deputy clerk

deputy sheriff

administrative specialist

probation officer

court clerk

Denton County, TX

I am a person who enjoys working with friendly, helpful, generous people - and I enjoy not working myself to death. I have worked plenty of positions that routinely required long days, nights, and weekends, where I was expected to do this at the drop of a hat, with little or no notice. I have also worked plenty of positions where the coworkers all viewed themselves as "the competition", and would never help out other employees, instead only looking out for their own interests. 

Working here is none of the above. I love the work-life balance here. We are 8 to 5 (with an hour lunch) and encouraged to keep the work week at 40 hours. Very occasionally we need to come in early or do something on an evening or a weekend. In those cases, we generally take some hours off during a weekday in order to keep the week at 40 hours. And if it gets busy and you need to work more than 40, you can do that, in which case we get time-and-a-half comp time off. My position goes on call for a week at a time, about 5 times a year, but there is rarely a need to come into the office while on call, because of our remote access capabilities. 

Regarding the cooperation here, it is the best of anywhere I've ever worked. Everyone is willing to give a hand, and I feel I can ask anybody on the team for help, and they will give it if they possibly can. I have only been full time here for about 6 months (was a contractor for the 6 months prior to that) so I am still learning the ropes and asking a lot of questions - and everyone is willing to share their knowledge and expertise with me, no strings attached. 

County facilities are overall very modern and comfortable, and we have large cubicles, great computer equipment, a fast network, and comfortable work environment. There are some buildings that need renovation, but not here in Technology Services. 

Regarding management, we have an excellent team here. Sure, the occasional edict will come from above that doesn't seem to make sense. But to be fair, at my level, I rarely have the big picture about it. Overall, our policies and procedures are extremely appropriate to our jobs, and are not overly burdensome. In my area, management is extremely permissive, and they give us the freedom to do our jobs well - we are not micromanaged for every network cable and office pencil here. My immediate management team is also open door, extremely approachable, flexible, and understanding about time off requests and anything else out of the ordinary. We do a lot of ongoing training here, much of it offered right here in the county, which is excellent, and we have an online system we can use to take classes for free, and the county even paid for me to attend HDI Desktop Support certification training, and paid for my test - AND let me use office hours for studying for the exam and taking the exam. I don't know of any other place that does that! 

Here in technology services, as positions come open, it seems to be preferred to hire from within the department. So if you don't want to stay in the same position for 20-30 years, you don't have to. Many of the folks here have worked in multiple teams over the years. If you want to start out as a Desktop Support person, or any other entry level position, you can (with training and studying) move to another team, or just stay in your work group and move up the ranks within it. 

My understanding is that our salaries are somewhat lower than the private sector. That may be true, but the benefits more than compensate. I have excellent healthcare, even though I've chosen the lower price of the two options. I have dental and optical at extremely reasonable rates, and I have life insurance at a great rate as well. Time off consists of all the federal holidays, two weeks of paid vacation, generous sick days, plus 2 personal days each year, plus any accumulated (time and a half) comp time. If I have a health disaster that uses all my sick time, there is a large pool of donated sick days that can be used as well. (As your sick days expire, they automatically go into the pool.) There is generous time off for pregnancy and you can even use sick time to care for a sick family member. The retirement plan is guaranteed to grow at 7% each year, and includes a generous matching amount from the county - I forget the exact amount, but it's excellent. I believe we are vested in this account after 7 years, so if you decide to leave the job, you can take your contributions with you, along with everything put in the by County. Most years (I am told) we get good salary raises as well. This year it was 5%.

I'm supposed to complain about something in this review, and here is the only thing I could think of: at times the functional groups within Technology Services don't always communicate well between each other. In other words, there are times as a Desktop Support person that I could have been more effective if I had only known that the XX team had made an important change to the way YY or ZZ works. I don't think this problem is unique to us here at Denton County. In my experience, this problems exists on some level in pretty much every organization out there. 

In summary, as I said before, I've worked a lot of high-pressure, high-demand, competitive, jobs - but I've not enjoyed anything as much as this one. You need to know your job here, and keep up your skills, but after that, you are not expected to sacrifice your home life and your sanity. For the first time in a long time, I enjoy coming to work every day, and enjoy the people I work with - and it is really hard to put a price on that!

They are very pro management and once you make rank you become one of the good old boys and can do no wrong. They treat the officers about the same as the inmates, always trying to find something you are doing wrong, something they can blame you for instead of the supervisors. All of the chains of command are bad but some more than others, treating you like a child and making pointless rules and policies for you to follow.They use blanket punishment on all officers instead of terminating or disciplining the one individual who errored.

Most of the upper level brass are very arrogant /cocky and sometimes just downright rude. They seem too busy basking in their greatness that they don't even remember what it was like working with inmates, which for most of them was decades ago. There is no complete rule book for officers to follow. Most of the rules/policies they come up with are past along through word of mouth.

The applicant pool for officers isn't much better though. They consistently hire people who, for various reasons, cannot perform the job and then have them working the floor instead of putting them in a position where they will be most useful and not in a position that risks other officers safety.

The jail is set up primarily with pods as housing units, which is a large open tank filled with up to dozens and dozens of inmates and 1 officer locked behind two doors. Obviously not a recipe for success, surprisingly more offices haven't been assaulted in these pods then there have been. Once during a use of force class the instructor who happened to be brass asked the class what the SO gave them to defend themselves. Everyone sat quite because we are not given anything to defend ourselves, nothing! The instructor finally said " we give you your keys and radio." Seriously? Keys and radio! Keep dreaming buddy.

The county is also very cheap. Our pay is well bellow what surrounding counties are paying. You basically only get a small percentage raise every few years and its usually eaten up by a raise in insurance prices. But when we do get a small raise everybody gets it, the hard worker and the lazy, the good and the bad. So as you can see there is no incentive to work your butt off. They do not value hard work, dedication or experience. They do like college degrees though and will pay you a hefty premium for it. Even if it has nothing to do with your job whatsoever. They will pay someone who just started yesterday with a bachelors degree in fashion, with no experience, more than they will pay the FTO training them who has been there a decade. They also don't pay the deputies that work in the jail any extra for their certification. But will pay you extra for your EMT certification which has nothing to do with us because the jail has its own medical staff 24/7 and the officers are not allowed to treat the inmates. They also don't pay any overtime, it all goes to comp. Up until a few years ago they didn't even pay you for your 15 minutes of briefing you got daily. I guess someone finally sued them and they switched to a electronic clock in machine. I wonder how many millions they stole from their already underpaid officers over all those years?

In conclusion, there is lots of other problems with this agency, but the bottom line is the SO does not value its officers and they do not have their backs. The Denton County Sheriff's Department is pretty much the Walmart of law enforcement, I would only recommend working in the jail if you were just looking for a job. That's it. If your looking for a career in LE look elsewhere, you will not grow here, it will only hinder you.

Working IT at Denton County is an excellent place to be. Compensation is fair however can be lacking in some positions. Despite the difference in pay scale the work environment is friendly, fast paced and with great emphasis on team work it helps to balance out the pro's and cons. Management often is reflection of people in charge and I feel that accurate represents our environment: you can trust management with complaints, or concerns just as easily as you can trust them with future career plans. They listen, and assist as they can.

Overall you are not kept down or discouraged from learning new things and moving up. This is a refreshing change for those coming from cut throat jobs were you have to wary of office politics.

The hardest part of the job as I mentioned is the payscale, some positions are not properly compensated but I feel like if you work here you will understand what makes many people stay.

My time at Denton County has been very positive overall. The work is not overly stressful, and there is always room to advance within the county. My supervisor is always willing to pitch in, higher level management is very approachable and helpful, and they are always willing to accommodate reasonable time off requests. The atmosphere is generally lighthearted within my department, and most of my co-workers have a positive attitude.

The only reason I would rate it 4/5 and not 5/5 is that there are some teams that will try to pass off work to other teams that should really be their responsibility, but my supervisor been very good about compromising with others and coming to a resolution that is best for both sides. There is also an on-call rotation depending on what IT team you are on, so you have to plan your personal life around that sometimes.

For the most part this is a great place to work. I feel like the stress of this job is low. With that being said, do not get lazy because they will let you go before your probation period (6 months) ends; stay busy. This job is perfect if you like cubical work. You do not get to interact with the public too much unless you work at a front desk. Once you master your level of work, it gets a little boring after a while. It’s very routine. Even if you have a degree and/or many years of experience, that does not guarantee a promotion or more pay. They do not base promotions on longevity either. Sometimes it’s about you know and of course if they like you to get promoted. This job is a safe job, but the pay is low for the vast amount of work you do. Overall this is not a bad place to work, but like anything else it has some cons too. 

Denton County is a good place to work in IT. They teams are very supportive of each other and very little in the way of attitudes and egos. The training is always ongoing and the county is very proactive with providing quality training. Commuting is very good relative to the Dallas metro area. Denton County is very progressive with their commitment to providing up to date technology to serve the community and employees. The benefits and retirement are some of the best I have seen today and I have been working in IT for 24 years.

Management on the technology side is extremely into micro management, not open to ideas to better the company/processes and not at all worried about spending extra time or money on things at the taxpayers' expense.  Management has no actual hands-on tech experience and thinks if someone is at their desk, that they are doing nothing.  HELLO.  We work in IT.  HALF the job is done in front of a computer!  That lack of hands on experience also contributes to an extremely inefficient system.  Management keeps track of metrics and tells you what they want to see but have no idea on how to do things the way they want them done, because they HAVE NO TECHNICAL EXPERIENCE.

● Work-life balance
Work-life balance at Denton County, TX is not good

● Pay & benefits
My pay and benefits at Denton County, TX are no good

● Job security and advancement
In terms of job security at Denton County, TX, I think go somewhere else you will be better off. The hospital is very bad to work for. To political

● Management
In general, managers at Denton County, TX bad and bias

● Culture
Collaboration with my colleagues at Denton County, TX is some are ok but out for themselves

● Overall
My experience working at Denton County, TX would never want to work there again. Their courts are very crooked and a bad work place6

Denton County is a large organization with numerous departments and subcultures. Overall I would say that there is great teamwork and camaraderie between all of the different departments with a common purpose for serving the county constituents. Specifically in the technology department we have a great team with daily challenges and opportunities.

Denton County is the 8th largest county in Texas (by population). Conversely, it has one of the lowest total county-wide tax rates in the entire state. I have always been proud to be one of the people that try to serve the public well while being good stewards of their tax dollars.

Truly awful awful policies. For felony cases, you literally have to try EVERYTHING before revocation is an option. The management does not care about its employees. Political atmosphere- if the director does not like you it will not matter if your last performance eval is great and you have seniority- you will NOT advance in anyway unless the upper management likes you. There has been large and consistent turn over during my entire tenure- and there is good reason for that.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Deputy clerk 52 salaries reported	$43,172 per year
Deputy sheriff 33 salaries reported	$78,752 per year
Administrative specialist 21 salaries reported	$46,594 per year
Probation officer 28 salaries reported	$59,208 per year
Court clerk 21 salaries reported	$47,956 per year

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