► POLICE LABOR NEWS

Stories from all sources regarding police pay, benefits, working conditions and union activism  

CLEAT demands apology from Waco's Rep. Dunnam (May 2, 2009)
Statewide law enforcement group has high profile in local disputes (Jan. 4, 2009)
Police union alleges McLennan County Sheriff's Office attempting 'union busting' (Nov. 27, 2008)
Comrades of fired Hewitt police officer attend city council meeting in his support (Nov. 18, 2008)
Austin police chief reinstates fired officer (Oct. 14, 2008)
Fort Worth, police reach tentative agreement (Sept. 20, 2008)
Final contract between city, police made public (Sept. 3, 2008)
El Paso police contract restricts polygraph use, prevents questioning officers involved in shootings for 48 hours (August 27, 2008)
Austin public safety worker pay outpaces counterparts (July 24, 2008)

CLEAT demands apology from Waco's Rep. Dunnam

State Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, was officially uninvited to attend the Texas Peace Officers Memorial Service May 4 at the State Capitol after he killed a bill two days earlier that would have raised the penalty for evading arrest on foot.

HB 2873, a bill brought by the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas with which the Waco Police Association is affiliated, was inspired by the case of Amy Lynn Donovan, an Austin police officer killed in 2004 while chasing a suspect on foot. Officer Donovan was survived by her husband, Terry, and four children.

Terry Donovan was in the House Gallery Saturday morning. The bill's co-authors and members of the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee stood and recognized Mr. Donovan and moved to name the bill "The Amy Lynn Donovan Act" just seconds before Rep. Dunnam went to the back mic and moved that the bill be struck down on a technicality. Mr. Donovan was visibly shaken by the chain of events.

Officer Donovan was accidently struck by a police car during a foot pursuit in 2004, just months after graduating from the police academy. After the suspect was arrested, it was found that he had been convicted of evading arrest multiple times. 

HB 2873 would have raised the penalty for the first offense from a Class B misdemeanor to a Class A misdemeanor, and to a state jail felony for a person who had previously been convicted of evading arrest. It is already a state jail felony for a perosn to evade arrest in a motor vehicle.  

CLEAT has called on Rep. Dunnam to apologize to Mr. Donovan and the law enforcement officers of Texas.

"What he did encourages criminal suspects to continue to run from law enforcement officers and puts those officers in danger," said Charley Wilkison, CLEAT's public affairs director and chief lobbyist. "It is also a slap in the face to Mr. Donovan and other survivors of officers killed in the line of duty while pursuing suspects."

Just this year, two Texas peace officers have been killed in pursuits. Bridgeport Police Sergeant Randy White was killed on April 2, and Corpus Christi Police Lieutenant Stuart Alexander was killed on March 11. Those officers were recognized during the Texas Police Officer Memorial Service May 4th. Wilkison said Dunnam's presence there would have brought disrespect on the survivors. Back to top 

Statewide law enforcement group has high profile in local disputes

By Van Darden, Waco Tribune-Herald, Jan 4, 2009

Between infighting among local police and sheriff’s union members and wrongful termination lawsuits, representatives of the Combined Law Enforcement Association of Texas, or CLEAT, have been active in the Waco area of late.

Some in the law enforcement profession see CLEAT as a safe haven for legal representation and civil-service rights for officers. Others see the organization as meddlesome, bureaucratic and aggressive in its tactics.

Recent local CLEAT activities include filing a lawsuit against the city of Hewitt after former Sgt. Danny Powell was fired for what he said was retaliation for his efforts to get Hewitt voters to approve civil-service status for the department.

That same month, CLEAT found itself at odds with some of its own members when CLEAT attorneys accused McLennan County Sheriff Larry Lynch of “illegal union busting.” A group of sheriff’s deputies formed a second association because, they said, they were tired of CLEAT’s “slash-and-burn propaganda style.”

Charley Wilkison, CLEAT’s public affairs director, said that at the bottom line, his organization helps municipal police officers expand their representational rights through collective bargaining, meet-and-confer agreements and state civil-service laws.

“If any of these individual officers are sued or disciplined, we are their advocates,” Wilkison said. “We provide the attorneys to negotiate contracts or lobby state legislators on their behalf. We’re there from their first day as a cadet until their retirement ceremony.”

Wilkison said the Austin-based CLEAT also assists with funeral arrangements when an officer is killed in the line of duty.

Not everyone sees CLEAT in such a positive light.

Waco Sgt. Patrick Swanton called CLEAT an outside organization that doesn’t understand the politics of Waco. Swanton, a 26-year force veteran, said he is not a CLEAT member, though he does belong to the Waco Police Association.

Billboard campaign

In October, the Waco association acted on a CLEAT suggestion and put up billboards on Interstate 35 highlighting the city’s crime rate. The move came amid police association officials’ frustration with the city over pay, staffing and other issues.

At the time, Waco City Manager Larry Groth called the campaign counterproductive to the WPA’s cause and worried that it shed a negative light on the department and its officers.

“My biggest concern is that we’ve got a great department, and I don’t want the community to be soured on our department. They do a good job,” Groth said.

CLEAT helped the WPA pay for the billboard campaign, which drew criticism from business owners as well as some members of the Waco association.

“There is a time and a place for aggressiveness,” Swanton said. “If you’ve exhausted all other means, then being aggressive is appropriate. But I don’t believe the billboards were an effective tactic for Waco.”

Swanton said CLEAT officials suggested the billboards as but one possible option to get exposure for the WPA.

“They basically said, ‘Here’s one tactic you can use,’ ” Swanton said. “It was a recommendation. But I think the WPA’s board jumped the gun. If they had given the general rank and file a chance to vote on the billboards, things might have turned out differently.”

Wilkison said CLEAT’s recent actions in Central Texas have certainly raised the group’s public profile.

“Peace officers are not political by nature,” he said. “When you see us in a place and there’s lots of activity and coverage, that’s because we see a problem there. It means there are members saying, ‘We don’t have the ability to do this on our own. No one’s listening to us.’ ”

‘They have a place’

Dr. Rita Watkins, executive director of Sam Houston State University’s Bill Blackwood Law Enforcement Management Institute of Texas, said she doesn’t see CLEAT’s media exposure as negative.

“CLEAT established itself with a strong history of looking at issues for cops who don’t have a voice or who need resources to represent them in legal actions,” she said. “They get in the media fighting for those issues, and it can be interpreted as a negative, especially when the issue is close to an organization.”

Watkins named the firing or suspension of a police officer as an example of the kind of touchy — or negative — subjects CLEAT gets involved in.

“CLEAT has also been accused of alienating themselves from city administrators,” Watkins said. “But that’s OK. They have a place. That’s what they’re there for.”

Wilkison, a 15-year CLEAT official, said the organization was formed in 1975.

“It was dreamed up when soldiers returned from fighting in Vietnam,” he said. “Many of the soldiers became police officers and soon became cognizant that civil service and collective bargaining arrangements weren’t working. Their rights weren’t being pursued.”

Wilkison said precedents for CLEAT existed in major metropolitan hubs in the northeast well before the 1970s.

“Those were labor-rich areas where striking was more acceptable, however,” Wilkison said. “In Texas, views on unions were more moderate. Civil service and employment rights were fewer. That’s not to say they didn’t exist — they did. There was just no statewide union pushing it to help local associations obtain representation.”

Wilkison said CLEAT also helped open the door for women and minorities to join police departments, calling the days before CLEAT a “1950s, good-old-boy” form of governance.

Without CLEAT, Wilkison said, police chiefs would have continued “hiring their brothers-in-law to run the force.”

Wilkison said any full-time peace officer can be a member of CLEAT; however, not all officers choose to join.

Retired Waco police sergeant Joe Cendrowski said he was asked to join CLEAT when it was first formed but declined.

“I always belonged to the Texas Municipal Police Association,” Cendrowski, a 26-year Waco police veteran, said. “It was an older organization and was closely tied to the Legislature and its members.”

According to the TMPA’s Web site, the older association was formed in 1950. It began as a lobbying group of municipal officers with the “objective of promoting professionalism in Texas law enforcement as well as improving job conditions and enhancing communication among Texas police officers,” the Web site states.

Cendrowski said one major difference between CLEAT and the TMPA is that CLEAT-appointed attorneys are “more outspoken” than ones hired by the TMPA.

“The TMPA is just not as unionized as CLEAT,” Cendrowski said. “I have no objections to what CLEAT does for its members. I just always thought the fact that they’re so much like unions has caused them more problems.”

At the end of the day, Wilkison said, CLEAT fights for Texas peace officers, who he calls the “little guys.”

“The police union member is the little guy,” he said. “We give the same amount of energy and passion to fight for the little guy in Hewitt as we do in Dallas, Austin or San Antonio. We go where our members need us.” Back to top

Police union alleges McLennan County Sheriff's Office attempting 'union busting'

By Tommy Witherspoon, Waco Tribune-Herald, Nov 27, 2008

A lawyer for a powerful statewide police union alleges that McLennan County Sheriff Larry Lynch is staging “illegal union-busting attempts” to try to control the local sheriff’s officers association.

In a cease-and-desist letter sent Wednesday to Lynch, Tom A. Stribling, staff attorney for the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, said he represents more than 60 members of the McLennan County Sheriff’s Officers Association. “I have learned of recent activities by uniformed McLennan County deputies designed to intimidate association members and to disrupt the lawful operation of the association,” Stribling wrote.

He said the alleged tactics possibly violate state law and his clients’ First Amendment rights to freedom of association.

Lynch said Wednesday that he would not comment on the accusations in the letter.

“On behalf of my clients, I request that you take all necessary steps to insure (sic) that employees of your department do not engage in future union-busting activities, and to advise those engaged in such conduct that CLEAT will pursue all lawful means available to protect the rights of our members,” the letter says.

CLEAT spokesman Charley Wilkison, of Austin, said there appears to be a concerted effort among some in the sheriff’s office to take control of the union and to force its organizer and president, Ken Witt, out of office.

“An example that we have learned of is a very heavy-handed attempt by the sheriff and his actors to muscle themselves onto a committee that was writing and rewriting the bylaws for the association,” Wilkison said. “Our members say that there have been promises of promotions within the department if the association could be handed over, basically, to friendly hands.”

Also, uniformed officers reportedly have tried to intimidate others to sign a petition that would change the leadership or the direction of the current association, Wilkison said.

“We are taking this action to protect the association,” Wilkison said. “This is basically a cease-and-desist order. There is a union protection act in Texas, and you cannot do these things. You cannot promise people promotions if they can hand the union over and you cannot threaten and intimidate union members in the workplace or out of the workplace. It’s still America, even in McLennan County.”

Members of the sheriff’s officers association have tried to organize for years but seemed to galvanize in recent months during prolonged debate by McLennan County commissioners about whether to privatize all or a portion of county jail operations. Back to top

Comrades of fired Hewitt police officer attend city council meeting in his support

By Erin Quinn, Waco Tribune-Herald, Nov 18, 2008

Former co-workers of fired Hewitt police Sgt. Danny Powell attended Monday’s city council meeting, but they showed their support without a word.

Powell and about nine Hewitt Police Association officers attended the meeting but were advised not to talk by representatives of the Combined Law Enforcement Association of Texas out of fear of retribution from city leaders.

A law enforcement officer for 16 years, Powell said he showed up to work last week in his honor-guard uniform to march in the Veterans Day parade and was handed a letter of termination.

Two Hewitt residents, Powell’s mother-in-law and Austin-based CLEAT representative Tom Barbee, did speak on Powell’s behalf during Monday’s council meeting. Each said Powell did not deserve to be fired from the department and should be reinstated. About 35 people filled the chairs in the Hewitt City Hall meeting room.

Per city policy, the city manager decides on appeals made by fired employees, and Powell has submitted a letter of appeal to Hewitt City Manager Adam Miles.

Powell, 41, his family and friends, and several Hewitt officers spent the weekend going door to door in city neighborhoods distributing fliers. The flier states that Powell was fired from his post for talking with a city council member and that Miles fired Powell as revenge for the officer’s efforts to get voters to approve civil service for the department. Hewitt voters approved the proposition Nov. 4.

However, an excerpt of the termination letter Powell received Nov. 11 says police Chief James Barton fired Powell, not Miles. According to city policy, the city manager does not need to approve all hirings and firings at city departments.

The flier, which includes a photo of Powell with his mouth bound by tape, states it was paid for by the Hewitt Police Association. According to a letter addressed to the city by the association’s president, however, Powell and CLEAT funded the flier. CLEAT is an organization that provides legal representation and advocacy programs for law enforcement agencies statewide.

The letter states that the association does “not agree with some of the issues printed on the flier” and wants to develop a positive relationship with the city. It adds, however, that the association supports Powell and “strongly urges” the city to re-evaluate his termination.

When asked why the flier states it was paid for by the association, Barbee said CLEAT was in a hurry to put the flier out to city residents and the media, and it was printed before it was corrected.

Barbee told council members they should be “scared to death” that their constituents, including Powell, are being punished for speaking with them.

The termination letter excerpt, released by CLEAT Public Affairs Director Charley Wilkison, says Powell “failed to follow the chain of command” by contacting a Hewitt city councilman and advocating himself for an upcoming opening in the department, and that he disclosed information and gave his opinion about a confidential investigation. The letter states Powell also told the city councilman the was making open-records requests to “create trouble and expense for the city.”

Powell has said he was contacted by Councilman James Vidrine about an investigation into a complaint Powell filed against another member of the department. Powell said he disclosed nothing confidential, as he is not privileged to internal investigations. He has said he did not advocate himself for a position, and he denied the allegation that said he was filing open records requests to cause trouble for the city.

At the meeting, Vidrine said he had no comment because Powell’s termination is a personnel matter. Miles and Barton echoed Vidrine.

Barbee told media representatives Monday that he forbade officers from talking because “if (Powell) got fired for speaking to an elected official, can you imagine what might happen if these officers speak to the press?”

Barbee said he believes a chance of reinstatement through the appeal process is slim but that the organization will not back down.

“We’re just going to keep coming back,” he said.  Back to top

Austin police chief reinstates fired officer  

Associated Press, Oct. 14, 2008

AUSTIN — Police Chief Art Acevedo has reinstated a fired officer by changing the findings to "inconclusive" in an internal affairs investigation after possible errors in the case were brought to light, officials said.

Aaron York is scheduled to return to work on Tuesday after being fired June 6 following an investigation that looked into whether he allegedly provided false information on his arrest affidavit involving a suspect, whom York had said resisted arrest. Video from his patrol car did not support his claim.

Acevedo on Monday reinstated York, however, Acevedo sustained charges that York had engaged in insubordination and did not appropriately complete reports. Acevedo said in a one-page memo that York would not be given back pay for the time he was out of work.

York has agreed to withdraw a pending appeal asking that the discipline be overturned.

At the time, York told investigators and police administrators that he did not intentionally provide false information. York said he "wrote what he remembered."

"He won't make those mistakes again," said Acevedo in Tuesday's online edition of the Austin American-Statesman.

According to a disciplinary memo from Acevedo earlier this year, York responded on Dec. 14, 2007 to a report of a man screaming in an alley. After asking the man for identification, York arrested him on public intoxication charges.

York said that on the way to the patrol car, the man resisted and "tried to pull away," the document said.

The video shows that the suspect was intoxicated but does not show him trying to kick York.

Acevedo said he recently took another look at the case after attorney Tom Stribling and union representatives pointed out possible errors that had occurred when the case was being reviewed initially.

Acevedo declined to describe the errors but said action had been taken against a department employee because of the errors.

Wuthipong Tantaksinanukij, vice president of the Austin Police Association, said he had worked with Stribling to get York reinstated. Back to top

Fort Worth, police reach tentative agreement
Star-Telegram, September 30, 2008, By MIKE LEE 

Police officers would get a 3 percent raise for the next four years under the city’s first-ever contract with the Fort Worth Police Officers Association.
City Manager Dale Fisseler and POA President Rick Van Houten announced the framework of the contract Tuesday, while cautioning that several details have yet to be worked out and that the contract must still be approved by both the rank-and-file and the City Council.

"It’s a fair deal. Nobody’s getting rich, nobody’s going to the poorhouse," Van Houten said.

First contract

The announcement is significant because it’s the first time Fort Worth has agreed to a contract with any labor group. A 3 percent raise would boost the starting salary of a rookie officer to $47,432 from $46,051 in the first year of the contract.

Average pay for the department’s 1,500 officers of all ranks is about $67,000, including overtime, educational pay and other incentives.

In addition, the contract would impose new physical fitness standards on police officers and change some rules for hiring and promotion. Committees are still working out the details of those provisions, Fisseler and Van Houten said.

It will probably take several weeks for the POA to ratify the contact. The association represents 90 to 95 percent of the department.

Stalled talks

Fort Worth voters approved a resolution in 2006 that gave officers the right to negotiate directly with the city, known as "meet and confer."

The procedure gives the Fort Worth Police Officers Association the right to bargain over salary, benefits, hiring and promotion, and other aspects. Most of those areas were previously governed by state civil-service laws.

Voters approved a similar type of labor agreement for Fort Worth firefighters in 2007.

The POA began negotiating with the city during the summer of 2007. In June, both sides said the talks had stalled.

The city wouldn’t agree to a multiyear contract, and the POA opposed giving city management more rights over the Police Department. The city was asking for the right to alter health and retirement benefits, use civilians in jobs being done by officers and back out of the contract under certain circumstances.

Those details have been settled, according to city officials, but the terms were not disclosed.

Handcuffed budget

Business groups, including the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, opposed the idea of long-term contracts because they can handcuff the city in the event of a sudden loss of tax money.

But Fisseler said Tuesday, "I do think there’s some benefits with this tentative agreement."

Having a long-term contract allows the city to better project Police Department costs, he said.

"You go down the list of all the things that are important to people in the city, and police protection is right at the top," Fisseler said.

Pay breakdown
A starting Fort Worth patrolman earns $46,051 today.
If the City Council approves a contract with 3 percent pay raises for the next four years, starting pay would rise to about $51,800, not including longevity raises or other types of pay.

The average pay for all police employees would rise from $67,000 to about $75,400, not including incentives and longevity. Back to top

Final contract between city, police made public

By Tony Plohetski
Austin American-Statesman, Sept. 3, 2008

Austin police union officials and city leaders have reached a tentative contract agreement that includes changes in the role of the police monitor's office and gives officers more time to view evidence in conduct cases against them, according to the 83-page document made public Tuesday.

The contract would allow officers to immediately receive as much as 400 hours of previously earned vacation and other leave after they were fired, even if they planned to appeal the termination.

Such payments have traditionally been made only after an arbitrator upheld the firings.

Union officials, who posted the agreement on their Web site Tuesday evening, will begin two-hour workshops with officers this week to explain provisions in the contract and will put the document to a membership vote beginning Sept. 11.

Austin City Council members are scheduled to consider the agreement on Sept. 25.

"There isn't any overall win in the contract," union Vice President Wuthipong Tantaksinanukij said. "Both sides negotiated a fair contract."

The document comes after nearly six months of negotiations involving officers of all ranks and city officials.

City officials recently completed negotiations with paramedics from Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services, but that document has not been released.

The city is in continued talks with fire union representatives.

The proposed police agreement needs approval of City Council and police union members, or else officers would return to working under state civil service laws.

The current contract expires at the end of the month.

"We are very pleased with the process," Assistant City Manager Michael McDonald said. "I think the police association did a good job. Of course, during these economic times, these types of contracts are not easy."

Much of the public debate concerning the proposed contract, which would expire in 2012, has focused on officer pay raises and bonuses.

According to the proposal, officers would get a 2.5 percent pay increase in the budget year that began Monday and a 3 percent raise in each of the next three years.

The planned raise for next year, however, would be 2.75 percent if other city employees got less than 2.5 percent raises.

The proposal also calls for the city in the last two years of the contract to make contributions of 1 percent of officers' annual pay to the police retirement fund.

Officers gave up special annual bonuses now in their contract.

Under the proposed agreement, the police monitor's office would take complaints from civilians about officers .

City officials had sought that provision, in part at the request of several Austin residents.

The monitor's office would be responsible for gathering facts about the complaints, the officers involved and any witness information. The office would make audi recordings of any discussions and provide the information to internal affairs detectives.

In the past, the monitor's office served as an initial contact point for residents with grievances, but those wishing to formally file a complaint against officers had to do so with the internal affairs division.

Under the proposed contract, internal affairs would still conduct the full investigation and make recommendations about whether officers had violated policies.

As part of the agreement, monitor's office staff members could be called to testify if an officer was later disciplined and appealed.

The proposal increases the time officers would have to review evidence in cases against them from three to five hours.

The agreement also would give members of a citizens review panel, which traditionally makes police and training recommendations in such cases, five hours to individually review such information.

In the past, they have reviewed information with fellow panelists only in executive session.

"We think this is a balanced contract, where both sides accomplished quite a bit," McDonald said.  Back to top

El Paso police contract restricts polygraph use, prevents questioning officers involved in shootings for 48 hours
 

From the Newspaper Tree, August 27, 2008, by David Crowder (http://www.newspapertree.com) 

City Council members balked at a new contract with the El Paso Municipal Police Officers Association that will add nearly $12 million to police salaries in the next four years before approving it on a 5-2 vote Tuesday.

The agreement will push salaries for uniformed officers in the 1,100-member force from about $81.6 million to $93.4 million over the term of the contract, which runs a year longer than usual.

City Reps, Steve Ortega and Beto O’Rourke voted against the contract but not because of the annual raises that start at $1.8 million for the fiscal year starting Sept. 1 and peak at $3.9 million in three years.

They were troubled over the council’s lack of involvement in policy decisions made in the negotiations, including concessions by the city’s negotiating team that will restrict the use of polygraph examinations in internal investigations and impose a new 48-hour waiting period before an officer involved in a shooting can be questioned or be asked to participate in a “walk-through” retracing the events that led to a shooting.

While Police Chief Greg Allen and the head of the police union, Bobby Holguin, supported those changes, former Chief Richard Wiles and the police union's former attorney, Bill Ellis, appeared before City Council to oppose them.

Wiles, who retired as chief late last year and later announced he would run for sheriff, said he reinstituted the use of the polygraph, which the department had abandoned as an investigative tool 20 years before.

“I felt I had an obligation to the public to use every tool available to me to get to the truth of the matter,” Wiles said. “I still support it, but I understand there’s some people who don’t and if they choose not to use it, I think that’s fine.

“But I just want it to be clear to the public, because I think you owe them that, that this contract is going to eliminate the polygraph.”

That is because officers under investigation can refuse a polygraph exam by an Internal Affairs officer and insist on an independent examiner.

Then, Wiles said, if the officer exercises his new right under the contract to refuse to sign a waiver relieving the outside examiner of liability, the examiner will refuse to administer the examination.

Chris Borunda, a former assistant city attorney whom the city hired to assist in the negotiations, said an officer who refuses the polygraph leaves himself open to harsh disciplinary measures by the police chief.

She said the polygraph is still a questionable and subjective tool, the results of which are not admissible in courts.

“The United States Supreme Court says that polygraph examinations, even a polygraph expert, can only surmise, can only offer opinions,” she said. “There is no scientific, there is no factual basis for anything that is given as part of a polygraph examination.”

City Rep. Eddie Holguin noted that the state of New Mexico is now allowing polygraph results in its courts.

The new contract also moves the time at which an officer can be asked to take a polygraph exam to the very end of the investigation and then only after all other leads have been exhausted.

Ellis, who said the contract “coddles” police officers, noted that the agreement allows the union to suggest investigative leads that the department would then have to pursue, thus injecting the union into investigations aimed at its members.

That, Ellis said, will bog down investigations and push the department against new deadlines for imposing internal discipline measures or taking steps to criminally prosecute an officer.

Wiles also wondered why the city and management would support giving an officer involved in a shooting 48 hours to gather his thoughts before questioning him about the events.

“When CAP (Crimes Against Persons) handles a homicide, they don’t allow witnesses to go home and rest,” he said. “They’ve just witnessed a murder, their relative killed? They don’t get to go home and rest.

“They’re taken down to the CAP office, and they sit there for hours until CAP gets statements.”

He and Ellis also questioned why the city agreed not to permit the video recording of a post-shooting “walk through” with an officer.

Borunda said the problem with questioning officers immediately after a shooting that may be traumatic is that they often remember additional and conflicting details when they have had a chance to rest.

“So it’s to the city’s interest, it’s to the officer’s interest, it’s to everyone’s interest to ensure that the statement you get is the best statement that can be given, that it’s useful,” she said.

Allen said, “When you use deadly force against someone, it is not a casual event. That is an impactful thing that a lot of times makes people quit this job. I’ve seen it several times in my career.

“Chief Wiles believed in it. Philosophically, we are opposed on this, and I respect him deeply. But some of the things we have been talking about today are to guarantee both the rights of the officer and to make sure that we protect the city.”

City Rep. Rachel Quintana asked Allen and the union’s Bobby Holguin if they are comfortable with the proposed contract.

“I feel comfortable with the contract, yes I do,” Allen said. “The polygraph laid dormant for 20 years, and the big question is why. If it’s such a valid tool, why?

“And, yes, the public does deserve the best that it can get from this department and the integrity of the officers that serve this city, but that has never been an issue. Never.”

Holguin said, “Don’t get comfortable mixed up with happy, OK? I’m not happy with it all, but I am comfortable with it.”

The new contract does authorize random drug testing of 30 percent of the police force a year versus the previous contract that allowed drug tests only when there was cause for suspicion.

The new contract also significantly reduces the cost of the generous health benefits plan for police officer by requiring them to pay a share of their medical expenses.

In response to Ortega’s questions about why the council was not involved in the negotiating process and policy directions, City Manager Joyce Wilson said negotiations have traditionally been conducted by the city’s top management and a negotiating team.

Then, once the contract is ratified by the union members, it is brought to the council to be approved or rejected.

That, she said, is how she handled the previous negotiations with the police and firefighter unions and how negotiations have always been conducted in El Paso, going back to the time before she was hired when the mayor was the city’s chief executive officer. Back to top

Austin public safety worker pay outpaces counterparts

By Tony Plohetski
Austin American-Statesman, July 24, 2008

The average salaries of Austin police officers and firefighters continue to outpace their counterparts in other Texas cities, generally by 20 percent or more, according to a study by an independent consultant.

The maximum pay for Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services paramedics also remained higher than salaries in several other cities, including Boston, Denver and Baton Rouge, La., the study said.

Austin City Manager Marc Ott shared the analysis with City Council members Wednesday.

The information comes the same week that Austin police union representatives rejected an initial pay proposal from the city as part of an employee contract negotiation. City officials have told the union that raises beyond those offered could financially strain the city, based on budget forecasts.

On Wednesday, officials with the Austin Police Association gave a separate report to officials about the city's financial condition. That report, by Norman, Okla.-based Policepay.net Inc., said the city's general fund has outperformed budget projections for each of the past five years.

In a memo to the council, Ott said the city had hired Public Financial Management, which has offices in Austin, to do a study that would compare pay and benefits of Austin public safety workers with those in other cities. The city paid about $49,000 for the study.

"In the last year, there has been much discussion about public safety salary costs, including questions from council members," Ott said in the memo. "The City worked with PFM to do this study to gather data about those issues."

According to the report, Austin police officers are the highest paid in Texas by their third year of service and that with a maximum base pay of $80,500, they get more than $20,000 above the average. The report also said that Austin detectives, corporals, sergeants, lieutenants and commanders ranked first for maximum base pay, typically more than 20 percent above the average.

The report said that by their third year, Austin firefighters had a maximum base pay of $77,638, more than $20,000 above the Texas average. The same also was true for fire specialists, lieutenants, captains, battalion chiefs, division chiefs and assistant chiefs.

According to the study, the base pay for Austin paramedics was above that of other compared cities, even though most employers were in higher wage markets. Back to top