After voting last month to withhold annual supplemental pay from a district judge for performance concerns, the Dallas County Commissioners Court has changed course.
Commissioners voted 3-1 Tuesday to amend the 2026 fiscal year budget to include the $25,000 bonus for Judge Amber Givens.
The reversal comes after Givens sued Dallas County, alleging in a lawsuit that the Sept. 9 vote to withhold her supplemental pay while giving it to other district judges was illegal and discriminatory.
County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins abstained from the vote Tuesday and Commissioner John Wiley Price voted no.
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“Just can’t do it,” Jenkins said.
A hearing on Given’s requested temporary injunction is scheduled for Monday, according to court records.
Earlier this year Givens was sanctioned twice by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct — the first for allowing her court coordinator to conduct an online hearing with Givens’ picture on the screen without informing the parties the judge wasn’t actually there. The second was for jailing one man and revoking another’s bond in 2023 while she was recused from both cases and “lacked the legal authority to act” on them, according to the sanction.
During the Sept. 9 budget discussion, Assistant County Administrator Charles Reed said if the supplement was not tied to a performance plan, the county could give the pay to one district judge but not another.
Given’s lawsuit alleged the county did not have such discretion. Her complaint cited Texas government code which states “all district judges in a county are entitled to equal amounts of supplemental compensation from the county.”
Neither Givens nor her attorney Nuru Witherspoon responded immediately to a request for comment Wednesday.
Price voted against the Commissioner Court’s original Sept. 9 decision to withhold the pay. Although Price recited a list of judges whom he didn’t believe deserved the additional money, he said state law requires all judges to receive it.
Jenkins proposed for Given’s pay be voted on separately in the budget.
On Tuesday, after Jenkins’ abstained, Price voiced support for giving Givens the pay but then voted against the measure without explaining why.
“If you’re giving it to other judges who have not performed … might as well add one more judge who has not performed, in my opinion,” Price said.