By Karen Gleason The 830 Times
Negotiators for Del Rio police officers and the city met for a second round of talks on Wednesday, with police association officials saying the city must significantly raise officers’ salaries to staunch the ongoing flight of officers to other agencies.
The two groups included Del Rio Police Officers Association (DRPOA) officials, led by president Adrian Garcia, and Carlos Zambrano, of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas (CLEAT), and city officials, led by Interim City Manager Manuel Chavez and City Attorney Ana Markowski Smith.
At the start of the meeting, Camela Sandmann, an attorney with the city’s contracted firm of Denton Navarro Bernal Santee & Zech, told the police negotiating team city officials had initialed portions of the contract that would not be changed and said she would send copies of those initialed articles to the police officers’ representatives.
“Today we’re here to hear what the association wants to put forward,” Sandmann said.
Zambrano said the association had prepared a proposal, but first went over a category called “higher classification pay.” Zambrano said currently the higher classification pay, provided to an officer who is temporarily tapped to serve in a higher grade, is only available to corporals and sergeants and only in situations approved by the chief of police.
He said the association proposes to make higher classification pay also available to senior officers, corporals and sergeants and that it covered the entire time they are acting in the higher rank.
Zambrano said, “At any time, when an officer is asked to act in a higher rank, such as from senior officer to corporal or corporal to sergeant, they’re acting up in a different liability level, and we’d like to have them compensated as such.”
Sandmann asked how often this type of situation happened, and Zambrano said he did not have those figures available.
“It’s kind of hard to run numbers if we don’t know how often that’s needed,” Sandmann said.
Garcia said the numbers would require some research with the city’s finance department.
Zambrano said the association would also like to revisit the hourly pay rate for “civic center outside work opportunities.” He said the current rate is $40 and said the association would like to raise that to $50 an hour.
Zambrano said officers also would like to change the wording in an existing policy on funeral leave. He said officers would like a funeral leave provision separate from their sick leave.
After some discussion and questions from city officials, Zambrano said officers would like for the funeral leave to be given on a per incident, not a per year basis.
When the group moved on the consider Article 10, dealing with “(police) association activities,” Zambrano said, “I will be the first to admit that the changes to this are very lengthy. I’ve got two whole pages of changes to it.”
Sandmann asked the city team to scan the document and send it to her.
Zambrano said he was also prepared to present a proposal on wages, “but after meeting with these guys, there’s so many questions that remain, that I don’t feel fully prepared to do that.”
Zambrano said he did have a presentation on “about where the Del Rio Police Department stands as compared to its neighboring agencies.”
Zambrano then gave a PowerPoint presentation laying out the reasons why a 35.1 percent increase in the. DRPD’s entry level pay is necessary. (See separate story.)
Following Zambrano’s presentation, Sandmann said the city team would like to caucus privately for a time to discuss the pay request.
After the meeting reopened about 30 minutes later, with city and police returning to their respective tables, Sandmann asked whether the police representatives were ready to proffer a concrete pay proposal other than the presentation Zambrano had given earlier.
Zambrano said they were not, and the two groups settled on the date and time of their next meeting, which was set for 10 a.m. Monday, Aug. 24.
Organizers and leaders with The Border Organization, a local grass-roots citizens group, attended Wednesday’s meeting in support of the local police officers’ association.
TBO organizer Gage Brown told The 830 Times after the meeting, “Border Organizations leaders attended the negotiations, having partnered with the DRPOA and the Del Rio Professional Firefighters Association Local 3662 to meet with the mayor and council about high priority issues over the past several weeks.”
TBO leader Jerreca Leyva explained, “I want to be able to walk through my community, go to our parks and live my everyday life knowing that if something dangerous happens, someone will be there to respond in a reasonable amount of time. We have been asking the city to address public safety concerns around Pop Word Park since last year, and we have been told that the police department is too understaffed to patrol. We want the police to get what they need so we can get what we need, like safer parks and neighborhoods.”
Chris Molano, vice president of the Del Rio Professional Firefighters Association Local 3662 said, “We haven’t made any ground with the city in the past several years, and we hope this year is different.”
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com
