Do your commissioners approve payment of each county employee's salary as it comes due (bi-weekly or monthly as the case may be) at their regularly scheduled commissioners court meetings? Do you believe that such regular, continuous approval is necessary? The following AG opinions seem to indicate that it is:

JM-192 (1984)

Letter Opinion 95-225

JC-0370 (2001)

Do you know of any statute/authority I'm missing that doesn't require such periodic approval of salries which have already been approved generally through line items in a yearly budget?

After we talked about it yesterday, I checked with our First Assistant. He tells me that our voucher list at each meeting contains an item that lists the total payout for that period from the salary fund. The auditor approves that expenditure before each meeting. Whether that complies with the AG's (or at least several former AGs') view of how it should be done is open to question, I suppose.

For years this ritual repeats every time we meet. In the past the argument here has centered over the interplay of this old Spanish custom with section 151.004 of the Tex. Loc. Gov't. My clients have claimed publicly that if they must approve salary they can disapprove salary. I don't know about the employees in your county but most of ours won't continue toiling away with unapproved or unissued paychecks. Thereby influencing the appointment of a person to an approved position.

Now for the question -- which is the ritual, the approval of claims, including salaries, or the argument that if we have the authority to approve that includes the authority to disapprove and therefore influence hiring?

[This message was edited by Ray on 04-18-07 at .]

[This message was edited by Ray on 04-18-07 at .]