Police Contract Talks: Hurry Up, or Wait?

Recruitment and retention seem at odds with healthy oversight in determining a timeline for the city's deal with the Austin Police Association (Photo by John Anderson)

The Austin Police Association sat down with the city of Austin's Labor Relations team for a meet and confer bargaining session Nov. 10 that was inconsequential on the surface but clarified how contract negotiations could proceed through the rest of the year.

As the Chronicle reported last week, City Manager Spencer Cronk has pushed for a deal with APA, the labor union representing Austin Police Department officers, as quickly as possible. He definitely wants one presented to Council before Jan. 8, when the new mayor and council – to be decided at the run-off election Dec. 13 – take office.

The union and the city are set to meet Nov. 30, when the union plans to present a counterproposal to the city's plan for civilian oversight of APD. Council has two meetings remaining in 2022 (Dec. 1 and 8) so would have to approve a contract on one of those dates or call a special meeting. Before that can happen, APA's members need to ratify any agreement the union's leaders reach with the city – an outcome that is not guaranteed.

The four sides involved in contract negotiations (city staff, Council, APA, and criminal justice advocates) have their own positions on timing of contract approval. The union wants a contract approved before the current agreement expires at the end of March. Without a contract, APA would lose many of the perks unique to working at APD, won through more than two decades of meet and confer agreements (for which the union has grudgingly agreed to limited oversight in exchange).

Justice advocates would prefer to not see contract approval before the May 6 election at which Austin voters will consider their citizen initiative, the Austin Police Oversight Act. As Council has little apparent appetite to wait that long, advocates' alternative is a short-term extension of the current contract, akin to the one-year deal Council approved in Sept­em­ber with the Austin EMS Association.

Cronk's stated motivation for his urgency, as communicated through a city spokesperson, is to help APD's recruitment and retention efforts. "The City Manager has made it clear that reaching an agreement with the APA is a high priority to recruit and retain a qualified police force to keep our community safe," the spokesperson told us, adding that Cronk also sees the importance in balancing concessions made to APA with a strong police oversight system.

Sources close to the police, fire, and EMS labor negotiations say Cronk has been more involved in the process than he was when the expiring contracts were approved in 2018, shortly after he arrived in Austin. Deven Desai, who led Labor Relations for a decade and was the city's point person on the public safety contracts, also left the city in August, creating a vacuum that Cronk has partially filled.

The current Council has lots of experience with and expectations for APD and its officers. Six members, including the four incumbents being replaced in the Council run-offs, voted to reject the first version of the current APA agreement back in 2017 and then approved a revised version the following year. Those six plus three others – including the two incumbents reelected on Nov. 8 – all lived through the summer of 2020 as APD fell under intense public scrutiny following the police violence against Black Lives Matter protesters at APD Headquarters on Eighth Street.

But what will Council be asked to vote on? How hard APA pushes back on oversight on Nov. 30 will be influenced by any agreement it makes with the city on pay and benefits, where the two sides are still pretty far apart (APA balked at the city's most recent offer).