Council to Renew Police Pay Package to Incentivize Contract Negotiations
But that didn’t work the first time
By Austin Sanders, Fri., Jan. 19, 2024
On the City Council agenda: a Mayor Kirk Watson resolution that will start the year off by reigniting an old issue – how to move the ball on a new labor contract between the city and the Austin Police Association.
In 2018, Council approved a four-year meet and confer agreement with the APA that created new, more powerful tools for police accountability through the Office of Police Oversight. The APA, which represents most of the Austin Police Department's rank-and-file officers, greatly disliked the new OPO, and it became a focal point of negotiations for the 2022 contract.
Ultimately, the two parties could not come to terms on what police oversight should look like in the '22 contract and talks broke down in an ugly way. Before the 2018 contract expired March 31, 2023, Council unanimously adopted an ordinance in February that extended the pay and benefits in the '18 contract for another year – along with a slew of new recruitment and retention bonuses intended to lure the APA back to the bargaining table.
The pay package cost about $15 million and included a 4% raise for all ranks below assistant chief, $15,000 in incentives for cadets who graduate from the Austin Police Academy and a $5,000 retention bonus paid to keep existing officers, spread across two payments. It also included a carrot intended to incentivize a new, short-term contract – every APD officer would receive a $2,000 lump sum payment if a new labor contract was agreed to by May 4, 2023. The APA did not take the bait – instead, they took the money and walked away from the bargaining table.
The APA has used two subsequent events to defend their refusal to negotiate for now, even though they say a long-term contract is vital to addressing the department's staffing issues. First, in May, Austin voters overwhelmingly approved the Austin Police Oversight Act, a city ordinance meant to create a robust system of police oversight, but that the APA believes burdens already overburdened police. And more recently, the group that authored the APOA, Equity Action, filed a lawsuit that attempts to force the city to fully implement the ordinance.
Now, 11 months after the 12-month extension of the 2018 police contract, Council is preparing to offer the APA the same deal – a one-year extension of the same pay package, with incentives to negotiate on a long-term contract. This time, each officer will receive a $500 bonus if APA just begins bargaining again and a $2,500 payment if a new contract is completed by June 30.
Other factors have changed since last year, too. For one, the APA has a new president. Michael Bullock was elected in November and sworn in Jan. 1; shortly after that, he told the Chronicle that the Association would not resume negotiations with the city until the Equity Action lawsuit was resolved. This week, Bullock stood by that position. He also told us there are other issues the city could help the department with while they await a ruling in the lawsuit – like improvements to aging facilities at the training academy and department HQ. "No one has ever disputed that we want to be under contract," Bullock said. "But we cannot let the contract become our sole focus to the exclusion of other needs."
The ground has also shifted around the "G file," a provision of state law that allows cities to keep secret records relating to internal investigations of officers that do not result in discipline (many law enforcement agencies across the state, like the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Dallas Police Department, do not maintain G files). The city's elected and unelected leaders have long held that this provision of state law can only be removed through negotiation in a labor contract.
But proponents of police accountability and transparency have always disagreed – and now, city leadership does, too. Last year, the city's Law Department said that they think the G file provision is optional, but that only the chief of police can exercise that discretionary authority (this is one of the questions the Equity Action lawsuit seeks to settle). But even if the courts do rule against Equity Action and declare the G file up to the chief's discretion, the city and APA can still negotiate it out of existence.
City leaders have generally considered that impossible – the APA would never agree to a contract that eliminates G file protections. But Watson is now rejecting that notion. The APOA "prohibits the City Council from adopting a police contract that allows a [G file] to be kept," Watson wrote in the latest edition of his mayoral newsletter, Watson Wire. "Austin voters have already provided the guidance" on what to do about the G file. "There's no need to wait. It's time to get back to the table."
Chris Harris, an Equity Action board member, told us the group is glad that Watson and other city leaders have softened their position on the G file, but that the APOA includes many oversight provisions beyond it that must be negotiated in a contract – and that another short-term incentive package could harm other budget priorities. To afford last year's short-term pay package, Council deferred budget priorities, like more funding for emergency rental assistance and extreme weather sheltering, which they were hoping to add during a mid-year budget amendment process expected to begin this March.
Harris fears that Council may have to delay those priorities again – or sacrifice them all together – to pay for the 2024 version of the police contract incentive package. "We don't think Council should have to coax [the APA] back to the bargaining table at all," Harris told us. "But if they are going to try that approach again, they and everyone in the community deserves to know exactly how much is being spent and on what."
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