Broadnax sees police oversight as ‘natural’ component of next contract

The Austin Monitor recently sat down with new Austin City Manager T.C. Broadnax to discuss some of the more prominent issues facing city staff and City Council as he gets situated in his job.

Regarding the police contract, the draft agreement proposal was floating out there prior to your predecessor’s departure. Did you have any thoughts strongly one way or the other about what was contained in that?

I’m not quite sure specifically on the details of what has changed. The feedback that I’ve received was it’s still a work in progress. They’re still working through issues specific to some of the things that have stalled the prior contract. I’m not going to get too in the weeds because I wouldn’t know where to start, to be honest with you. I’ve tried to be very high level with the negotiating team and let them do what they do. That’s tough work in those conversations.

The ultimate goal is to find a way to get through the rough patches of the issues and challenges that the community has had, as well as the Council and their concerns, and get to a fair contract that’s going to help our people do better at their recruiting, help them understand what their futures will look like as it relates to if they want to join the force or they want to continue with the force. I have every confidence that our team is working in the spirit of what they believe will be successfully embraced by not just the men and women of the police department, but the Council when we finally bring it.

How involved are you? Do you plan to be in the day-to-day negotiations?

Absolutely not. That’s my assistant city manager, Bruce Mills, and our negotiating team. I’ve come to learn to have the vantage point of reviewing once they’ve gotten to a point on big issues and challenges. They may drop in and share with me, are they headed in the right direction? Is it something that I can support? But for the most part, I am trying to give them all the latitude as they sit at the table every day. That’s difficult work and challenging. I’m giving them all the flexibility they need to bring home, or bring to Council, the contract that we believe we can all support.

There are many, many nuances and wrinkles to a contract like that, but the issue that has jumped out in the public light is the oversight piece of it that the mayor, obviously, in a very loud and clear voice, said absolutely has to be a part of it. How does the issue of oversight ring with you? As a public matter, where do you sit with it?

It’s important. I think it’s something that should be a natural occurrence and expectation. I don’t have any issues and challenges with where Council and/or the mayor wants to be. I’m right where they are. It should be an acceptable go-forward in any role, whether that’s the police department or the public works department or any department as it relates to we have a job, but that job comes based on a balance of what our community expects and wants. As it relates to anyone doing a job, you need to be held accountable.

Policing is even more important that there is some accountability and oversight. That’s what I think we’re in conversations about, about what that looks like and understanding what their respective roles and responsibilities are. I come from oversight in Dallas. We had an Office of Community Police Oversight, transitioned from just a review board to an office. I think the relationship between that office and the police department are important just for transparency and accountability. I think that the community would expect us being undertaken.

Did that at any time become antagonistic between those two offices or sides, or from the time it was instituted, how did it go? What did you learn from it?

I think there’s a built-in perception and tension that is always there. But as administrators, whether the chief or the director of that particular office, their relationship and how they call balls and strikes, I think it’s important. Obviously, listening to and understanding the community that you serve is important. There’s always going to be some level of attention. But I think it’s in some cases overblown because if you are doing the right types of things, honestly, oversight shouldn’t be an issue. You don’t need to have a built-in distrust or dislike.

It was a transition for us in Dallas, but I think we’ve struck a good balance there. I’m hopeful if we finally get to where we need to be in this organization and this community, folk will realize that it is just a natural occurrence. People just want an opportunity to feel like cases where they don’t believe things were the right way, that they have a voice that they can go to that’s going to be open and honest and receive their concerns and complaints and then work them through a system that they believe they can trust. Again, there’s stories you could read from other communities and many communities that would make you think it should be a clash at all times, but it doesn’t have to be like that.

As a budgetary matter, and having a police contract that is secure for three to five years, how tough is it to make a budget if you’re going year to year from a police contract versus having that certainty built in of three to five years? Could you talk a little bit about the certainty that could create?

I guess there is some certainty, depending on how the contract is written when it comes to wages. There are some contracts, depending on how they are laid out, that are market-based. So there’s always going to be some unknown at some point, if in fact, you go and test the market and see where peers are at some given point. So that’s never consistent, and there’s always some guess. But then there’s others that, similarly, are predicated on the salaries on average of comparative cities. Then that’s a little bit different, but similar to market.

Since they’ve been out of contract here, and I can’t speak too specifically about it because I’ve not been here, Council has defined and identified how much of a wage increase noncontractually that they weren’t willing out of contract to afford it. There is no evergreen clause in there about it. It hadn’t made it difficult. What’s made it more challenging has been the lack of a contract and the impact that that’s had on the other things that make them feel better about recruitment and folks wanting to join, understanding what their futures look like and/or promotional opportunities and things of that nature. So that hadn’t added any additional wrinkles. It’s about dollars and cents, and whether you’re in a contract or not, there’s still some parameters that you have to agree to.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

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