AFTER GRIEVANCE COMMITTEE NIXES RAISES, 2 JPS APPEAL

 

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

After their salary requests were turned down by the nine-member Cameron County Salary Grievance Committee, Justices of the Peace Sally Gonzalez (JP Pct. 5, Place 1, San Benito) and Juan Mendoza (JP Pct 4, Place 1, Los Fresnos) will come before the Cameron County commissioners court to appeal the committee's decision.

Under the rules, the committee must vote unanimously to grant salary grievance requests. However, if they get six positive votes out of the nine, they have the right to come before the county judge and commissioners and appeal the grievance committee's decision.

According to the two JPs, they say that they want their salaries to equal those of the county constables, whose salaries range between $60,000 to $64,000 when including a $960 phone allowance.

Mendoza and Gonzalez – like the other eight justices of the peace – all earn around $50,000 plus a $5,379 car allowance and $960 for telephone, for an average salary and benefits of around $57,300. 

Both have come before the court since 2019 asking for salary increases. (See graphic at right)

According to some salary grievance members, Mendoza alleged that most JPs don't answer their phones at night and that as a result, he has had to answer police calls from all over the county in a few cases. And both say that there should be a more equitable way fr the county clerk to distribute weddings their way so they could get a bigger share. They say the Brownsville JPs get the biggest number of weddings. Under Texas law, JPs keep what they are paid to perform the ceremonies, usually averaging about $300.

But it was Mendoza's claim that the other JPs didn't answer calls from law enforcement that rankled many present.  

"He didn't say which JPs he was talking about," said the grievance committee member. "But he said that he ended up doing their work and needs to get paid as much as the constables."

Gonzalez, who usually is close to the top in collections because of the numerous Texas Department of Public Service citations of 18-wheelers crossing at Los Indios Free Trade Bridge, also asked for a salary increase to match the constables' salaries. 

They are the only two JPs who filed a salary grievance with the committee. 

But some county administrators say that the case statistics and collections reports provided to committee members for all the JPs indicate that Mendoza lags far behind other JPs in collections with about $294,000 as of June of the Fiscal Year that started in October 2021. That places him third from the bottom of the 10 JPs. JP 2-3 Mary Esther Sorola was leading all courts for the same period with $832,869. At that rate, she will break $1 million before the end of the FY 2021-2022, if she has not already.

None of the other JPs were present during the committee's meeting where the two JPs made their request. None of the other eight other JPs asked for a raise.

And even though Gonzalez is second in collections among the 10 JPs, with about $810,648, her office does not offer online payments and she resisted her court's inclusion into the countywide system until commissioners resorted to the local courts to enforce the order that they issued for her office to comply. 

The process for collections – except for Gonzalez, who collects them herself – is for the courts to try to collect, then if unable, to turn them over to the county clerk for collection. That office has 90 days to attempt collecting and, if unable, sends them to the delinquent tax and fine collection firm. From there, they fall into the Cameron County Black Hole. Uncollected fines total more than $10 million.

Both courts have unusually high totals in uncollected fines – as do Brownsville JPs  2-1 (Linda Salazar) and JP 2-2 (Jonathan Gracia), with Gonzalez's court estimated to have over $700,000 and Mendoza's court uncollected fines amounting to an estimated $1.3 million, many of the fines in the four courts  carried over from the former office holders. 

The county commissioners will hear the JPs appeal to the grievance committee denial during Tuesday's meeting starting at 9:30 a.m. at the Dancy Building on Madison Street.