Meet, Confer, and Pay
Austin firefighters start a blaze of their own in response to the department's controversial budget-cutting proposal.
Fri., Aug. 15, 2003
One of the big "cost drivers" for public-safety spending: the city's generous meet-and-confer contracts with the Austin Police Association and the Austin Association of Firefighters. The cumulative cost of the two three-year pacts with each union, according to city budget staff, was more than $100 million -- money for which the City Council never identified a revenue source.
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