The Court approved a temporary freeze on most civilian employee position changes — including moves, reclassifications, and base salary increases — from January 10 to February 21, 2026, while consultant Gallagher completes a pay equity study, with case-by-case exceptions reviewed by Human Resources and Talent.

What it means for you

County civilian employees will not see position moves or base pay changes during the freeze period; any exceptions must be approved individually by HR and later by Commissioners Court.

Outcome

A motion was made by Commissioner Garcia, seconded by Commissioner Briones, that Harris County take the following actions regarding pay equity study currently being conducted by Gallagher. Harris County shall authorize a temporary, targeted hold on position movement as recommended by the consultant solely for the limited purpose of validating and reconciling job classification and compensation data effective January 10th to February 21st, which will allow all departments an opportunity to finalize any movement preparation as they service all of our constituents. Exceptions to this freeze will be reviewed and approved by HRT and later submitted to Commissioners Court for approval. Blanket exceptions may not be authorized and should be considered on a case-by-case basis per individual PCN. HRT shall draft and socialize change management guidelines to departments and precinct offices explaining the purpose and function of the position change freeze, how the freeze will be executed, and immediate action steps following the freeze. HRT and Gallagher in coordination with all County departments, shall immediately initiate a detailed data walk through to explain in detail the analysis conducted by Gallagher, including: review of job duties by classification with specific examples of cross-departmental classifications; market compensation demonstration with documented benchmarks; internal equity and compression analysis. Analysis to be conducted on submitted PDQs: documentation of the analysis performed on each PDQ, including specific elements reviewed; an explanation of how PDQ data was compared against established criteria for job leveling; a summary of which PDQ elements drove grade changes, especially in cases where jobs were downgraded; confirmation of whether your team compared our PDQs against any standardized job evaluation frameworks, and if so, which ones. The motion carried by the following vote: (5-0)

How each member voted

5–0, per the official record.