Police union cuts off contract talks
Agreement with city expires Dec. 29; talks may resume in 2018.
Leaders of Austin’s police union have informed city officials that they will not continue negotiations on their contract after the
City Council rejected the agreement last Wednesday.
The Austin Police Association sent a letter to interim City Manager Elaine Hart on Tuesday morn
ing, saying its members do not believe that they can reach a new agreement with the city within
the remaining 30-day extensions available under the current contract, and will allow it to expire on Dec. 29.
A poll conducted by the union showed that 92 percent of its
members wanted to step away from negotiations and return to the state’s civil service code, which outlines policies for hiring, promotions, benefits and disci- plinary measures for police and other emergency responders.
Before the council rejected the proposed contract, 85 percent of the union’s members had voted to approve it. That vote, interim Police Chief Brian Manley said, had showed that officers accepted oversight and accountability. The contract included a provision to change the department’s “180-day rule,” which capped the time spent by police
to investigate misconduct to six months after the date of an incident, rather than the date an assistant chief or the chief learned of the incident.
The agreement also would have allowed anonymous complaints from citizens and complaints directly from the police monitor, a civilian oversight official.
The City Council tossed the proposed contract after a marathon public hearing on Dec. 13 that included more than eight hours of testimony, which mostly came from opponents who said the contract fell short of providing adequate oversight and accountability, and that it cost too much.
Opponents wanted the police monitor and the Citizen Review Panel to have subpoena power. They also wanted Internal Affairs interviews with officers involved in critical incidents to be made available even if no disciplinary action was taken.
By the end of that night, the agreement’s price tag — which would have given officers a 9.5 percent raise over five years and stipend pay that could have effectively set the raise to around 12 percent — was too high for the council.
“Before I even looked at the transparency and oversight, I realized I couldn’t even afford the deal in front of me,” said Council Member Jimmy Flannigan, who brought the motion to extend negotiations.
Council Members Ann Kitchen and Alison Alter voiced similar concerns before the council voted unanimously against the proposal.
Union leaders said they are prepared to return to negotiations in 2018.
“The whole contract is gone,” association President Ken Casaday said. “It will have to be renegotiated from the very beginnings of the contract.”
Casaday said once the contract expires, the police monitor will lose access to police files and the Citizen Review Panel will be dissolved. Changes also will hit the department’s hiring and promotion process, which will now accept candidates solely upon a civil service test score.
Manley had warned before the vote that letting the contract expire could spark an exodus of retiring officers. Under the current contract, officers can be paid for up to 1,700 hours of unused sick time, or roughly nine months of pay. The chief said up to 300 officers with more than 20 years of service could opt to leave the department to claim that pay, which could cost up to $30 million.
On Tuesday, Austin police said 17 retirements had been confirmed since the Dec. 13 council meeting, and six others were in progress. Authorities said several other inquiries were underway.
“I’m kind of surprised that the union wouldn’t go back to talk about some of the recommendations that we had, or if it was possible to even get there,” Austin Justice Coalition co-founder Chas Moore said. “Most people don’t realize that our entire civilian oversight system, along with rules keeping most misconduct secret, are a part of this contract, as are many forms of special pay and benefits not available to officers under state law.”
Moore said his group “offered reasonable reforms, but if the association is unwilling to discuss them right now, we will work to improve oversight, transparency and accountability within the state law framework.”
While Moore was surprised, he said Austin is in a unique place to show what policing can look like.
“The main thing for us is to have the best police department ever, and once we have the best police department ever, we can talk about compensating them equally,” he said.
Moore said the contract’s expiration will show city leaders and community members that the sky won’t fall without an agreement.
“In 2017, with everything going on in policing, you can’t keep doing the same things and ask for more money,” Moore said. “If you want all these benefits and raises, you have to be progressive.”