrails was chairman Jake Webb, who suggested that each category must stay within itself, but that money within line items could be flexible. For example, category 52 — contractual services totals $6,700, but specifically, mileage reimbursement is limited to $300. If a council member needs to surpass the $300 by using some of the funding for subscription and books, this would be okay, so long as they do not go over the total $6,700 budget for contractual services, since they are within the same category.
The committee also chose to add a 30-day time limit for council members to put in requests for reimbursement, to both create more ease administratively and to prevent requesting money from events months prior.
“I think we have the framework for a very solid recommendation,” said Elizondo. “Our final meeting probably doesn’t even necessarily need to be too long, but we could — as a staff — bring all of this together as salient points and everything. Then, put it before the committee and say, ‘This is generally what we heard consensus on. Did we miss anything? Do we want to tweak anything?’ I think that would be a great final discussion for our recommendation.”
The Compensation Committee will meet next at 7 p.m. Monday, June 8.
