A new labor deal between Austin and its police force may be adopted this fall, and elected officials and community members are now reviewing the agreement's potential effects on public safety, city finances and transparency.
The setup
The city and the Austin Police Association have now been out of contract for over a year and a half, leaving the police force without stable terms for things like pay, benefits, training processes and promotions.
A contract was proposed and presented early last year, but City Council never took that agreement up and instead has approved stopgap compensation packages for Austin Police Department. Labor negotiations restarted earlier this year, and a tentative agreement between the city and APA was finalized in September.
The contract remains under consideration ahead of its anticipated adoption by both sides. City Council is scheduled to vote on the deal Oct. 24.
Officials held their first public analysis of the five-year deal Oct. 8, including a preview of its expected financial impacts and a review of its police oversight provisions—a key sticking point in the past year, and an issue that contributed to the last contract's rejection.
City Manager T.C. Broadnax has highlighted a new contract as among his top priorities since arriving in Austin earlier this year, and said the result of months of negotiations will meet the city's needs.
“This agreement not only includes groundbreaking measures to enhance police oversight, but also provisions for improving the Austin Police Department’s hiring and promotional process," he said. "Further, it recommends meaningful investments in officer pay and benefits helping to bring much-needed stability to the department.”
The cost
The new contract would give APD officers a nearly 30% raise over five years and includes various officer incentives. Altogether, city finance staff say it'll cost about $218 million.
Council members raised some concern over locking in the escalating costs, and the effect on other city departments and services—especially as state law effectively bans police budget reductions.
However, despite previously projecting larger budget gaps coming this decade, staff said this month that deficits would actually be much smaller and that the contract will have a "minimal" fiscal impact.
Budgeting concerns have persisted this year, and the city's own financial forecast released in April anticipated growing general fund deficits that'd reach nearly $60 million by fiscal year 2028-29. However, that dropped to an $11.2 million deficit for FY 2028-29 in July projections for the city’s proposed budget, and fell to $6 million or less in new projections this fall accounting for the proposed contrac
“[F]inancial staff, led by City management, are confident in our ability to achieve long‐term structural stability in pursuit of compliance with the City Charter’s requirement of a balanced budget each year,” Lang wrote.
The contract cost also led to some discussion of whether Austin leaders may need to ask voters to approve higher taxes in future years to cover city costs. Broadnax and Mayor Kirk Watson said Austin may face constrained financial growth, but the police contract likely wouldn't lead to a tax rate election on its own.
Zooming in
With the contract included, APD’s budget is expected to jump nearly 23% over five years, reaching an estimated $610 million by FY 2028-29—representing over a third of Austin’s general fund.
A resolution from council member Ryan Alter that will be considered alongside the APA agreement Oct. 24 calls for additional reporting if that share grows. City Council would be informed if the police department seeks funding that'd take up more of the budget than is currently projected, due to any operational updates or other potential rising costs.
Alter said the new requirement is needed given the state’s restriction on lowering cities’ police spending, and Austin’s “razor-thin” budget margins that could affect other departments and services.
“We have to be very judicious about the money that’s being allocated and spent by the police department, because you could find yourself in a situation where they are eating up more of the budget than we have anticipated today,” he said. “I just think it’s good fiscal responsibility to get reporting from the manager about their expenditures, and then for the department to justify any spending increases that are greater than what we’re projecting today.”
What they're saying
At council's Oct. 8 work session, many residents petitioned council to adopt the new contract and support Austin's police force. Some also called to improve city public safety efforts and lengthy response times to incidents in the community.
On the other side, some community members questioned the tentative deal's cost on the heels of a budget process that saw officials make much smaller funding allocations to homeless housing, downtown emergency response, parks maintenance and other city services. AFSCME Local 1624, the labor group representing civilian city workers, said the deal risks leaving other city services underfunded.
Council member Alison Alter said officials should approach the contract decision carefully given its price tag. She also noted that the estimates don't account for other financial commitments due to city first responders through their agreements, like their own staffing increases.
“This forecast says a $2 million deficit or a $6 million deficit, but it does not add anything else to it. Even things that we’ve talked about," she said. "We have to understand that, and the council moving forward is going to have to understand that there are going to be really hard decisions to make."
Also of note
Some new provisions in the contract are meant to align with the Austin Police Oversight Act, approved by voters as Proposition A in the May 2023 election.
The proposed labor agreement now covers new processes for officer investigations and discipline, filing anonymous complaints against officers, and the city's maintenance of confidential public safety personnel records—the "g-file," named after Section 143.089(g) of state government code.
The oversight act established that Austin could no longer keep g-files secret, but that change wasn't immediately rolled out.
While council members formally voted to ensure the city was following its oversight provisions a year ago, criminal justice reform group Equity Action ended up suing to settle the g-file issue. This summer, a district court judge ruled the records can be disclosed.
APA President Michael Bullock told council Oct. 8 that the organization disagrees with that result, but the new contract won't limit g-file releases. Council member Chito Vela also confirmed that, even if more litigation might be on the way, the records can be made public under the new deal.
Still, Kathy Mitchell, senior adviser for Equity Action, said the group has reservations about the labor agreement's handling of city transparency rules related to the g-file and officer investigations, especially if more legal challenges are expected.
“We’re not satisfied," she said. "If it is true that both sides agree and there’s a meeting of the minds that the g-file is finished in Austin, then they should write it that way, and they should not object to going back to the table for an amendment so that it says what all of the parties claim that it says.”
Since the October work session, some council members have called on the city to expedite the release of g-file materials.
