Raises, pension plan not on ballot

HFD union head alleges Turner ignored petitions

Houston voters will face $1.5 billion in city bonds and nine community college or school board races this November, but will not be asked whether to give firefighters a pay raise or change the pension plans given to new city employees.

Monday was the last day on which candidates could file for the November ballot, and on which local governments could call an election. That means the clock ran out on the citizen-submitted petitions seeking the change in city pensions and backing the firefighters’ push for pay “parity” with police officers of corresponding rank.

There are exceptions to Monday’s deadline. Houston ISD trustee Manuel Rodriguez’s death in July means candidates looking to fill his seat have until Sept. 6 to file for office. Candidates who meet today’s filing deadline also can withdraw from the ballot as late as Aug. 28.

In broad terms, however, the fall election campaign is set.

Marty Lancton, president of the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association, Local 341, complained in a letter to members on Monday that Mayor Sylvester Turner’s “petulance” had kept their proposal off the ballot, but promised to continue the push for “fair wages, benefits and working conditions.”

“The mayor refuses to say when the petitions will be counted,” Lancton said. “We note that, as the submitted petitions sat in the city secretary’s office for weeks, the mayor rejected at least three offers, including ours, to fund overtime pay for city staff to count the petitions. Others volunteered to count petitions. The mayor smugly ignored the offers and the City Council took no action on the issue.”

The organizers behind the pension petition have said they were satisfied with the pension reform bill that passed the Legislature this spring, and will not mount a campaign behind their proposal. The organizers declined comment Monday.

State law sets no deadline by which petitions seeking changes to a city charter must be tallied.

“We’ve always done first one in, first one out,” City Secretary Anna Russell said late Friday. “We are still working on the 401(k) (petition) as we do our regular work.”

The petitions, if validated by Russell’s office, could be included on a May ballot.

Turner spokesman Alan Bernstein noted that Russell has been city secretary for more than four decades and is carrying out her duties without mayoral interference.

“Any group that wants to complain about that process is complaining about the process as it’s usually handled by the city secretary’s office, not by the mayor,” Bernstein said. “The mayor also says that no matter what happens with the petitions — whether it’s verified later or not for another ballot at another time — the collective bargaining process is not closed. He’d love to see the firefighters come back to the table.”

The fire union sued the city in June, having declared an impasse in labor negotiations the month before. Firefighters have been without a contract for three years, and have seen their base pay increase by just 3 percent since 2011.

Fixing libraries, parks

The mayor’s top priorities this fall will be the $1 billion in pension bonds that must pass to lock in the landmark reforms that have been the chief accomplishment of his tenure. If the bonds fail and are not injected into the underfunded police and municipal pension plans, the billions of dollars in negotiated cuts to benefits could be reversed.

The ballot also will include $495 million in general obligation bonds to fund improvements to libraries and parks, as well as items such as new police cruisers and fire trucks. Voters will be asked to authorize the issuance of $159 million in public safety bonds, $104 million for parks, $109 million for general government improvements and $123 million for libraries. No organized opposition has yet emerged to fight that proposal.

Missing from the ballot is the mayor and the 16 city council members. Voters in 2015 changed the maximum tenure in city office from three two-year terms to two four-year terms, pushing the next scheduled municipal election to November 2019.

A court challenge seeking to reverse that vote on the grounds that the ballot language was unclear is pending.

Voters also will not face a reconsideration of the 2010 vote that established ReBuild Houston, the program that funds streets and drainage repairs without debt by drawing on a monthly fee. Courts have ruled that the city used unclear ballot language in that election, but a last-minute flurry of filings by the plaintiffs in that case did not convince a court to order another vote this fall.

Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart said the early filing deadline, outlined by state law, ensures that election officials have time to prepare accurate materials.

“We have to mail ballots 45 days before the Election Day to military and overseas voters,” Stanart said, “so that means we have to prepare the ballot, do all the checking and everything — and, of course, we do it in four languages.”

The county has sufficient populations of Chinese and Vietnamese-speaking residents that it must print election materials in those languages, in addition to Spanish and English.

Heights to vote on alcohol

Local voters will join all Texans in weighing seven state constitutional amendments this November and, depending on where they live, will decide contests in up to four other local cities, 10 school districts and 18 utility districts.

Thanks to Monday night votes by their school trustees, voters in Spring Branch ISD and Katy ISD will consider $898 million and $609 million bond proposals, respectively.

Houston Heights voters also will decide whether to loosen the alcohol laws in that neighborhood, which was a dry municipality when it was annexed by Houston in 1918.

Among the state constitutional amendments, two would allow local governments to grant new types of property tax exemptions, one for surviving spouses of first responders killed in the line of duty, and one for some disabled veterans or their surviving spouses whose homes were donated to them by charities.

Two items would prevent promotional or charitable raffles from being construed as gambling, allowing banks to conduct raffles to encourage saving and letting more sports booster groups hold raffles.

The other three proposed amendments would require courts to notify the attorney general of constitutional challenges to state laws, limit how long gubernatorial appointees to boards and commissions could serve after their terms had expired and loosen restrictions on home equity loans.