Police Pay Raise Proposal Nearing Tentative Sign Off

Negotiations on the police pay proposal are nearing an agreement, San Angelo Coalition of Police (SACOP) President Korby Kennedy said. City staff and the members of SACOP met for a regular Meet and Confer meeting Tuesday morning, however much of the work is still being done in the sub-committee meetings.

At the last regular meeting, SACOP expressed a desire to continue negotiations on the term of a new contract and a percentage to be met over that term, having initially pushed for bringing the police department up to 100 percent of the averages of comparable cities within a span of three years.

After a long negotiation process spanning over eight months, the city countered with an offer to bring the police department salaries up to 95 percent of their benchmark cities over four years.

“We’ve addressed them both and we’ve done modeling for both [pay scenarios],” Kennedy said Tuesday. “I think it would be too early to report on which one we’re going to go with, but I think we’re probably within a meeting of being done with that.”

The decision to form sub-committees to work out the kinks in the negotiation process was made at an April 2 regular meeting, and the smaller groups have made great strides since then, the entities agree.

“I think we’ve seen some pretty good movement in sub-committee and I think we’re right on the verge of getting that [the finished proposal] done,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy hopes to have worked out the proposal by the next regular meeting on June 19.

“We’ll go from sub-committee and basically do a sub-committee report at a regularly scheduled meeting and then do a tentative sign off on that,” Kennedy said.

Once the sub-committee has agreed upon the terms of the contract and both entities have spoken to their respective sides—City Council and the police department—the language will be worked out and ready for a vote. If the police officers vote to pass the proposal, it will go to Council for their vote. If Council approves the contract, it will go into effect in the next budget cycle.

The proposal must be ready to go by the end of September, Kennedy said, because Council begins considering budgets for the new cycle in October.

“On the 19th meeting, I’m hoping we’ll be ready to sign off on the finance,” Kennedy said.