San Antonio voters approved all six charter amendments on the November ballot, including raises for the city council, longer council and mayoral term lengths, and a removal of salary and tenure caps on the city manager.
Proposition C, which removed city manager caps, and Proposition F, which extended council and mayoral terms from two to four years, had the closest results of the six propositions.
Proposition A will revise the city’s ethics code to include a definition of conflicts of interest and ensure the Ethics Review Board has adequate funding to carry out its duties.
With 150 of 302 vote centers in Bexar County reporting, voters approved Prop A 72-28.
Proposition B will revise the city charter to remove or update outdated language, including the introduction of gender-neutral language.
With 150 of 302 vote centers in Bexar County reporting, voters approved Prop B 68-32.
Proposition C will remove the salary and tenure caps for the city manager position voters approved in 2018. Those caps limited the role to an eight-year term and to a salary no greater than ten times the lowest-paid salaried city worker.
With 150 of 302 vote centers in Bexar County reporting, voters approved Prop C 54-46.
Prop C’s approval is a loss for the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association (SAPFA), which pushed for the salary and tenure caps back in 2018.
SAPFA President Joe Jones suggested one potential reason for the outcome was the ballot language. Here’s that language, which an October poll by UTSA's Center for Public Opinion Research suggested led to increased support:
“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?"
“It does seem like deceptive language,” Jones said. “I’m not going to say that that’s entirely at fault.”
But Jones said SAPFA didn’t see Prop C’s success as a crisis.
“I hate to be anticlimactic for you, but yeah it really is [easy to let go], because we’ve already proven that there’s better ways to do business with the City of San Antonio. We’ve built healthy relationships with city management.”
The fire union’s membership ratified a collective bargaining agreement with the city for the first time since 2009 this summer.
A group of San Antonio business leaders, the San Antonio Business Coalition, poured money into the race to support Prop C.
Proposition D will remove a 72-year ban on city workers engaging in city politics even while off the job.
With 150 of 302 vote centers in Bexar County reporting, voters approved Prop D 62-38.
Prop D’s approval is a victory for the American Federation of Municipal, County, and State Employees (AFSCME), which represents thousands of San Antonio city employees, and which undertook a monthslong effort to have the removal of the ban added to this November’s ballot.
AFSCME Area Field Services Director Guillermo Vazquez said he heard from citizens during pre-election door-knocking that they were on city employees’ side.
“We are jumping and thanking the citizens of San Antonio because so far from all the work we've done on the doors and at the polling sites, we could tell the citizens understand the issue and are buying into the same concept that we all want, which is the freedom and the same rights as the democratic process,” he said.
Prop D’s success means that all city employees will be able to engage in politicking and campaigning in the lead-up to next May’s municipal elections.
Proposition E will give the mayor and city council positions roughly $25,000 raises starting next May. Those salaries will then be indexed to a U.S. Housing and Urban Development measure of the average median income for a family of four in San Antonio.
Council salaries will go from $45,722 to $70,200, and the mayoral salary will go from $61,725 to $87,800. The salary adjustments will go into effect once a new council and mayor are elected in May.
With 150 of 302 vote centers in Bexar County reporting, voters approved Prop E 64-36.
Supporters of Prop E said it was necessary to ensure that regular San Antonians could run for office, while detractors said it was an improper use of tax dollars.
District 2 Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez was one of Prop E’s biggest proponents on the council. On Tuesday night, he said it is an important step for a more class-inclusive city council.
“What it will mean is it's going to be significantly easier for working class, regular, everyday people to run for office and so it'll be more realistic to see more of the everyday person hold city council positions,” he said.
Proposition F will extend council and mayoral terms from two years to four years. Council members and the mayor will still be limited to a maximum of eight years in office.
With 150 of 302 vote centers in Bexar County reporting, voters approved Prop F 53-47.
Prop F’s passage means that after the upcoming May 2025 elections, most council seats and the mayor’s office won’t be up for reelection until 2029. Some council seats will have special elections over the course of the next decade to ensure no council member currently on their first or third term serves more than eight years.
