The city of San Antonio and the police union have reached a tentative labor agreement that would give officers a cumulative 16.5% base pay raise over the next three years while making changes intended to improve staffing and patrol coverage.<\/p>\n
The proposed three-year contract, announced Friday, would cost the city about $102.2 million over the life of the agreement.<\/p>\n
Negotiations began Jan. 30, with city officials and the San Antonio Police Officers Association meeting 10 times before reaching the tentative deal.<\/p>\n
City officials said the agreement would keep San Antonio among the top three Texas cities in overall police compensation while maintaining the city’s long-term financial stability.<\/p>\n
“This agreement delivers meaningful pay increases and strong health benefits for our police officers while balancing the City’s long-term fiscal health and our ability to fund the mandated services residents depend on,” City Manager Erik Walsh said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Walsh said reaching an agreement before City Council adopts next year’s budget, which kicks in Oct.1, would give the city a clearer picture of its upcoming costs.<\/p>\n
According to the city, an independent study conducted before the start of contract talks found the San Antonio Police Department ranked among the top three large Texas police departments in total compensation, including salary, health care, pension and retiree benefits.<\/p>\n
In addition to the pay increases, the tentative agreement would change patrol schedules by realigning shifts to better match periods of high call volume.<\/p>\n
City officials said the changes are expected to increase officer availability for “proactive policing” \u2014 the aim of which is to prevent crimes \u2014 while giving officers more scheduling flexibility, improving retention and enhancing operational efficiency.<\/p>\n
The tentative agreement must be ratified by the police union’s members before it goes to City Council for final approval.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The city of San Antonio and the police union have reached a tentative labor agreement that would give…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-377086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}