The San Antonio Charter Review Commission presented its final recommendations for changes to the San Antonio City Charter to the city council on Wednesday.
The list included big raises for council members and the mayor, new term lengths for council and the mayor, and the elimination of tenure and salary caps for the city manager.
The city council will vote on the recommendations one by one in August, and the approved recommendations will then go to voters in November for the final decisions.
The majority of city council disagreed with the commission’s recommendation on council and mayoral salaries, one of the commission’s biggest and most debated proposals. The commission recommended increasing council salaries from $45,722 to $80,000 and the mayor’s salary from $61,725 to $95,000, and then index them to civilian city employee pay.
Most council members agreed pay should be higher so that elected office is not only reserved for the wealthy. But they said the $35,000 raises were far too high. Several suggested tying council and mayor pay in some way to the average median income of the San Antonio area, which could cut the commission’s proposed raises by about half.
Council will have the opportunity to amend the commission’s proposals during the August vote.
District 6 Councilmember Melissa Cabello Havrda suggested that if they do approve raises that they not apply to any member of the current city council through the end of their time in City Hall.
“I have a concern about the perception, even though ultimately this will be up to the voters, of us putting that on the ballot,” she said.
If council and voters approve the current proposal, it would not apply to council members or the mayor until after the next election in 2025, when nearly half of the 11-member council will be termed out.
Council was essentially unanimous on supporting the commission’s recommendation to eliminate the current salary and tenure caps placed on the city manager in 2019 through a charter amendment process led by the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association during a bitter contract fight between the union and the city.
The pay cap is tied to 10 times the lowest paid full-time civilian employee, which amounts to a bit less than $400,000, and the term limit is eight years.
Members said they need the ability to attract talent to San Antonio for the position, and the salary and tenure caps limit their power to do so.
District 9 Councilmember John Courage said if residents are displeased with who is being appointed to the city manager position and how much they’re being paid, they should express their displeasure by voting out their elected council member who helped appoint that individual.
Council members also broadly agreed with the commission’s minor ethics revisions and language modernization revisions in the city charter.
The recommendation where council seemed most split was on the proposal to change council and mayoral terms from two years to four years. In both cases, the maximum number of years a council member or mayor could serve is eight years.
“A large part of it though, is that one of the challenges our voters face is voter fatigue,” District 2 Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez said in support of the proposal. “It takes a lot of energy both mentally and emotionally to constantly be in a state of politics and to always be campaigned to.”’
Other members supportive of the change to four-year terms said it meant a smaller share of an elected official’s time in office would be devoted to campaigning, and more time would be spent on governing.
Opponents of the proposal said the two-year terms kept elected officials accountable to their constituents and that there was plenty of time to get work done in two years for those willing to do it.
“I believe two-year terms keep folks on their toes, and it ensures that folks are continuing to engage with their community,” District 5 Councilmember Teri Castillo said.
Council members seemed uncertain on their support for the commission’s proposal to establish a semi-independent citizen redistricting commission, citing complaints with how the process went in the last redistricting cycle with a citizen commission or concerns that it would not be independent enough.
Only a few council members commented on the commission’s recommendation to give new powers to city voters so that they could amend or increase the number of council districts through the regular charter amendment process.
District 7 Councilmember Marina Alderete Gavito said it might be too big a role for city residents to have.
“Rather than adding entire new council districts, our residents would be better served by adding additional staff to each existing district,” she said.
One item the council appeared likely to vote on that wasn’t proposed by the commission was a charter amendment that would eliminate the 1951 ban on civilian employee participation in city politics.
A majority of council members signaled their opposition to the rule, and District 8 Councilmember Manny Pelaez said he wanted council to add the item to the list that may be sent to voters in the fall.
“I don’t think that our city charter right now as it stands is congruent with the values that we espouse,” Pelaez said. “If you look at that provision, we are actively, by way of that obstacle in the charter, disenfranchising people.”
Members from the American Federation of State, City, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) repeatedly asked the commission to recommend eliminating the rule, but the commission co-chairs said they were confined to the subject areas the mayor asked them to review last year when the commission was first established.
The current charter language prohibits city employees from doing things related to municipal elections such as working for a campaign, passing out literature, attending rallies or donating money.
Some members of council also expressed interest in learning more about a request from members of the public to commit 20% of all future city revenue growth to youth services. They directed city staff to look into what such a commitment — or a similar one — might look like.
The city council will vote on which items to send to voters on Aug. 8, and voters will then vote on which items they want to add to the city’s charter in November.
