S.A., union close on officer discipline
Arbitrators’ ability to overrule chief is one of last issues
Nearly a year into talks on a new contract, negotiators for the city of San Antonio and police union appear close to a compromise on the disciplinary process for officers accused of misconduct.
Over the last few months, the two sides have whittled away at their number of differences over discipline to two items. And on Wednesday, city and police union officials agreed that a deal on those remaining issues is imminent, too.
“We’re pretty close on those two items,” María Villagómez, deputy city manager and head of the city’s negotiating team, told union officials.
The two items in question involve the scope of a third-party arbitrator’s authority when determining whether to uphold or reverse the police chief’s decision during the appeals process and the so-called 180-day rule, a provision of the collective bargaining agreement that prevents the chief from disciplining an officer for alleged misconduct if the chief finds out about such an incident more than six months after it occurs..
Ron Delord, the police union’s chief negotiator, said the police union made a few minor tweaks to the city’s most recent proposal on those two items. He urged the city to “accept that language” so they could move on.
Discipline has been a major sticking point for the two sides throughout the proceedings. City negotiators have said they want to limit arbitrators’ ability to overturn Police Chief William Mcmanus’ disciplinary decisions.
By various estimates, about two-thirds of fired San Antonio Police Department officers who appealed their terminations in the past decade have returned to the force — reinstated either by Mcmanus to avoid a drawn-out appeals process or by indepen
dent arbitrators.
One infamous case is that of former SAPD officer Matthew Luckhurst, who was fired after city officials said he gave a homeless man a sandwich filled with dog feces. Three years later, an arbitrator overturned the firing because Luckhurst wasn’t punished within 180 days of the alleged incident.
Luckhurst was fired for a separate incident involving feces, and an arbitrator upheld that firing. He never returned to the force.
For the most part, union officials have agreed. But negotiators have maintained that officers deserve due process rights, and that a third-party arbitrator should be able to overturn punishment unless there is significant evidence of misconduct. They have also questioned who should be responsible for proving that misconduct.
The two parties have met nearly 30 times since mid-february. Their current agreement expired at the end of September, though an evergreen clause keeps most of that contract’s terms in place for eight years.
Also on Wednesday, the two sides discussed provisions that govern off-duty employment and police vehicle maintenance. The latter has been an issue because of a computer chip shortage affecting automakers worldwide, severely limiting the supply chain.
“The orders for Ford for 2022 are closed, and the orders for 2023 are not open yet,” Villagómez said. “We can’t place an order for vehicles because they’re not giving us the ability to.”
Negotiations are scheduled to continue on Dec. 21. Besides discipline, the city and police union remain deadlocked on only a few other major items, including promotions, wages and health benefits.