City Council, Police Association OK Five-Year, $218 Million Labor Contract

With a 10-1 vote last week, City Council approved a multiyear contract with the Austin Police Association that will, in the next few years, force city leaders to weigh costly financial decisions. In the more immediate future, the contract could result in a severe disruption to Austin’s civilian police oversight system, which is still fledgling more than a year after voters approved the Austin Police Oversight Act but is beginning to produce the transparency that the local ordinance promised.

After hours of public testimony Oct. 24, Council approved a five-year, $218 million contract with the APA – an amount that the association representing retired officers claims to be the largest in Texas history. This will have dire budgetary ramifications for the city at large in future years. Even if the optimistic financial forecasts provided by the city’s budget office hold, future councils will have to raise taxes – an inevitability that the city’s budget staff has made clear. Police oversight advocates worry that language included in the contract will allow the APA to attack the city’s civilian oversight system as they did successfully in 2021 (the current system is mostly codified in the Oversight Act; previously, most oversight powers were in the contract).

But Equity Action, the justice advocacy group that wrote the Oversight Act, is suing to block the contract from going into effect. Last week, EA filed two temporary restraining order requests – one before Council voted on the contract and one about 12 hours after Council approved it. Following brief virtual hearings involving attorneys representing EA, the APA, and the city, District Judge Catherine Mauzy denied both TROs. However, at the second hearing on Oct. 25, Mauzy set a full hearing for EA’s injunction motion.

If EA prevails, they could block the contract from taking effect. They continue to argue that if the contract takes effect, it would allow APA members to file contract grievances that could ultimately result in parts of the Oversight Act being preempted. EA believes that the contract language only protects portions of the Oversight Act that are operational and in effect when the contract is executed.

If the Office of Police Oversight, which is authorized by the Oversight Act to conduct civilian investigations into officer misconduct, exercises authority that the APA believes was not in effect when the contract was executed, they could – in theory – complain to a third-party arbitrator through the contract grievance process. There, the arbitrator would settle any contract disputes. EA fears that this will be a favorable venue for the APA and one that will, ultimately, result in the dismantling of the Oversight Act.

But because EA lost their TRO request, rank-and-file members of the APA voted on the contract over a five-day period starting Oct. 25. APA members ratified the contract and on Tuesday, Oct. 29, APA president Michael Bullock and City Manager T.C. Broadnax signed the agreement in Council Chambers at City Hall.

Financial analysis produced by budget staff predicts that, if Council invests in little else besides the police contract over the next five years, the city will wind up with a relatively modest $6 million budget deficit. But, if Council wants to invest in other services and programs over that period – more spending to prevent or reduce homelessness, more firefighters and paramedics, or more money to maintain city parks, for example – the budget deficit will hit $33 million by the end of the contract. That’s a big problem – thus, the promise of higher taxes.

Council members have already been telegraphing that asking Austin voters to raise taxes through a tax rate election would be essential at some point in the next few years. But the new contract, and the massive financial commitment it represents, changes the calculus. Council will either have to raise taxes more than once or to a higher rate over the life of the contract, cut spending on other city services, or – perhaps most worryingly of all – divert more money from Austin Energy, the profitable, publicly owned utility, to pay for police salaries. Last year, AE transferred $115 million to the city’s General Fund; this year, the transfer was $125 million – an increase that utility leaders cautioned against. If the larger transfers continue, or increase further, AE would have less money to spend on its own programs – like those intended to combat climate change or protect customers from energy blackouts.

Now, APA leadership will have to make good on claims made over the past two years that a long-term contract would be key to addressing patrol shortages, improving response times, and reducing crime. Though, they’ll be assisted in the latter of those goals as crime has already been decreasing in Austin over the past three years.

CM Zo Qadri was the lone vote against the contract. “I don’t believe this contract reflects the values of a majority of Austinites,” Qadri said. “I’m disappointed tonight with the expediency of this contract, the detrimental budget impacts, and the unclear timeline for release of previously confidential information” – a reference to ongoing concern around how the contract will affect the “G file,” where some police misconduct records have been kept secret.

CM Alison Alter, one of the shrewdest budget hawks on the dais, explained her support for the contract. “We must ask whether declining this contract would be any less expensive or deliver more oversight,” Alter said. She noted that the contract also includes provisions aimed at promoting APD personnel up the chain of command who demonstrate the kind of values and experience community members have said they want in police leadership.

“Cultural change simply will not work without a chief who prioritizes it,” Alter said. “Focused leadership is the only way that we can turn the page to create the police force that our community has asked for and where our officers thrive.”

This article appears in November 1 • 2024.