Lubbock is adopting a new process to negotiate police and fire pay raises called “meet and confer,” hoping it will remove politics and make it easier to increase police pay by as much as 20 percent – an amount police have been advocating and City Council members would like to see happen.
“That allows them to negotiate their salaries on their own behalf without utilizing politicians,” said Jennifer Wilson, District 5 City Council member.
Once an agreement under this new system is approved, the Council must pay the money.
“I think a huge benefit to our public servants is to not have to rely on all of us arguing up here to make sure that they’re well taken care of,” Wilson said.
Meet and confer is outlined in state law.
There’s an escape hatch if voters don’t want the deal.
State law said, “Not later than the 45th day after the date an agreement is ratified by both the municipality and the association, a petition signed by at least 10 percent of the qualified voters of the municipality may be presented to the municipal secretary calling for an election to repeal the agreement.”
If challenged, the City Council can either reconsider the agreement or send it to a vote of the people.
Meanwhile, even though meet and confer hasn’t started yet, it adds pressure to an already tight budget.
Police pay comparison
| Academy | 1st year | |
| Lubbock pop. 266,878 |
$62,402.08 | $68,486.08 |
| Odessa pop. 115,743 |
$67,579.00 | $77,355.00 |
| Midland pop. 138,397 |
$70,344.00 | $77,270.00 |
| Abilene pop. 129,043 |
$62,705.00 | $69,687.00 |
| Amarillo pop. 202,408 |
$60,341.00 | $63,960.00 |
| Wichita Falls pop. 102,691 |
$52,603.20 | $60,902.40 |
| San Angelo pop. 99,262 |
$54,400.00 | $58,500.00 |
| El Paso pop. 678,958 |
$48,649.02 | $54,054.46 |
* Source for current Lubbock salaries, LPD. Sources for other cities, various city websites. Population numbers from census.gov (2023 estimates).
According to www.dfwpolicesalaries.com, salaries for first-year officers in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area range from $36,087.00 to $84,802.00 (populations ranging from 1,000 to 2.6 million people).
In early August, Chief Seth Herman told the City Council his department is more than 40 officers short of fully staffed on patrol, but the number is closer to 20 if cadets in the academy are taken into consideration.
What’s meet and confer?
Police officers and firefighters hold certification elections to start the process, City Manager Jarrett Atkinson explained to the City Council Tuesday. (Wilson said firefighters already voted in favor.) If those pass, the Lubbock Professional Police Association and Lubbock Professional Firefighters Association negotiate with Atkinson.
“You’ll have a management team – so that’ll be the chief, either myself or somebody from my office, some finance-type people – and you work through, ‘What do the associations want?’” Atkinson said.
“You ultimately end up writing a contract. The contract has to be approved by the City Council. Everybody will agree. ‘Hey, we’re going to do this in year one and this in year two and this in year three.’ … Each of those items … have a price tag on it,” he said.
“My goal is to have these done and in front of y’all by February,” Atkinson said.
If approved by the Council, it’s binding.
How it’s now done
Currently, the city manager creates a yearly budget proposal. He brings it to the Council and goes over it department-by-department – sometimes even item-by-item.
Atkinson proposed 4 percent raises for all city employees for this coming year. Council members are now making counter proposals.
For example, Mayor Mark McBrayer would like most employee raises to be 3.5 percent which frees up money to give police officers a 5 percent raise.
Other council members said 4 percent or 5 percent is not enough. But every one percent costs $1 million.
Wilson said, “The Lubbock Police Department this year to get them to where they think they need to be is 21 percent. … I’m not saying that they’re going to ask for 21 percent in one year. I think you know our LPD officers, our LFR staff are very reasonable people.”
No one thinks the City can do that in one year.
“Usually that looks like an increment across two or three years,” Wilson added.
Police reaction
The Lubbock Police Department chose not to comment. The president of the police association, Rayland Goswick, spoke with LubbockLights.com.
“Police and Fire are not allowed to have work stoppages, strikes, lockouts, work slowdowns – any of that stuff. And so, ‘meet and confirm’ was written to help allow for Police and Fire to have a way to negotiate,” Goswick said.
“The main benefit is it takes a lot of the politics out of things,” Goswick said.
When asked if officers will be supportive, Goswick said, “I think that they would be.”
It’s hard to say what kind of pay raise is needed to keep the Lubbock Police Department competitive with other cities statewide. There’s more than one way to measure it, he said.
But if Lubbock were compared to the larger cities, he said, “It’s going to be something in the area of 20 percent.”
Tax rate debate
Support for meet and confer complicates the Council’s tax rate discussion.
McBrayer consistently insisted on the “no-new-revenue” tax rate, which is lower than the proposal offered by Atkinson on August 13.
Wilson said she cannot support McBrayer’s position because the city might need the higher rate both now and in the next few years. Councilman Tim Collins took a similar stand.
“If the groups negotiate a pay increase, which we assume that they would, that money is negotiated outside of Council and moves over into the budget,” Collins said.
“I just think it’s very important that we be very cautious about setting a number today that we can’t live up to next year depending on what those agreements may be,” Collins added.
Councilman David Glasheen proposed a rate even lower than McBrayer but still wanted to set aside $100,000 to get ready for meet and confer.
“I think that is the best way to lock in long-term predictable pay increases for public servants who are working in those critical public safety roles,” Glasheen said.
Wilson also supported $100,000 which might be used for consultants or for legal fees to set up “meet and confer” for the first time in Lubbock.
Council member Christy Martinez Garcia said, “I do look forward to the ‘meet and confer.’ … It is definitely something that is going to be positive as we move forward, especially at budget time.”
Asking about a downside
LubbockLights.com asked Wilson if there was a downside. She answered with a rhetorical question.
“How would it be detrimental that they negotiated their own agreements?”
She speculated maybe if a council member was in favor of defund-the-police, the meet-and-confer process might make it harder.
The new process allows police officers and firefighters to control their own destiny, she said.
“So, there is absolutely zero negatives to it from a city standpoint or from a public safety … aspect,” she said.
“They have to be willing to compromise,” she added. If the officers demand too much, the city simply refuses to agree. Pay raises go right back to the normal budget process.
“We revert right back to what we’re doing,” Wilson said.
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