SAN ANTONIO – NOTE - This article has been corrected to include the most recent wage proposals at the time of publication and to use a more accurate calculation of the size of the proposed raises.
The City of San Antonio will head into its budget planning next week with a multi-million dollar question mark in the place of its second-largest contract.
With the city already expecting a budget deficit over the next two years, the uncertainty is likely to make it harder to calculate how much it can spend on other city programs, like parks, human services, and libraries.
Negotiating teams for the city and the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association walked away from their latest bargaining session Tuesday without a deal. Though they have made progress on some issues, they’re still far apart on the top priority for both sides - firefighter pay.
City staff will present their proposed budget for FY 2025 to the city council on Aug. 15. The council is expected to vote on a final version on Sep. 19, ahead of it taking effect on Oct. 1.
The city and SAPFFA negotiating teams won’t meet again until Aug. 23.
Tuesday was the 11th time the two sides sat down since negotiations started in late March.
It has still been easier going than developing the current contract, which ends in December. For over five years, the city and fire union tussled in court at the ballot box and the negotiating table after the union’s previous contract ended in September 2014.
HOW MANY MILLIONS?
The San Antonio Fire Department currently has a $374 million budget, which is almost certain to go up. The question is ‘by how much?’
It’s an especially pressing question since city staff have already warned the city could face a roughly $10.6 million deficit across the next two budget years based on previous city contract proposals.
A city estimate from June put the cost of the union’s proposals at $78.5 million more expensive than the city’s over the life of a three-year contract. However, that was before incorporating a change to parental leave and a smaller union pay raise proposal.
Wherever the city and union end up, a new collective bargaining agreement will lock in certain costs for the fire department budget, particularly firefighter pay. Not having that nailed down yet means it’s less clear how much money is available to go around in the rest of the city’s general fund, which includes most city departments’ budgets.
Deputy City Manager Maria Villagomez, the city’s lead negotiator, has said previously that the city wanted to complete a contract before staff proposed a budget.
Now that that goal is dead, she wouldn’t describe in detail how much it would hinder the city’s ability to craft a budget.
“As you know, we have roughly about 30 days before the budget is adopted and final,” Villagomez said. “So we will continue to meet with the association with the goal of having something final by then. Depending on where we land, we may have to make some changes to the budget proposal - too early to tell at this point.”
EXTERNAL PRESSURE
SAPFFA President Joe Jones is unsure whether the impending budget process will put any more pressure on the city to finish a deal.
“We’ve seen stretches over a month where we didn’t even meet. So I don’t know that external pressure is really encouraging anybody to do anything in particular at this point,” Jones told reporters.
It’s possible the union could exert some additional pressure of its own.
In 2018, during the years-long battle over the current contract, previous SAPFFA leadership led a campaign to change the city charter, including limiting the city manager’s term to eight years and capping their pay at 10 times the lowest-paid city employee.
The city council is expected to place measure undoing those restrictions on the November ballot, but it is unclear if the union will weigh in.
“So the conversations are being had. I’m not going to be deceptive here,” Jones said. “But as far as if a decision has been made, we have not made any decisions with regard to that.”
ISSUES
The main hurdle to a new contract remains firefighter pay. The union submitted a new proposal Tuesday, which SAPFFA Chief Negotiator Rick Poulson said was “significant movement, we think, on our part.”
But while the union proposal amounted to slightly smaller raises over a three-year contract, it was still much sharper than the raises the city team has suggested.
The following graphs show the effect of the various city (blue) and union (red) proposals on pay for the lowest and highest-ranking firefighters. The darker lines represent the most recent proposal from each side.
LATEST UNION WAGE PROPOSAL (Aug. 6)
- Three-year contract with the final raise in October 2026
- Shifts $2,400 in current incentive pay over to base pay before annual raises of 11%, 8%, and 6% (27.1% compounded)
- Newest firefighter base pay: $57,576 to $76,213 (32.4% raise)
- Longest-tenured district chief base pay: $106,872 to $138,855 (29.9% raise)
LATEST CITY WAGE PROPOSAL (Jun. 25)
- Three-year contract with the final raise in October 2026
- Shifts $2,400 in current incentive pay over to base pay before annual raises of 7%, 4%, and 3.5% (15.2% compounded)
- Newest firefighter base pay: $57,576 to $69,741 (21.1% raise)
- Longest-tenured district chief base pay: $106,872 to $127,064 (18.9% raise)
The SAPFFA team has also scrapped a request to consider adding a fourth shift, which the city has said would be prohibitively expensive. However, the two sides still face a challenge on how to handle overtime pay.
City negotiators say their wage proposal is a package deal that includes a change to overtime pay calculations. Right now, all paid hours—including sick days or vacation—count toward the threshold at which a firefighter can be paid the overtime rate of time and a half.
The city wants to make it so only the hours a firefighter is actually on the job count toward that threshold.
The two sides also spent time Tuesday discussing differing views on how to handle the SAFD promotions process.