San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg has appointed a Charter Review Commission to consider increasing the number of council districts, staggering council members’ terms and freeing the city manager of limits on pay and tenure.
Josie Norris/San Antonio Express-News

San Antonio Express-News
Molly Smith, Staff writer
Nov. 14, 2023Updated: Nov. 14, 2023 3:03 p.m.

He has appointed a Charter Review Commission to study whether to add new City Council districts to the existing 10.

The number of districts has remained the same since 1977, when voters approved dividing the city into 10 geographic districts, each with its own council representative. Previously, the council was made up of up nine at-large seats, each representing the entire city.

Since then, the number of constituents represented by council members has grown with San Antonio’s population and now stands at about 143,000 per district.

Nirenberg announced Tuesday that the charter commission also will consider whether to increase council members’ salaries and whether to free the city manager from the salary and tenure caps that voters imposed on the position in 2018.

In addition, the mayor’s written charge to the panel says it will examine lengthening and staggering council terms and whether to make the Ethics Review Board more independent of the council.

Any changes would have to be approved by voters in a charter amendment election. Nirenberg wants that election to take place in November 2024, and he gave the 15-member commission until June to present the council with proposed charter changes to put before voters.

The mayor and council have until Aug. 19 to call for a November 2024 charter amendment election, which would coincide with presidential, congressional and county commissioner races.

The San Antonio City Charter sets limits on city policies and rules, and can be amended only once every two years.

It was last updated in May 2021, when voters approved allowing bond funds to be used for affordable housing projects.

This is only the second time that Nirenberg has convened a Charter Review Commission since he was first elected mayor in 2017.

The commission he convened in spring 2018 saw its work derailed by the San Antonio Professional Fire Fighters Association, which placed three charter amendments on that fall’s general election ballot.

This latest Charter Review Commission has all new members, with the exceptions of Bonnie Prosser Elder, the general counsel and senior vice president of VIA Metropolitan Transit, and Frank Garza, a former city attorney.

Nirenberg tapped Prosser Elder and David Zammiello, the former chief executive officer of Project QUEST, to co-chair the new commission. Prosser Elder chaired the 2018 commission.

Other members of the new commission include Bobby Perez, chief legal officer and general counsel of Spurs Sports & Entertainment; Frost Bank President Pat Frost; and Luisa Casso, Trinity University’s chief of staff.

City Council seats

Talk of expanding the council emerged during the city’s 2021-22 redistricting process, when the 10 districts were redrawn to account for population growth between the 2010 and 2020 census counts.

Each of the redrawn districts has more than twice the population of the districts created in 1977.

San Antonio has the same number of council seats as Austin and Fort Worth, each of which has about 500,000 fewer residents, according to U.S. census estimates.

The city of Dallas, which has about 173,000 fewer residents than San Antonio, has 14 council members. Houston, almost double San Antonio’s population, has 16 council seats.

Advocates of a council expansion believe it would lead to better representation, since council members would be responsible for fewer constituents. Opponents fear it would dilute council members’ power, particularly that of District 2, the city’s historically Black seat.

If the Charter Review Commission recommended additional geographic districts, it’s unlikely the change would be in place for the May 2025 municipal election. That’s because the city would need to redraw its council maps. After the 2020 census, that process took more than eight months, and the new maps didn’t go into effect until the May 2023 municipal election.

The commission also will study whether the redistricting process — which the city undertakes every decade — should be more independent.

The city moved in that direction when it redrew the council boundaries after the 2020 census. The mayor and City Council appointed 23 residents to a redistricting advisory committee that held public meetings and presented a draft map for the council’s approval.

In order to make such a commission a permanent feature of future redistricting, voters would need to write it into the city charter. Nirenberg voiced support for that in 2022, telling the San Antonio Express-News he was “inclined to support anything that further codifies the independence of the redistricting process from the politics of elected offices.”

City manager pay and tenure

San Antonio business leaders revered former City Manager Sheryl Sculley as an accomplished administrator who professionalized City Hall and put the city on a strong financial footing.

The San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association saw her as overpaid and overly powerful and as an obstacle to improving firefighters’ pay and benefits. At the time, her base salary was $475,000.

The fire union mounted a successful charter amendment campaign in 2018 that capped future city managers’ compensation and time on the job. Sculley announced her retirement soon after.

Her successor, City Manager Erik Walsh, earns a base salary of $374,400 — 10 times what the lowest paid city employee earns. His total compensation last fiscal year was $405,990 when benefits, expense allowances and other items were included.

He is limited to serving eight years, meaning he would have to step down by February 2027.

The salary and tenure limits could hamstring efforts to hire or retain strong city managers, Nirenberg has said. The region’s chambers of commerce agree.

“We have to remain competitive for top talent in the city manager’s office, and that’s a concern long-term for the city,” Nirenberg told the Express-News in July.

Nirenberg’s charge to the Charter Review Commission instructs it to examine whether the City Council should “have the authority and discretion” to set the city manager’s length of service and his or her compensation “so that market and competitive indicators are taken into account.”

Walsh’s base pay trails that of city managers running the state’s other large cities.

Former Austin City Manager Spencer Cronk earned $388,190 in base pay until he was fired earlier this year. Interim Austin City Manager Jesús Garza’s base salary is $350,002.

Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax collects $423,246 in base pay, while Fort Worth City Manager David Cooke earns $398,127. (Houston does not have a city manager.)

The fire union, now under new leadership, supports the mayor’s call for the charter commission to review the city manager’s compensation and term limit.

“We understand his desire to study it, to look at it in terms of fairness, the ability to compete for talent moving forward,” President Joe Jones told the Express-News. “We understand all these concepts. We’re not immune to them, so we’re keeping an open mind at this point in time.”

Council pay

Voters last raised salaries for the mayor and the council members in 2015, when they approved a charter amendment that pegged their salaries to the median household income at the time — $45,722. The mayor’s pay was set at $61,725.

Before 2015, council members and the mayor were paid a $20 stipend for every meeting they attended, with a cap of $1,040 a year and an additional $3,000 stipend for the mayor. The system was a throwback to a time when serving on council was considered part-time volunteer work.

The 2015 charter change did not address future pay adjustments, and council’s pay now lags the city’s median household income of about $55,000.

The Charter Review Commission will explore whether council members should be paid “on indexed terms that more accurately reflect the city’s cost of living and lower barriers to participation in City government,” according to Nirenberg’s charge.

San Antonio elected officials earn less than their counterparts leading large Texas cities that operate under a council-manager form of government, in which the city manager oversees daily operations while the mayor and council set policy.

Unlike San Antonio, Austin City Council members determine their own pay. They gave themselves raises in 2022, to nearly $117,000. Austin’s mayor earns about $134,000.

Dallas City Council members earn $60,000; the mayor is paid $80,000. El Paso City Council members are paid $52,500, while the mayor collects $78,750 — salaries that are revised annually, per El Paso’s city charter, to ensure they remain on par with the city’s median income.

Only Fort Worth’s mayor and council earn less than San Antonio officials. Council members make $25,000, while the mayor receives $29,000.

Multiple San Antonio City Council members hold jobs outside council, and at least one publicly lamented the low pay earlier this year when then-District 7 Councilwoman Ana Sandoval stepped down to take a full-time, higher-paying job with University Health.

“I wish we could wave a magic wand and get the salary that county gets so that you wouldn’t have to be making this decision today,” District 3 Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran said during Sandoval’s final council meeting.

Bexar County commissioners are paid $157,500 annually, while County Judge Peter Sakai earns $198,920.

Council terms and elections

The Charter Review Commission will look at changing elected officials’ maximum time in office.

The mayor and council can serve up to four two-year terms, the result of a 2008 charter amendment that raised the limit from two terms.

The commission will review whether the city should switch to four-year terms and allow officials to serve a maximum of two terms, and whether those terms should be staggered.

Dallas, Fort Worth and Corpus Christi hold municipal elections every two years, although Dallas elects its mayor every four years. Austin, Houston and El Paso elect their mayors and council members to four-year terms.

Only El Paso and Austin stagger their municipal elections.

Ethics board and updated charter language

Nirenberg directed the previous Charter Review Commission to study whether to make the city’s Ethics Review Board more independent, a charge the current commission will resume.

Specifically, the commission will explore whether the board should be “autonomous with independent oversight and power to compel testimony, and whether any additional recommendations would strengthen the effectiveness, authority and/or jurisdiction of the board.”

The Ethics Review Board’s 11 members are appointed by the council and mayor to handle ethics complaints against elected officials, members of city boards and commissions and political candidates. Such complaints include violations of the city’s ethics code and its campaign finance and lobbying regulations.

The commission alsowill review whether the city should hire an independent ethics auditor to conduct ethics investigations and give ethics training to city staff and elected officials.

Lastly, it will look at whether the city charter should be amended “to update its language to more accurately reflect current processes, acknowledgments, and roles.”