The San Antonio City Council finalized the six charter amendments that will appear on San Antonio voters’ ballots on Nov. 5 on Thursday.
The city charter amendment issues for voters to decide on are mayoral and council pay, mayoral and council term lengths, city manager tenure and salary caps, municipal employee political activity, city ethics revisions, and language modernization changes.
The Charter Review Commission, established by Mayor Ron Nirenberg last November, spent months assessing different areas of the city charter for potential updates in private meetings and public sessions where they received dozens of comments from residents.
Voters will be asked to decide whether their city council members should be paid an annual salary of $70,200 and the mayor paid an annual salary of $87,800 in Proposition E.
Those salaries match the 2023 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Income Limits for San Antonio, which tracks cities’ average median incomes for families of four.
The proposed council pay is 80% of the 2023 average median income of San Antonio, and the proposed mayoral pay is 100% of the 2023 average median income of San Antonio.
The salaries would then be indexed to the HUD figures, changing as the city’s average median income for a family of four changes.
If voters approve the raises, the salaries will not go into effect until after the next council election in May, and any council member or mayor who does not wish to take the raise will have the ability to decline it.
The council voted to place Proposition E on the ballot by an 8-3 vote, with the three attorneys on council — District 6’s Melissa Cabello Havrda, District 8’s Manny Peláez, and District 10’s Marc Whyte — voting against it.
Whyte said he didn’t believe more taxpayer funds should go to pay the city council.
Several members of council who supported the amendment said city residents shouldn’t have to be attorneys making money on the side in order to serve in council or as mayor.
“For most of us this is a more than full-time job that has not kept up with the cost of living,” District 2 Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez said. “So until we make it so that a teacher, a health care worker, a community health worker, a hospitality worker is able to be on this dais without sacrificing their quality of life, the role is inaccessible still.”
Council and mayoral salaries were last changed in 2015, when they were increased to $45,722 for council members and $61,725 for the mayor, salaries that were aligned with the average median income of San Antonio at that time.
Before then, council members were paid $20 per meeting.
The original recommendations from the Charter Review Commission were council salaries of $80,000 and mayoral salaries of $95,000, before council members stepped in to call on the raises to be significantly reduced.
Voters will also be asked to extend city council and mayoral term lengths to four years, up from two, in Proposition F. The new rule would still limit council members and the mayor to serve a total of eight years and keep the elections concurrent.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg said residents had the power through a recall election to remove council members early, and he explained why he believed four-year terms better serve the city’s residents.
“The opportunity to get good things done in the city through council offices will be bolstered by the fact that council members will have a longer period of time to focus on work rather than campaign politics,” he said.
The new term lengths would go into effect beginning in the next council election cycle in May 2025.
Under the amendment, if a current third-term council member is re-elected for a fourth term in May, they will serve out two years of the new four-year term before a special election is held for their seat so that no council member will exceed eight years of service.
According to an election schedule shared by the city, these kinds of special elections will be required for Districts 4 and 6 in 2027 and Districts 1, 7, and 10 in 2031, assuming all current council members run for re-election and win.
The council supported Proposition F on an 8-3 vote, with Peláez, Whyte, and District 7 Councilmember Marina Alderete Gavito opposed. The three members said they believe two-year election cycles make elected officials more accountable to local residents.
Council placed another charter amendment on the ballot that, if approved, would remove the salary and tenure caps on the city manager.
Proposition C attempts to reverse the change made during a contract fight between the San Antonio Professional Firefighters and then-City Manager Sheryl Sculley in 2018. The union successfully pushed to limit city manager tenure to eight years and cap the position’s salary to 10 times the lowest paid salaried city employee.
Most of the city council has said since it is their role to hire and fire the city manager, they need the authority to decide how long to employ the city manager and how much to pay them.
The issue of municipal employees’ political activity was added on by city staff after the Charter Review Commission presented its recommendations to the city council in June. Representatives from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) repeatedly attended Charter Review Commission public sessions to advocate for removing the 72-year ban on city employees engaging publicly in municipal elections, even off the clock.
AFSCME Area Field Services Director Guillermo Vazquez spoke at Thursday’s council meeting in favor of the charter amendment.
“72 years, eight months, and seven days — but who’s counting right? — is far too long to have our voice discounted,” Vazquez said.
Proposition D would leave in place rules that prohibit city employees from politicking while in uniform or at work, as well as prohibit elected officials from pressuring city employees to support them. But it would allow them to block walk, work on municipal campaigns, donate money, and more for local political candidates on their own time.
Proposition A will ask voters to approve certain ethics policy revisions, including an explicit definition of “conflicts of interest,” requiring sufficient funding for the city’s Ethics Review Board (ERB), and giving some additional powers to the ERB to accept or decline complaints that have already been resolved by other entities.
Language modernization changes to the charter in Proposition B are intended to update outdated language and switch to gender neutral terms. They received unanimous support from the council.
The city council declined to add a charter amendment to address future investments in youth development that advocates had called for throughout the Charter Review Commission process and city council meetings discussing the charter amendments. The proposed language would have set aside a portion of all new city revenue to youth services.
Council said they supported youth funding, but that a charter amendment was not an effective way to do it.
“We are looking at a budget deficit over at least the next five years,” District 2 Councilmember McKee-Rodriguez said. “So if we passed a charter amendment that dedicated surplus funding for youth, it would mean zero dollars in this fund projected over the next five years.”
Nirenberg said he has directed city staff to conduct due diligence to find better ways to ensure the city is funding youth services.
