City, Austin Police Association Agree to Resume Contract Talks

Austin Police (photo by John Anderson)

How much officers will be paid and how much the city is able to independently investigate those accused of misconduct are among the top issues city staff and the Austin Police Association will finally hash out. The two agreed to resume negotiations over a long-term labor contract for police nearly one year after the last contract expired.

The last time City Council approved a police contract was in 2018, after a contentious period in which Council members made the historic decision to reject the terms agreed to by city staff and the APA. The agreement that ultimately crossed the finish line established a robust system of civilian oversight that provided unprecedented levels of transparency into how the Austin Police Department holds officers accountable when they’re accused of misconduct. Over the next three years, the APA worked to dismantle that system, finally landing a fatal blow to the Office of Police Oversight in 2021, when an arbitrator agreed with an APA grievance alleging the OPO had illegally investigated complaints against police officers.

Negotiations over the new contract stalled out in 2022, and APD has been operating without a contract since. Those negotiations hinged on pay and oversight – and that’s been the case in every negotiation since the city and APA reached the first meet and confer agreement (i.e., police contract) more than 20 years ago. Before 2022 contract talks finally collapsed, city and APA negotiators had more or less come to an agreement on what kind of wage increases and benefits officers should enjoy over the life of the four-year contract, but APA wasn’t willing to bend on oversight. The association views the kind of oversight approved in the 2018 contract as an abridgement of officer rights.

When it became clear that the city and APA would not agree to a new contract before the 2018 agreement expired March 31, 2023, Council approved a slew of pay increases for police officers without asking for anything in exchange. (Council re-upped the incentive package, which will cost more than $15 million, Jan. 18.) Then, in May, three months after talks between the city and APA broke down, Austin voters overwhelmingly approved the Austin Police Oversight Act (APOA), the city ordinance authored by local criminal justice advocates seeking to restore power to the OPO – and protect that power from future contract negotiations.

The APOA includes two key provisions that will be at the heart of the resumed contract negotiations. One, the ordinance requires the city and APD to abandon use of the “G file” where some records relating to misconduct investigations are kept secret. The city has refused to eliminate the G file and is currently fighting in court to preserve it. The second provision of the APOA key to negotiations is a clause that prohibits staff from agreeing to a contract that does not fully adhere to the APOA.

These two factors prompted Mayor Kirk Watson to declare in a Jan. 12 newsletter that the G file would need to go – whether by ordinance or through contract negotiation. “Austin ... said no [G file],” Watson wrote. “If we’re going to have the thing we all agree is the most important thing for getting more police – a contract – the contract can’t allow for a G file.”

“The only way we are able to move forward is by working together as this is one community,” APA President Michael Bullock was quoted saying in a city news release, March 6, announcing that negotiations would soon resume. “I’m encouraged by the progress we’re making and hope that we will be able to move through this process in a way that benefits all involved, most of all the community we serve.”

Now, with the first formal bargaining session between the city and APA set for March 13, we’ll see if the city sticks to that hard-line view on the G file.