San Antonio voters may decide on more council districts, council & city manager pay in Nov. 2024 election

SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio voters might be requested subsequent fall to decide on longer phrases for council contributors, whether or not so as to add new council districts and resolve pay for council contributors and the city manager.

But the specifics of the ones conceivable poll propositions, and others, will have to first be looked after out by means of a newly reconstituted Charter Review Commission over the following seven months.

Mayor Ron Nirenberg introduced his plans for the 15-member fee in a memo to council contributors Tuesday. In his fourth and ultimate time period, Nirenberg tasked the fee with what one knowledgeable referred to as a “laundry list” of problems:

• Whether so as to add to the ten present city council districts

• Whether council member pay will have to more intently mirror the price of dwelling in San Antonio

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• Whether council and mayoral time period limits will have to trade from 4, two-year phrases to 2, four-year phrases

• Whether an unbiased citizen committee will have to maintain the decennial redistricting procedure

• Whether to undo the 2018 limits on the city manager place (8 years in the process and wage capped at 10 occasions the lowest-paid city worker)

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• Whether the city will have to appoint an unbiased ethics auditor

• Whether the Ethics Review Board will have to be self sufficient and feature the facility to compel testimony

• A catchall on whether or not the city constitution’s language must be up to date to mirror “current processes, acknowledgments, and roles”

Nirenberg has requested the fee to ship its suggestions on the ones topics to the city council by means of Jun. 14, 2024 — somewhat more than two months ahead of the city council would wish to vote to place any of the suggestions on the Nov. 5, 2024, poll.

San Antonio voters would have the general say on adopting any of the proposed constitution amendments.

Heywood Sanders, a professor emeritus of public management at UTSA, referred to as the listing of conceivable adjustments to imagine “a laundry list.”

“There are so many there’s not one focus, which is an intriguing thing,” Sanders stated.

The constitution can simplest be amended each two years, at maximum, and Nirenberg has to this point been not able to supervise many adjustments. He convened a fee in 2018, however the hearth union beat them to the punch and led a petition power to get 3 proposed amendments onto the November 2018 poll.

Ultimately, an modification instituting a wage cap and time period restrict for the city manager place handed, as did an modification permitting the union to circumvent contract negotiations and move immediately to arbitration.

The 3rd proposed modification failed, which might have made it more uncomplicated to place referendum votes on the poll.

One of the problems the 2018 Charter Review Commission had thought to be ended up making its means onto the May 2021 poll.

During the pandemic, city voters agreed to modify the constitution to permit bond bucks for use for more than simply “public works,” which prepared the ground for the city’s first-ever $150M housing bond a yr later.

You can learn the mayor’s complete memo and listing of problems for the 2023 Charter Review Commission beneath:

MORE COUNCIL DISTRICTS

The City of San Antonio has maintained 10 council districts since 1977, when voters changed the former device of 9 “at-large” council contributors in prefer of 10 district-specific representatives and an at-large mayor.

The city’s inhabitants has exploded in the many years since. The 1980 U.S. Census counted 970,000 other people in San Antonio, however by means of 2020, there have been more than 1.4 million.

After the latest redistricting effort completed in June 2022, each and every district used to be left with roughly 143,400 other people.

Professor Francine Romero, the united states Public Administration Department chairwoman and a member of the 2014-2015 Charter Review Commission, believes the fee will most probably imagine expanding the collection of districts to 13 or 14.

Romero, additionally a CPS Energy Trustee, sees that quantity because the “sweet spot” between simply including one or two districts and “going crazy with 19 or 20.”

“Council districts can only do so much, and there’s so many people in every council district now,” Romero stated. “So we need to move toward smaller, maybe more representative districts as well. Not just that they’re more responsive, but more representative for different pockets of our city.”

More districts would imply redrawing the council district maps, which turns out not going to occur in time for the May 2025 city election.

The earlier redistricting procedure took 8 months, and there could be simplest six between the November 2024 and May 2025 elections.

The fee has additionally been tasked with deciding whether or not an unbiased committee will have to be charged with the redistricting procedure each decade fairly than the city council.

In the latest procedure, the council selected to let an advisory committee do the detailed paintings of drawing the maps; then again, it used to be nonetheless the council contributors’ accountability to approve the general model.

COUNCIL PAY AND TERM LENGTHS

A holdover from the 2018 Charter Review Commission is a query of whether or not to modify the city council and mayor’s time period limits from 4, two-year phrases to 2, four-year phrases.

The lengths would most probably include staggered elections, according to the fee’s listing of problems.

Sanders calls more than a few council time period limits a “perennial” factor, despite the fact that he stated a transfer from two to four-year phrases could be a “pretty dramatic” trade for the city.

“We like keeping our elected officials, for better or worse, on a short leash,” he stated.

The fee has additionally been tasked with bearing in mind whether or not to modify how council contributors are paid so they’re “compensated on indexed terms that more accurately reflect the city’s cost of living and lower barriers to participation in City government.”

Since 2015, council contributors have gained an annual wage of $45,722, whilst the mayor will get $61,725. At the time, the council wage used to be equivalent to the median family source of revenue in the city — a host the U.S. Census these days places at $55,084.

Former District 7 Councilwoman Ana Sandoval cited the pay as one of the vital causes she made up our minds to complete her council time period early this yr and take every other process.

Romero used to be a part of the 2014-2015 Charter Review Commission that really helpful giving council contributors a full-time wage as an alternative of the $20 according to assembly stipend they used to get.

Though she may no longer be mindful why having a cost-of-living adjustment constructed into the constitution trade changed into “controversial,” she thinks you will need to do it now because the “salary seems really lacking.”

“So I don’t know if they’re going to consider increasing the base pay, but I think at least considering some kind of index that raises it with [the] cost of living would be so important because we don’t have to go back and do this every few years to raise their salary again,” Romero stated.

CITY MANAGER PAY & TENURE

One of the least unexpected inclusions to the fee’s tasks is the prospective reversal of the 2018 restrictions on the city manager place, which fighters say may pressure out a excellent city manager upfront and make hiring most sensible ability for the placement more difficult.

With the hearth union main the price, 59% of San Antonio voters in November 2018 agreed to cap the wage of the highest city administrator to ten occasions that of the lowest-paid city worker. The constitution modification additionally restricted a city manager from serving more than 8 years.

The vote used to be broadly noticed as a referendum on the city manager on the time, Sheryl Sculley. With a base wage of $475,000, Sculley used to be a polarizing determine, absolute best recognized for her clashes with the police and hearth unions.

The constitution modification didn’t practice to Sculley, who retired after 13 years in the placement a couple of months later. But it does practice to her successor, Erik Walsh, who’s already more than midway in the course of the eight-year time period restrict after taking the reins of the city in March 2019.

Walsh’s base wage for FY 2024 is $374,400. In comparability, the heads of the city-owned utilities, CPS Energy and SAWS, earn salaries of $655,000 and $593,838, respectively.

Romero sees benefit in undoing the 2018 constitution amendments.

“I know people are concerned about paying public officials too much, but that’s almost like saying, ‘we’re a poor city, and we don’t deserve a better-paid city manager,’” she stated.

Sanders thinks seeking to opposite a call that voters made so just lately may turn out debatable, despite the fact that he used to be no longer shocked to peer it a few of the fee’s fees.

“The mayor made no qualms over the years about saying he’d like to see those change, particularly since he seems pleased with Erik Walsh’s performance as city manager,” Sanders stated.

For his section, Nirenberg stated he’ll cling his critiques till the time involves vote, despite the fact that “certainly I have feelings about each of these issues as a voter and as a mayor, but it is truly an independent process for the commission to be engaged in.”

COMMISSION MEMBERS

The 15 contributors of the fee come with a large number of contributors of the industry group and other people with ties to the City of San Antonio or an identical establishments, like VIA Metropolitan Transit.

Though Sanders referred to as the listing of commissioners “an awfully inside baseball kind of group,” Nirenberg stated it used to be a “broad cross-selection of folks who bring a perspective.”

“They also bring constituencies,” the mayor stated. “So they will have access to, you know, plenty of public input. And I’ve charged them also with making sure that there is a process for general public input.”

• Co-Chair Bonnie Prosser Elder – General Counsel & Senior V.P. at VIA Metropolitan Transit; Former Chairwoman of 2018 Charter Review Commission

• Co-Chair David Zammiello – Former CEO, Project Quest

• Elva Pai Adams – Businesswoman; Former Wells Fargo Executive

• Josh Baugh – Director of Communications, VIA Metropolitan Transit; Former San Antonio Express-News Reporter

• Luisa Casso – Chief of Staff, Trinity University

• Frank Garza – Municipal Lawyer; Former San Antonio City Attorney

• Mike Frisbie – Senior V.P., Raba Kistner; Former San Antonio City Engineer

• Pat Frost – President, Frost Bank

• Martha Martinez-Flores – Creative Director, MMCreative

• Naomi Miller – Executive Director, American Council of Engineering Companies; Former District Director for Former TX House Speaker Joe Straus (R-San Antonio)

• Bobby Perez – General Counsel, Spurs Sports & Entertainment; Former District 1 City Council Member

• Shelley Potter – Former President, San Antonio Alliance (union for SAISD academics)

• Dwayne Robinson – Managing Director, Robinson Consulting Group & Chairman, San Antonio MLK Commission

• Rogelio Sáenz, PhD – Professor of Sociology and Demography, UTSA

• María Salazar – Attorney & Chair, Mayor’s LGBTQ Advisory Committee