San Marcos council extends police and fire meet-and-confer agreements, approves pay increases and asks staff to seek public negotiation ground rules

San Marcos — The San Marcos City Council on Nov. 5 approved one-year extensions to the city’s meet-and-confer agreements for its police and fire departments and approved base-pay increases scheduled to take effect Oct. 1, 2026. Council also added direction asking the city manager to request that the ground rules for the 2027 contract negotiations include broader public access and document disclosure provisions.

The council approved a memorandum of understanding to extend the fire meet-and-confer agreement to Sept. 30, 2027 and to provide a 4.5% base pay increase for firefighters beginning Oct. 1, 2026. The council later approved a separate memorandum extending the police agreement to Sept. 30, 2027 with a 5% base pay increase for police officers beginning Oct. 1, 2026. The police motion passed on a 7–0 vote; the fire agreement was approved following debate and amendment (final tally not specified in the record).

City staff, in a presentation to council, described the meet-and-confer process as governed by chapter 142 of the Texas Local Government Code and said the process provides flexibility for recruitment and discipline. A staff presenter noted that meet-and-confer has allowed the city to adopt programs such as lateral-entry hiring and to extend investigation timelines from 180 to 300 days during the disciplinary process.

Cindy Laird, who spoke during public comment, urged council to approve the raises, saying the increases were “modest but vital” to recruit and retain first responders. “I respectfully ask that you approve these modest but vital pay increases,” Laird said. Resident Sam Young also urged support for raises and referenced recent downtown violent incidents as a reason to bolster public safety staffing and morale.

Councilmember Rodriguez introduced an amendment attaching transparency-related expectations to the council’s approval. Rodriguez said the amendment was meant to ensure the public could observe negotiation meetings and to reduce public concerns that emerged during earlier rounds of contract bargaining. "This gives, given the history in the city of accusations of lack of transparency during this process, it makes it transparent," Rodriguez said during debate. The amendment asked the city manager to request that the following be considered for inclusion in the ground rules at the start of the 2027 negotiations: that meet-and-confer contract meetings be publicly noticed, recorded and broadcast; that members of the public be afforded a reasonable opportunity to provide comment at the beginning or prior to conclusion of those meetings (subject to procedural rules); and that documents exchanged during publicly recorded meetings be made publicly accessible, subject to the Texas Public Information Act and exceptions to disclosure such as deliberative‑process protections.

Council discussion focused on several recurring issues: whether draft or deliberative materials should be published, how public comment periods might lengthen negotiation meetings, legal limits under the Texas Public Information Act, the operational burden on staff and negotiators, and whether the association memberships would need to ratify any change in ground rules. Council and staff also confirmed a practical scheduling deadline: if the council does not extend the agreements, negotiations would need to begin by Feb. 1 and the decision whether to extend had to be made by Jan. 1 to meet timing for the budget cycle.

After edits and a brief recess to finalize wording, the council inserted the transparency language as an attachment to the resolutions in both the fire and police items and approved the agreements with the requested directions to the city manager. The attachment as adopted requested that the city manager seek inclusion of the listed transparency measures in the ground rules at the commencement of the 2027 meet-and-confer negotiations and clarified that document disclosure would be handled consistent with the Texas Public Information Act and its exceptions; council also directed staff to provide an email channel and other ways for the public to submit comment in addition to in‑meeting options.

City officials said the purpose of the one‑year extension was to allow time to evaluate contract strategies, review fiscal impacts and continue work on an ongoing EMS service transition before beginning full negotiations for the next agreements.

Why it matters: The raises change base pay schedules that affect recruitment and retention for public-safety staffing. The transparency attachment responds to sustained public interest in how the city conducts negotiations with police and fire representatives, and it establishes a process — subject to legal limits — for bringing negotiation ground rules back to council and the public for review.

What’s next: By council direction the city manager is to request the named transparency provisions be considered during formal ground-rule development at the start of 2027 negotiations; the associations must still participate in and agree to ground rules as part of the negotiation process. Council noted it would return if negotiators hit an impasse over ground rules or if staff sought a waiver from the publicly accessible process.