Negotiating this past spring with Mayor Ivy Taylor, the police union “wanted to be paid” in exchange for any disciplinary reform to its collective-bargaining agreement, according to City Manager Sheryl Sculley.

The city manager spoke on Wednesday to the San Antonio Express-News Editorial Board, in part about a proposed contract that would grant officers a 3 percent bonus this year and base wage increases totaling 14 percent over the next four years. The City Council will vote on the agreement on Sept. 1.

Taylor told me earlier this week that police union president Mike Helle had “said no” when she requested changes to the way the Police Department disciplines its officers. Currently, the contract limits how far back a chief can invoke prior misconduct in punishing an officer — no more than two years in most instances — and automatically reduces suspensions of three days or less to a reprimand after two years.

Produced by city staff, the requests for reform stated that “an entire officer’s discipline record should be allowable” and “suspensions need to remain on the record to accurately report an officer’s history and show progressive discipline.”

“The (police) chief (William McManus) and I feel that it is important, but the union was not willing to consider that,” Sculley said, “and they wanted to be paid for any changes in the disciplinary process. Given all the factors, we couldn’t stay under the policy direction, which was keep public-safety spending under 66 percent (of the general fund), and pay for that as well.”

The union has put a price on police accountability.

But the story of former San Antonio police officer Jackie Neal shows why that’s unacceptable.

Neal was arrested in November 2013 after a 19-year-old woman identified in court documents as Jane Doe accused him of sexual assault.

Doe told police she was driving on the South Side when Neal pulled her over, handcuffed her and raped her in the back of his police SUV. Neal was arrested later that night.

The next morning, McManus called Councilman Rey Saldaña to inform him of the incident that had occurred in his district.

“One of the first questions I had was, ‘Did we know this was something he’s capable of doing? Did he have a record of this behavior?’” Saldaña said on Wednesday.

Neal had a record.

About three years earlier, in August 2011, he received a three-day suspension for having had a sexual relationship with another teenager, an 18-year-old high school student who was part of the department’s youth Police Explorer Program.

At the time of the sexual relationship, “the youth was a chief explorer and defendant Neal was her explorer adviser,” according to a court filing.

By the time Neal allegedly raped the second teenager in 2013, the union’s contract with the city had altered his previous suspension to a “reprimand” and tied McManus’ hands from using it to discipline the officer for other offenses. (After the rape allegation, Neal was fired and pleaded no contest to improper sexual activity with a person in custody; he was sentenced to 14 months in a state jail facility and agreed to surrender his peace officer certification.)

The 2011 incident with the youth explorer was a red flag, a warning of the alleged rape to come, yet one that was sealed and altered to appear less significant than it was.

Shaken by the incident in his district, Saldaña has said he won’t vote for the contract on Sept. 1.

On Monday, he faulted Taylor for not securing disciplinary reform in her talks with the union, saying, “The mayor and the union leadership counted on the council to not ask questions about the details.”

Taylor bristled at that characterization. On Wednesday, she and Saldaña met to discuss the issue.

“The mayor and I are appalled that the union would ask for payment in exchange for them to do the right thing,” Saldaña stated later in a text. “Also, the argument that we can somehow handle discipline language outside of the contract is legally untrue. We either bind the language through the contract or we live with the status quo for five years.”

Sculley echoed that when I asked whether reform could be achieved outside of the contract.

“No,” she said, “not without collectively bargaining.”

bchasnoff@express-news.net