Brittany Kelley
KYLE — The Compensation Committee approved a recommendation draft to be presented to Kyle City Council at its June 8 meeting.
Assistant manager Jesse Elizondo recapped the previous meetings, detailing that the committee has completed the tasks asked of it from council by determining recommendations for compensation and expenses, the latter of which was an additional request from council.
“For tonight, it’s just wide open for discussion,” he said.
Prior to any additional changes or conversation, the presentation laid out the current recommendation draft:
Category 51: Personnel Services (pay/wages)
• Base wage amounts remain the same
• Remove $500 stipend and add to base wage amount, increasing to $1,500 for council and $1,800 for mayor
Category 52/53 Services & Commodities (expenses/ reimburse/budgets)
• Keep the expense reimbursement budget as presented: $6,700 for contractual services and $3,340 for commodities
• Council members to stay within specific budget categories without overages
• Reimbursements must be submitted within 30 days, with the Finance director able to approve extraordinary circumstances
Additional recommendations
• Remove legal expenses from allowable expenses in policy
• Update reference in policy from the Internal Revenue Service rate for travel to the General Services Administration rate
• Require a report summarizing any out of town travel
Chairman Diane Hervol asked committee member Howard Connell if there were any suggestions he had, as he was absent for the May 28 meeting.
“I agree with category 51, except for one thing: I’m going to try one more time for the [consumer price index (CPI) raise],” began Connell. “The last time those were approved was back in 2022 when this committee met. Going down the road in 2029, those folks are going to be compensated based on seven year old numbers. I don’t feel it’s a stretch to ask for a CPI, as we had discussed before. If the interest of being fair is something we’re concerned about, the city staff is going to continue to get theirs, as far as I know.”
Additionally, he suggested cutting $48,000 from the budget, which is a number he found after taking the average of leftover compensation budget from 2025.
“What’s in the presentation was just a snapshot to show the budget itself, not an end of year budget like committee member Connell is talking about,” said Elizondo. “The other thing to keep in mind is that the council members do not individually budget their budget. These based numbers are across all council members. So, whereas departments have the ability to sit down through the budget process and look at every single expense in several years … this [presentation] is a three year average … that might be why you have that overage.”
He also stated that although there may be money leftover, it will all be directed into the city’s general fund.
Committee member Melissa Spence was concerned about the potential cut, as traveling alone could then make a council member go over budget. Furthermore, the removal of credit cards earlier this year has lessened the anxiety of whether council members would go over budget or not, she said.
Hervol added that she didn’t want to cut the budget because this allows council members the opportunities to fund town halls or other creative ways to connect with their constituents.
“I think right now with what we’re doing is we are putting up guardrails. This thing is not a runaway train. We made changes to category 52 and 53, that’s one and then, we took away the stipend and added it to their pay. I think now we have more guardrails in place versus how they operated previously,” concluded committee member Michael McDonald.
Hervol motioned to pass the draft, with the amendment of removing the dry cleaning services — with a budget of $0.00 — from the mayor’s budget.
The item passed unanimously.
The next steps include talking with staff to choose an upcoming meeting to present the recommendations to council, explained Elizondo.
