City, police union move toward removing OPO from labor contract

With less than three months until the current police labor contract expires, the city of Austin and the Austin Police Association recently returned to the bargaining table and moved closer toward consensus regarding civilian oversight of the Austin Police Department. 

Lowell Denton, an outside attorney for the city, acknowledged the union’s movement toward meeting the city’s demand to remove the Office of Police Oversight from the contract during a Jan. 18 negotiation session.

“That’s encouraging to me,” he said. “Because it sounds like, to me, that you’ve been making a good-faith effort to leave with the city the authority that we believe the manager has.”

Since negotiations began early last year, the city has stressed its top priority for the new contract is to remove OPO so it’s no longer subject to bargaining, and to expand its authority, including the ability to participate more fully in investigations of officer misconduct.

Until recently, APA had refused to consider removing OPO from the contract. 

But Ron DeLord, an outside attorney for the police union, signaled a new openness when Denton asked, point-blank, if the union was committed to removing as much of the oversight process from the contract as possible. 

“We’re not saying no to anything at this point,” DeLord said at the same meeting.

APA also proposed a series of limitations on OPO’s role during investigations and requirements for members of the Community Police Review Commission.

“We want to preserve our officers’ rights,” APA President Thomas Villarreal said. “We don’t want to create this new process and then have the (city) manager, and or any future manager, come in and say, ‘Oh, by the way, we want to do more.’”

Sarah Griffin, the city’s deputy labor relations officer, took this as a good sign. 

“It sounds, conceptually, that you’ve really been looking at what we asked you to look at,” she said. 

The other outstanding issue is pay. APA initially proposed a 20 percent pay raise over four years, citing APD’s long-standing staffing shortages and the rising cost of living in Austin. The city’s latest offer is 12 percent over the same period.

Denton seemed optimistic that the two bargaining teams could reach an agreement on pay, despite financial constraints such as rising inflation and a 2019 state law that limits how much property tax revenue the city can collect.

“I’m sure we don’t have a complete meeting of the minds in terms of dollars and money and so far, but that’s been true of every time I’ve been at this bargaining table in the past,” he said. “It’s more of a challenge today.” 

DeLord also seemed eager to reach an agreement, given that the current contract expires March 31 and both sides have stated their desire not to fall out of contract. 

“Today or tomorrow, or in the next meeting, we really need to be down to, ‘Can we see a deal or can we not see a deal?’” he said. “Because of the time it takes for public education, (APA) member education, (and City) Council education.”

The next negotiation session is scheduled for Jan. 30. 

In the meantime, city residents will vote in May on whether to pass the Austin Police Oversight Act, an initiative petition effort by Equity Action that would build on the city’s oversight demands by removing OPO from future labor contracts, granting the office access to any police records it requires, and expanding its authority to recommend disciplinary action in cases of police misconduct. 

Equity Action, a local political action committee, spearheaded the petition, and its leadership has said it hopes Council waits until after the election to approve a new long-term contract.

Further complicating matters is a second petition effort by Voters for Oversight and Police Accountability, a group that is funded almost entirely by APA, according to a recently filed campaign finance report. 

Equity Austin has denounced VOPA for allegedly impersonating Equity Action while gathering signatures for its identically named Austin Police Oversight Act petition, which would weaken civilian oversight of APA. 

“We’re trying to protect the community from 1) being tricked by people who are committing fraud; and 2) potentially setting up a situation in which a very, very weak – even weaker than today’s system – system of oversight is being put into place,” Chris Harris, Equity Action board president, said at a Dec. 1 press conference.

VOPA submitted roughly 34,000 signatures in support of its opposition petition to the city clerk on Dec. 19. If 20,000 signatures are validated, the petition could be included on the May 5 ballot. 

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