After months of deliberation, the politically influential firefighters’ union announced Monday morning that it will launch a campaign against a proposition on San Antonio’s November ballot that would undo tenure and pay caps for the city manager — the same caps the union worked to install six years ago.
“These measures were designed to ensure accountability, fairness, and balance within our city’s administration,” San Antonio Professional Firefighter Association President Joe Jones said in a news release. “Term limits promote a healthy rotation of leadership and fresh perspectives in our city’s governance. Furthermore, tying the City Manager’s salary boundary to the lowest-paid city employee’s wage underscores our commitment to fair and healthy working conditions for all city employees.”
The decision was made after union leadership met extensively with membership, including firefighters and paramedics, and the executive board voted unanimously to oppose Prop C, Jones said.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg, who is serving his final term on council, and a coalition of local leaders have argued that the restrictions prevent the city from attracting top talent for the city manager position. Prop C would revert control over city manager pay and tenure back to City Council, which can still remove the city manager at any time with a majority vote.
San Antonio has a council-manager form of government, meaning the city manager runs the organization’s day-to-day and implements policies set by the city council. The city has a nearly $4 billion annual budget, more than 40 departments and about 15,000 employees, including the roughly 1,800 members of the fire union.
The RenewSA political action committee plans to raise and spend more than $1 million to get all the propositions passed, with an emphasis on Prop C.
“[Prop C] ensures San Antonio is competitive and doesn’t lose top city manager prospects to cities like Austin, Dallas and Phoenix,” local philanthropist and entrepreneur Gordon Hartman, a tri-chair of RenewSA, said in a statement. “Since 2018, San Antonio is the only Texas city to cap its city manager’s salary and tenure, which puts our ability to hire and retain the best city manager in jeopardy”
It’s unclear how much the union’s PAC will spend on a campaign to defeat Prop C. The union spent nearly $900,000 to get three propositions passed in 2018 — two were successful. As of late September, it had more than $900,000 on hand.
Another small group of civically engaged individuals soft-launched a website last week that also calls for voters to vote against Prop C, but that group does not plan on mounting a formal campaign.
Opposition groups face a tight fundraising and awareness timeline. Early voting for the Nov. 5 election starts in just two weeks. The deadline to register is Monday.
In 2018, nearly 60% of voters supported a union-backed charter amendment that capped the city manager’s pay at 10 times the lowest-paid city employee and tenure at eight years. Entry-level employees earn $37,440 annually ($18 per hour) so the city manager earns $374,400.
City Manager Erik Walsh has held the position since 2019.
In an interview last month, Hartman attributed the 2018 proposition’s victory to the firefighters union.
“They had firefighters at every polling place, and it’s hard to tell a firefighter no,” Hartman said. “When they voted on that, it was more of an emotional vote than it was a practical and logical vote.”
Back then, the propositions stemmed from a longstanding labor contract conflict between previous city manager Sheryl Sculley and the previous president of the fire union, Chris Steele — both of whom served unusually long terms themselves of more than a decade.
“Our advocacy is rooted in the principles of progressive leadership and is not personal against any current City leadership,” Jones stated. “We maintain tremendous respect for our City Manager, Erik Walsh, and Deputy City Manager, Maria Villagomez, and appreciate their dedication to our community.”
The union’s move comes less than three weeks after council approved a labor contract that will give firefighters and paramedics a more than 20% wage increase over three years. It was a process that, compared to the last round of negotiations, seemed to signal a step away from the acrimony of years past.
“Absolutely we’ve turned a new page,” Jones told the San Antonio Report. “We’ve established a new relationship, a healthy relationship. “[It] would be a misinterpretation [that we’re] going backward — like two steps forward, one step back.
“We have faith in EriK’s professionalism, that he’s not going to misinterpret this as a personal attack,” he added.
The impact that Prop C may have on Walsh personally is why the decision took so long to make, Jones said.
“We think it’s unfortunate that this may impact [Walsh] and his career trajectory,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s not about a person, it’s about a principle.”
A tinge of deja vu — with new players on the board
Starting in 2013, Sculley, at the direction of elected officials, took a hard line on reining in the ballooning health care costs of public safety union employees.
Staff estimates at the time suggested that spending on wages and benefits for uniformed personnel and their dependents would eventually consume the city’s general fund. The city also filed a lawsuit in November 2014 challenging the so-called evergreen clause that allowed most contract terms to continue for up to 10 years after it expires.
That triggered both police and fire unions to engage in years-long efforts to protect the evergreen clause and their health care plans, which covered members and their families without requiring premiums. Former fire union President Steele launched a full-on attack on Sculley, which included the successful 2018 ballot measure that capped future city manager’s salary and tenure.
When Sculley announced her retirement later that year after 13 years on the job, she was the City of San Antonio’s highest-paid employee, earning a base salary of $450,000 in 2017 and $475,000 in 2018. In 2016, she earned close to $590,000, with a base pay of $425,000 and other compensation.
With 51% approval in 2018, voters also granted the fire union the unilateral ability to call for binding arbitration in contract negotiations. It’s a power the union availed itself of in 2019, but ultimately leadership had buyer’s remorse.
The union won base pay raises for the next four years, but nothing close to making up for the six years spent going without.
This time, the two sides celebrated the spirit of collaboration and the speed at which they reached a new contract.
But there were still some bumps along the way.
In May, several city council members called for more “transparency” around the then-stalled contract negotiations. Ultimately, the full council was given a status update one week later with little fanfare and talks restarted at the bargaining table.
The union is officially neutral on the other propositions on the ballot this year, Jones said.
Prop A, the first of the measures, would enhance and clarify the Ethics Review Board’s authority. Prop B would remove out-of-date language across the charter, Prop D would allow city employees to engage with local political campaigns, Prop E would raise the salaries of the mayor and City Council members and Prop F would lengthen the term lengths for the mayor and City Council.
The union is “laser-focused” on Prop C, Jones said.
This article will be updated.
Disclosure: Erika Gonzalez, a tri-chair of RenewSA, sits on the San Antonio Report’s board of directors.