It’s nearly crunch time for the City of San Antonio to reach a labor contract deal with the firefighters’ union as City Council’s deadline to finalize the fiscal year 2025 budget approaches.
Add to that the possibility that the union might again get involved in the city’s charter election, and the next few months are shaping up to be rife with political drama.
Voters in November might be asked to undo salary and tenure caps on the city manager position that the fire union pushed for and nearly 60% of voters supported in 2018.
Voters might also be asked to increase council members’ and the mayor’s pay. On Thursday, City Council is slated to vote on exactly which proposed charter amendments will make it on the ballot.
“The conversations are being had,” Joe Jones, president of the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association told reporters after Tuesday’s negotiation session that saw little progress on the collective bargaining agreement. “We have not made any decisions.”
The union represents a vast majority of SAFD’s roughly 1,800 firefighters and paramedics and, like the police union, historically has had significant political sway.
City officials hoped to conclude bargaining over the estimated three-year labor contract by the end of July, but the two sides remained tens of millions of dollars apart at the end of Tuesday’s negotiation session. Another session is scheduled for later this month.
Without a final pricetag for the contract, a large question mark hangs over the budget process. This is not ideal for the city, but it doesn’t require either process to stop, said María Villagómez, deputy city manager and lead negotiator.
For now, the city will have to add a placeholder in the budget for the contract, Villagómez said. How big that placeholder will be remains to be seen. City administration will present a draft budget next Thursday to City Council. Council members are slated to vote on the budget on Sept. 19.
“We will continue to meet with the association with the goal of having something final by then, depending on where we land, we may have to make some changes to the budget proposal,” Villagómez said. “It’s too early to tell at this point.”
The firefighters’ current contract expires on Dec. 31 but a five-year evergreen clause keeps most of the current contract terms, including annual increases to health care premiums, in place without annual base-pay increases.
“We still share your goal” of getting a deal done by the end of August, said attorney Richard Poulson, lead negotiator for the fire union.
The two sides took small steps toward each other’s proposals on Tuesday, but the city’s combined pay increases for base pay total 15.5% and the union’s stands at 25%.
The union kept the first-year raise at 11% in its proposal, but offered slightly smaller raises in the second and third years; from 9% to 8% and from 7% to 6%, respectively. The city said it would consider the union’s proposal and respond with a financial counter during its next bargaining session on Aug. 23.
Currently, a first-year firefighter receives $57,576 in base pay and the longest tenured district chief receives $106,872.
In their proposals, the sides have also agreed to shift $2,400 in current incentive and uniform pay over to base pay and the city has conceded on the length of the contract from five years to three. They have signed tentative agreements for eight of the 38 contract sections (nearly 21%), two of which — language about vacations and parental leave — were signed Tuesday.
Negotiation sessions, which are open to the public and streamed online started in February. Tuesday marked the 12th time the parties have met this year.
The City’s budget
Public safety — which includes police and fire departments — accounts for about 60% of the roughly $1.6 billion general fund. As a budget policy, the city aims to cap that spending at 66%.
“This proposal falls well below the 66% threshold for budgeting purposes, and we know … that enables the city to reach [its] goal,” Poulson said at the table. “And so [the union’s wage proposal is] significant movement, we think on our part.”
But that 66% is a suggested maximum, not a target, VIllagómez responded. “That’s not the only driver for the city’s economic proposal. We have to take into account the whole general fund of our revenues and expenses. … We have to take into account how much resources we have available for the contract.”
Later in the meeting, Jones said that sounds like fire was being “crowded out” of the budget.
“It’s not,” Villagómez responded, ending the tense exchange.
In May, the city anticipated making significant cuts to the budget, which triggered several city council members to call for more “transparency” around the then-stalled contract negotiations. Ultimately, the full council was given a status update one week later with little fanfare.
The last path to a contract involved lawsuits, court-ordered mediation, dramatic press conferences and a fierce proposition election initiated by the fire union.
Through the 2018 election, the union successfully limited the pay and tenure of city managers to eight years and won the right to call for binding arbitration in its contract negotiations. The union ultimately flexed that right to arrive at the current contract adopted in 2020, about six years after the previous contract expired.
The arbitrated contract set firefighters back in terms of salary increases compared to the police union, Jones said.
“We are behind,” he said, “but what we’re seeing is an unwillingness to catch up” on wages.
If they can avoid arbitration this time, the 2025-2028 contract would be the first union members have had the chance to vote on since 2009.
