SATIRE: This is parody. Not a real news report.
HARLINGEN, TEXAS — City officials announced this week that the long-promised one-time 5% raise for roughly 400 municipal employees is completely legal and ready to be paid out, pending one small condition: no employee may have done any work since October 1.
According to City Attorney Mark Sossi, the Texas Constitution prohibits Harlingen from retroactively compensating labor that has already been performed, which means the $845,000 shot-in-the-arm can legally attach only to work that is still theoretical.
“The law is crystal clear,” Sossi said. “The moment an employee finishes a task, that task becomes legally impossible to pay for. But work they haven’t done yet? Work that exists only as a beautiful, unrealized possibility? We can throw money at that all day.”
To remain compliant, the city has asked employees to refrain from working until the paperwork clears, a group that unfortunately includes several who finished their October as far back as October.
“I was as shocked as anyone to learn the $72 million budget I voted for didn’t include raises,” said Commissioner Morales, who read the document cover to cover, skipping every page with a number on it. “In my defense, it was a very thick budget, and somewhere in there was a figure that meant no.”
Commissioner Daniel Lopez, who has proposed making the raise retroactive to Oct. 1 and possibly pulling it from a $33.6 million fund balance, confirmed he is still checking whether the adjustment is “viable,” and encouraged staff to consider performing their autumn work in February instead, at which point it would become pay-in-advance and therefore constitutional.
“We’re exploring every option,” Lopez said. “Reverse the calendar. Declare October an opinion. Have Public Works un-patch the potholes so they can patch them again at the new rate. If the work hasn’t happened yet, the money is sitting right there in the fund balance — which we can look at, but not touch, or touch, but not look at.”
Lopez has also requested an annual cost-of-living policy and a $39,000 market study to place staff at 105% of market, a study that will ask the market the same question Harlingen has been asking it for years and receive the same answer at a slightly higher price.
Mayor Norma Sepulveda, however, held firm that the time to find the money was during the budget the commission already passed, which is why none of it was found then.
“The appropriate time to locate $845,000 was in September,” Sepulveda said. “The next appropriate time is next September. There is no third time. There has never been a third time.”
At press time, the city had begun identifying work that has not yet been performed and is therefore legally payable, with early candidates including next hurricane season, fiscal year 2031, and the potholes Harlingen plans to have in 2027.
