Council approves new Meet and Confer agreement
The new Meet and Confer agreement between the city of San Marcos and the San Marcos Police Officers’ Association was approved by the city council with six votes in favor and San Marcos City Council member Alyssa Garza casting the only dissenting vote.
The vote came during the regular meeting of the council Tuesday, May 16.
A protest was held before the meeting, organized by Mano Amiga Safety, the organization that was at the forefront of the effort to compel the city to repeal the previous agreement in February.
Members of the community were divided on the agreement, as was made evident in the public comments portion of the meeting, one of the few opportunities the public has had to weigh in on the controversial aspects of the proposed, now approved agreement.
Some voiced their support of the agreement and the police force as a whole.
“It is important to note that state statute prohibits consideration of some of the issues raised. These remedies need to occur in the state legislature and not at the city council. We citizen members of the chief's advisory panel respectfully ask you to approve the new contract. Let's now focus on the challenges facing the community to make San Marcos a safer place to live and to visit,” Stephanie Korcheck said, during the public comment portion of the council meeting.
Others said they were not satisfied with the outcome of the recent negotiations that placed an agreement before the council that addressed some but not all of the proposed Hartman Reforms which Mano Amiga Safety was supporting.
“We as a community should and will aim higher than the crumbs that have fallen from this table of negotiations. Instead, we’ll go after the whole loaf,” Eric Martinez said, also during the public comment portion of the council meeting.
The requested Hartman Reforms include the abolition of the 180-day statute of limitations for investigating officer misconduct, the abolishment of the 48-hour preparation time for interviews having to do with officer misconduct, public transparency for personnel files, abolishment of third party arbitration and the ending of vacation forfeiture in lieu of suspension.
“It makes me wonder why they [city council] voted to repeal it to begin with because it’s essentially the same contract,” Mano Amiga Safety Communications Director Sam Benavides said.
In a comparison of the previous agreement to the newly approved agreement, there were five contractual changes negotiated during the meetings that began in March.
For example, the role of an arbitrator when considering disciplinary appeals will be limited, compared to what is provided for in civil service law.
Article 22 of the new agreement states, “The award of the arbitrator shall state whether the Chief’s disciplinary decision, which includes the original written statement and charges, is supported in whole, or in part, by a preponderance of the evidence considering the reliable and probative evidence in the records as a whole.
Unless there is evidence that the Chief’s decision was: 1. The result of unlawful discrimination. 2. Based on sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behavior (capricious). 3. Based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system (arbitrary).
The arbitrator may not substitute his/her judgment for the Chief’s on the disciplinary penalty when the conduct has been found to constitute gross or sustained insubordination that has not been corrected by documented progressive discipline/coaching/ counseling, untruthfulness or allegations of criminal misconduct.”
A new performance review system is adopted for use when considering employees eligible for promotion. This new system will consider letters of reprimand and suspensions as factors in the overall score of the candidates being considered for promotions. The new formula to calculate the final score for the corporal and sergeant rank promotions will be weighted 40% for the written examination score, 40% for the assessment center score and 20% for the performance review. The formula to calculate the final score for the commander rank promotions will be weighted 30% for the written examination score, 50% for the assessment center score and 20% for the performance review.
An officer will not be eligible for a promotion if two years prior to the date of appointment they have either a temporary suspension of more than three days, a demotion in rank or a combination of a minor suspension of less than three days and another substantiated policy violation resulting in at least a written reprimand.
As far as public transparency, there will now be live streaming of future negotiation meetings.
The term of the new agreement is June 8 to Sept. 30, 2026, with a one year extension provision through Sept. 30, 2027 subject to agreement by both parties.
Modifications to the civil service 180-day rule were also made, allowing the department more time to investigate misconduct.
Article 23 of the new proposed agreement states, “all formal discipline shall comply with the time limits outlined below: A. For alleged noncriminal violations, the Chief must file a written complaint within 180 days of the occurrence of the alleged act and temporarily or indefinitely suspend the officer no later than the 180th day after the date the complaint of the alleged violation is filed by the Chief. For alleged sexual harassment violations, the Chief must file a written complaint within 300 days of the occurrence of the alleged act (as defined in state or federal law) and temporarily or indefinitely suspend the officer no later than the 180th day after the date the complaint of the alleged violation is filed by the Chief. For alleged criminal violations, the Chief must file a written complaint within 180 days of the Chief’s discovery of the alleged act and temporarily or indefinitely suspend the officer no later than the 180th day after the complaint of the alleged violation is filed by the Chief; provided, however, the 180-day period shall be extended for a period not to exceed 30 days after final disposition of any pending criminal proceedings regarding the alleged act.”
But opposition to these changes was evident before and during the council meeting.
“Zero of the five Hartman reforms proposed by Pam Watts are met by this agreement,” Benavides said. “We spent the last six-plus weeks listening to our city leadership and police association argue over crumbs that frankly, no one cares about and no one asked for. This contract has such minor tweaks, but it's essentially the exact same contract that they voted to reject back in February. The only minor change is that now they’re actually going to have a point system for promotion processes and actually weighing letters of reprimand into that point system. That’s something that we are simply not going to applaud because it’s actually ridiculous that they weren’t doing that already.”
The new meet and confer agreement salaries for police officers do differ for Year 1, 2 and 3 of the agreement. For Year 1, a cadet will make $55,995; an officer will make from $63,694 to $88,596; a corporal will make $73,734 to $93,026; a sergeant will make $85,265 to $101,401; and a commander will make $107,125 to $128,621. For Year 2 of the agreement, a cadet will make $58,795; an officer will make $66,879 to $93,026; a corporal will make $77,421 to $97,677; a sergeant will make $89,528 to $106,471; and a commander will make $112,482 to $135,053. For Year 3 of the agreement, a cadet will make $61,734; an officer will make $70,223 to $97,677; a corporal will make $81,292 to $102,561; a sergeant will make $94,005 to $111,795; and a commander will make $118,106 to $141,805.
The majority of the city council members supported the new agreement.
“I think this is a fair agreement. I really do. I think both sides got some things that they wanted and some things that they didn’t. I do hope that the criminal justice reform movement that has been pushing a lot of this stuff realizes how important some of the things [are] that you did get, that you probably wouldn’t have gotten otherwise,” San Marcos City Council Member Mark Gleason said. “These are tough decisions, and this is a tough negotiation. These are emotional topics.”
San Marcos City Council Member Jude Prather said there has been measured progress in police reform with the new agreement.
“You’re not going to change things overnight. You’re going to keep moving the needle forward. We want a police department that attracts the best,” Prather said.
Garza said she does not disagree with Prather on attracting the best police to serve our community, but wants to ensure that those officers that behave badly have to pay the consequences for that behavior.
“I don’t understand how any of the Hartman Reforms would be an impediment to any of those things you [Prather] just talked about. Yes, we need to recruit the best officers, but we also have to make sure that the not so good officers are held accountable,” Garza said. “There was a lot of progress. I’ll acknowledge that, but compare that [the old agreement] to what we have right now, and there’s very few edits. What kind of message does that give to our neighbors? It’s kind of messed up. Trust in the police is important for safety, but there’s not going to be trust if people still feel like they’re being unheard.”
Garza said she thought that there should have been conversations between the council and the public that were two directional instead of one directional.
“Community input is substantially different from community dialogue,” Garza said. “We chose to have behind-closed-doors conversations regarding the reforms, instead of having a dialogue to ensure all of our neighbors on either side had a fuller understanding of the contract and the process.”
Garza said she was seeking clarity from the rest of the council as to why negotiations were so hidden from the public.
“I remember just hearing all of the boogeyman rationales to why we couldn’t engage in a town hall for example,” Garza said. “How did we do this instead of that?” City Manager Stephanie Reyes offered an explanation of how the process for negotiation was established.
“At the very beginning of this process, I came to you as council, and I asked, ‘Do you want to have a community dialogue? Do you want to do it in a meeting? Do you want to do it in executive session?’ And the direction that I received was, ‘these are the parameters and you need to go out and do that.’ ... Was it unanimous? No, but that was the majority of the consensus,” Reyes said. “We don’t have everybody happy with the agreement. It definitely wasn’t for lack of wanting to have a process.”
Reyes pointed out that as a member of this community, it is important to her that all feel safe as well.
“This is not an adversarial process. This is not a system of them calling the shots or us calling the shots. We have to work together. We’re a team. Ultimately this is about the betterment of San Marcos,” Reyes said. “I’ve got kids in this community. That’s my most important resource. That’s my most important prize in my life, so I want what’s good for San Marcos. I’m not here negotiating as somebody who is on the outside. I care about this community.”
Mano Amiga officials said they have plans to fight back against the new agreement in the same way that they did previously.
“It’s clear to us now that the city leadership lacks the political will to advocate for these changes, and obviously the cops are not going to give up these undeserved special protections themselves, and so we’re prepared once again to take matters into our own hands and work to opt our city out of the 143 process. We will undo the entire process all together,” Benavides said. “Mano Amiga Safety will collect signatures from 10% of the registered voters, and just like last time, it will go to council. They can vote to approve our petition or reject it, or send it to the ballot which we anticipate they will send it to the ballot. It was shocking that they didn’t do that last time. Then the people will vote on it.'
