Community advocates urge city, police union to return to negotiating table

Community advocates on both sides of the police contract negotiations say the city of Austin and the police union should return to the bargaining table. But their motivations and their priorities for a new contract are diametrically opposed.

Last week, the city halted bargaining with the Austin Police Association, citing the union’s refusal to consider removing the Office of Police Oversight from the new contract. Although both bargaining teams say they want to reach a new agreement before the current contract expires in March, this pause – after nearly nine months of negotiations – raises the possibility that they will fall out of contract. 

Save Austin Now and the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, or CLEAT, have called on the city to resume bargaining or risk exacerbating long-standing staffing shortages at the Austin Police Department. 

While police advocates stress APA’s demands for higher pay, police reform advocates want to see strengthened civilian oversight of police – even beyond what the city has proposed. Some say the city should resume bargaining in pursuit of a short-term contract to mitigate the consequences of falling out of contract, at least until the May election, when oversight is on the ballot. Others are more concerned with deferring a new long-term contract until voters have had their say than with a prolonged stalemate. 

Police advocates stress possible staffing fallout

Save Austin Now, a political action committee that spearheaded an unsuccessful initiative petition to expand Austin’s police force, derided the city’s priorities. 

“A couple of months ago, City Hall voted for a 40 percent pay increase for themselves, and now they are offering a 10 percent pay raise for police officers over four years, a proposal that does not even keep up with inflation,” Save Austin Now co-founders Matt Mackowiak and Cleo Petricek said in a Dec. 2 statement. “Additionally, city (negotiators) are demanding unworkable, restrictive, punitive, unwise, and extreme oversight provisions.”

APA proposed in June a 20 percent raise over four years. The city countered with a proposal of a 10 percent raise over the same period, ultimately increasing its offer to 12 percent.

Meanwhile, the city has pushed for removing OPO from the labor contract so that civilian oversight of police isn’t subject to negotiation and to expand its authority to investigate allegations of police misconduct, which APA has rejected outright. 

Mackowiak and Petricek worried about the consequences of falling out of contract, which would leave police officers without certain benefits and could lead to increased turnover. As of Sept. 22, APD reported a 15 percent vacancy rate among sworn officers and a 21 percent vacancy rate among civilian staff. 

“It is unconscionable that City Hall continues to play childish political games with our safety,” they said in the same statement. 

CLEAT Executive Director Charley Wilkison voiced similar concerns in a statement to the Austin Monitor, attributing the impasse to “anti-police activists.”

“Crime is on the rise, citizens’ safety is in jeopardy, and highly trained and educated officers are leaving the department at an alarming rate,” he said. “Dumping the contract is a required proof of allegiance to reimagineers hell-bent on making our hometown a safe haven for criminals.”

Between September 2021 and September 2022, crime rates fell across all categories – persons, property and society – according to an Oct. 3 presentation the Austin Police Department gave to the city’s Public Safety Commission.

Like APA, the city has expressed hope that the two sides would avoid falling out of contract.

“The city management is confident that the parties will come to an agreement on a sound labor contract, which will be key to recruiting and retaining the top-quality police officers we need to keep our community safe, and to building the community-focused, equity-oriented police department to which we’re committed,” a spokesperson said in a statement following the pause in negotiations. 

Police reform advocates point to May election

Kathy Mitchell, treasurer at Equity Action and policy coordinator at Just Liberty, believes the city should return to the bargaining table – to pursue a one-year contract with APA. Such a short-term agreement, she said, would prevent falling out of contract and allow the two bargaining teams to revisit the issue of oversight after the May election.

By then, voters will have decided whether to pass the Austin Police Oversight Act, an initiative petition effort by Equity Action that would remove OPO from future labor contracts, grant the office access to any police records it requires, and expand its authority to recommend disciplinary action in cases of police misconduct, among other changes. 

“The most important thing that our proposal does in May is clearly decouple the negotiation about pay from the conversation about oversight,” she told the Monitor. “We’re done trading the rights that civilians have to be treated fairly … for pay and benefits. That is not something that should be part of a trade.” 

Chris Harris, president of Equity Action and policy director at Austin Justice Coalition, agrees that a short-term contract would be the “easiest path” forward. But his priority is ensuring that the oversight act gets its chance with voters before Council agrees to a new long-term contract, even if that means a period with no contract at all. 

“The state of oversight is so poor right now, that impasse really doesn’t negatively impact the people of Austin,” he said. “It’s really only the police who stand to lose a substantial amount of money if there’s not a contract in place.” 

But Harris does worry about the consequences of the city and APA entering into a new, long-term contract before voters have a chance to weigh in on oversight. In such a scenario, the Police Oversight Act wouldn’t take effect until the next round of negotiations, in 2026. 

“For (Council) to subsequently agree to a long-term deal before May means they would go to extraordinary lengths … to thwart the will of the voters,” he said. 

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