Stop the Assault on Public Employees

As a 40-year veteran of public employment, it is hard to read the news. You have the DOGE commission making all sorts of irrational and irresponsible cuts to the workforce. Now we have State actions that are not better. There is the purge of anything with the slightest connection to DEI, and we have a governor who wants to fire a teacher who so much as smiles at a non-binary student

Now is the time to stop the Assault on Public Employees.

There are so many things we need to stop this trend.

First, we need to restore due process to any public employee not on probation.

State employees had due process rights until the false narrative emerged that state employees could not be fired, as the process was too onerous on management. This is total B.S. I was involved in numerous termination actions. We never had a problem.

Second, we need to insure that public employees are paid a fair and reasonable wage. The state policies for retaining employees is a joke. Unfortunately, paying the cost of recruiting and training new workers is incredibly high

Of course, the constant turnover creates so many other problems. Without institutional memory, mistakes are repeated. In the case of child protection clients, there are so many abandonment issues that the constant turnover leads to children not being adopted.

State Retirees deserve a Cost of Living Adjustment. This is something I have pledged to fight for.

We need to take immediate action to improve the morale of public employees. One possible way of showing gratitude is to give a monthly sales tax-free holiday to public employees. It is not much financially, but symbolically would be very important.

We must do something. At a bare minimum, we must stop the current assault. We depend on our public employees. They are what makes Texas the state we want to live in.