Charles Blain - President, Urban Reform Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Sure. That seems to me it is when you're paying
the chief Medical Examiner a salary of five hundred thirty
six thousand, one hundred and forty one dollar nice round figure,
five hundred thirty six thousand, one hundred and forty one
dollars a year, and gave him a ninety thousand dollars
raise from the previous year. Yeah, it kind of is
about the money. Joins to talk about Charles Blaine from

(00:21):
Urban Reform. This is very eye opening, is it not?
This this Texas scorecard article where they've got the payroll
data through a public information request. We're not just overpaying people.
We're overpaying people. We're paying people more than we paid
the President of the United States, for god's sakes.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah, yeah, good morning, Thanks for having me. And you're right,
I mean, and I can't imagine that the responsibilities and
their day to day operations are more important or heavier
than what the president have you guys says has to
deal with. And also this comes on the heels of
a very heated and contentious fight that the deputies, both
Consoble and Sheriff's deputies had with Commission's Court to try
to get raises for them, and so now we're seeing

(00:59):
that all these people are being paid in the hundreds
of thousands, some of them getting six figure raises. It's
just unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Well, here's one that really stands out to the interim
director of the Public Health Services, interim Director Leah Barton
four hundred and fifty nine hundred and seventy six dollars,
one hundred and eighty four thousand dollars more than the
previous year. These are increases that are unheard of. And
the thing that really stands out is these salaries we

(01:28):
are paying these officials are generally speaking, up three or
four times the national average of what that position pays.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Absolutely, you would not see these salaries or these increases
in the private sector. And you know, another one that's
shocking is the interim director, the interim county administrator, who's
getting four hundred and eleven thousand dollars. Because when you
think about it, some of these positions not only did
these people they're not like it wouldn't make it okay
if they were lifetime bureaucrats either, but they're not even
like lifetime bureaucrats who spent thirty years and they make
this the County administrator position was created years less than

(01:58):
five years ago, so this is a new department, a
new administrator all together, and yet we're paying this amount
of money and that's just for the director, that's not
for the entire department. So that's crazy.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah, here's the part I'm trying to figure out, though
we're paying all these executives in Harris County these incredible
salaries with incredible raises that are far more than the
commissioners themselves were. Why are the commissioners approving raises in
some cases that are more than they actually make doing
their job.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
You know, it's a hard question to answer. I think
one of the it was kind of enlightening back in
I guess it was January when the vote came up
before Commissioner's Court to increase the salary for Robert Roberto Trevino,
the director of the Toll Road Authority, by thirty nine percent.
And the argument was that he has a very you know,
it's a heavy job. He's got a lot of work
to do over there, and he does a great job,

(02:48):
you know. And to give Lena credit for once, she
was the only one to speak out against that and
vote against it. But he got a thirty nine percent
increase this year, and the argument was that the task
that he is asked to undertake is justificant that he
deserved it. And you know, when we look at the
services in the county, I can't imagine that people genuinely
feel that the services they're getting are worth the amount
they're paying for these administrators.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
And the bottom line, Charles Nobody, it's not like anybody
else can steal these people away from us. Nobody can
compete with these salaries to begin with. If these people
aren't going to leave, they're not in danger of leaving, No,
not at all.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
I mean, listen, the only thing they're probably going to
want is a more high profile job or more money.
You know, Harritt County is the third third largest counties.
You're not really getting much bigger than that. And I
doubt other counties, Cook County or any other county out
there is really going to offer any more than what
they're getting here. It'll probably be roughly the same. And so, yeah,
these people are kind of outside of the realm of
being threatening to be poached. That that was part of

(03:44):
the conversation with the director of the toll Authority, and
they said the city was looking to poach him, so
we got to give him a thirty nine percent increase.
But that was based on just kind of word of
mouth and rumor. There was no actual docuentation for it.
So yeah, it's ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Yeah, they want to pay him that much, go ahead
and take them all, right, Charles, thank you in an
urban reform Charles Blaine, listen, You'll have a great day.
See you tomorrow morning, bright at nearly five am. Hope
to see you the safroom at four and am nine
fifty KPRC