A new UTSA Center for Public Opinion Research (CPOR) likely voter poll found that a majority of San Antonio voters now support pay raises for the city council and mayor, and almost half support the elimination of tenure and salary caps for the city manager.
However, the apparent new support for the two propositions may have more to do with how the ballot language is written than what the charter amendments would actually do.
The poll also found that 70% of San Antonio voters are still unfamiliar with the charter amendments on the ballot, despite already being several days into early voting.
Proposition C deals with city manager salary and tenure caps. It would eliminate an eight-year term limit and a salary restriction of no more than ten times the lowest-paid salaried city employee that voters imposed on the position in 2018.
Proposition E deals with raises for the council and mayor. It would give each of them raises of about $25,000, elevating the mayoral salary to around $86,000 and the council salary to around $70,000. It would then tie those salaries to a federal yearly measure of the median income for a San Antonio household of four.
UTSA’s September and October polls had two major findings related to Props C and E. First, when voters were presented with the ballot language they’ll see when they go to vote for Props C and E instead of a description of what they would do, support jumped nearly 25%.
About 52% supported council and mayoral raises, and 46% supported city manager changes in the October poll using the exact ballot language.
Prop C’s ballot language is this: “Shall the Charter of the City of San Antonio be amended to grant to City Council the authority to set the full terms of the City Manager’s employment including tenure and compensation?"
Prop E’s ballot language is this: “Shall the Charter of the City of San Antonio be amended to set and limit the compensation for City Council members and the Mayor at $70,200 and $87,800 annually with annual future adjustments to correlate to the United States Housing and Urban Development 4-member household median income for San Antonio, and authorize a Council member or the Mayor to decline any or all of the established compensation?”
The second finding in UTSA’s poll was that very few voters received any campaign messaging in the form of a mailer, door knock, or phone call urging them to support or oppose any charter amendments.
Taken together, they suggest that the major increase in support for the two propositions likely had more to do with ballot language than voter persuasion, though they do not entirely rule voter persuasion out.
UTSA’s CPOR Director Bryan Gervais explained why the language might make an impact for Prop E specifically. “What we think is happening — and what we’re trying to dig into a little bit more — is voters are reading the actual ballot language, and they see the term ‘set and limit’ the compensation, and don’t necessarily recognize that this means we’re giving a raise to the mayor and city council,” he said.
The October poll also found an increase in support for Proposition D, which would eliminate a 72-year ban on city employees engaging in municipal politics outside of their working hours, up 5% from UTSA’s September poll to 50%.
Support for the extension of mayoral and council terms from two to four years, Proposition F, slightly increased from 43% to 46%.
Support for ethics revisions in Proposition A maintained a steady majority support shy of 60%, while the charter amendment that would make language revisions to the charter amendment, Proposition B, dropped from 63% to 17%. But opposition remained essentially unchanged at 10%.
Gervais said that is explained by the inclusion of exact ballot language in the October poll, and it almost certainly doesn’t reflect an actual drop in support for what Prop B would do.
“That’s really because if you look at Prop B, it’s really just lines and lines and lines of particular sections of the city charter that would be updated. And so when people see this in the survey, they opt for the not sure rather than reading it,” Gervais said. “The low support isn’t really there. We assume most people probably support this when they actually go and vote on it.”
The UTSA poll for support of mayoral candidates in next year’s mayoral election found that the race is still wide open, with 40% of voters unfamiliar with any of the candidates and another 30% who don’t know who they would vote for. District 9 Councilmember John Courage led the expanding pack of candidates with support from 6% of survey respondents.
In the federal races, the poll found a slight dip in support for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and generic Democratic U.S. House of Representatives candidates by five points, but an increase in support for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Colin Allred of four points. Support for Donald Trump, generic Republican U.S. House of Representatives candidates, and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz all remained essentially unchanged.
The survey of likely voters in San Antonio was taken just before the start of early voting, included 656 people, and had a margin of error of 3.8%. The survey was conducted in English and Spanish.
