Austin City Hall poised to approve new police contract

• Protests of police brutality in 2020, sparked by the murder of George Floyd, prompted questions in Austin, as in most American cities, about the city's relationship with its police force.

Context: A new police union president — Michael Bullock — found common ground this year with Mayor Kirk Watson, who has made finalizing a contract a priority as part of a wider effort to boost police staffing.

• Watson is up for re-election in November.
• Meanwhile, nearly 20% of sworn Austin police officer positions — 355 of 1,812 — are currently unstaffed.

What they're saying: "Austin is facing an affordability emergency," Watson wrote in his Watson Wire newsletter in September. "That applies to cops, too. They need to be able to afford to live here. And if we want to be a city that's able to recruit and keep police officers, we need to be competitive with other cities and show we care about the importance of our officers being a part of the community."

By the numbers: Current base pay for a first-year officer is $65,411. Base pay for an officer with 23 years of service is $109,382.

• Under the proposed contract, officers would get a 28% increase in wages over five years — the largest pay raise the department has seen in decades.
• Base pay would increase by 8% in year one, 6% in year two, 5% in each of years three and four, and 4% in the last year of the agreement.
• The total value of the contract is $217.8 million.

The intrigue: Lawyers for the city and the police union differ on what the proposed contract means for records related to officer misconduct, traditionally kept confidential in a so-called G file.

• Bullock told the American-Statesman the contract language was "pretty straightforward" and would keep pre-contract misconduct records secret.
• But interim city attorney Deborah Thomas wrote in a late September memo that "all documentation related to police officer misconduct — whether the conduct occurred before or after the effective date of the [contract], is not confidential."

Flashback: A state district judge in August ruled that the city's G file was prohibited due to the voter-approved Austin Police Oversight Act.

• "The city of Austin no longer maintains G-files," Austin city manager T.C. Broadnax said in September.

The other side: The contract "threatens to defund essential city services like fire and EMS, while also undermining the Austin Police Oversight Act — a vital safeguard for transparency and accountability in our community," the Austin Justice Coalition said in a statement.

• Officials with AFSCME Local 1624 — a union that represents 4,500 city and county workers — said in early October that the contract "raises significant concerns regarding transparency and equity for the rest of Austin's workforce."

What's next: The police contract, which the council could approve at its Thursday meeting, comes amid a wider investment in public safety.

• The Council is set to spend $107.6 million to buy a 386,000-square-foot property on Barton Skyway, near Zilker Park, to serve as a new combined headquarters for police, fire and EMS.