COPS/Metro, an alliance renowned for coaxing government to help the poor, faced little resistance Tuesday when it urged Bexar County officials to improve wages for the lowest-paid county workers.

Instead, Commissioners Court embraced the notion of upping its “living wage” for about 400 county workers. The court said it would consider bumping pay to $13 an hour from $11.47 in fiscal 2016.

“We’ll have the county manager look at the $13 for the next budget year (2016), see what the implications are, what does it cost and report back to the court what we’ll be facing,” County Judge Nelson Wolff said.

Despite an improving economy, “a huge number of people have not participated in this revival,” Wolff said.

COPS/Metro representatives urged the county to set an example for other employers by increasing its workers’ wages and allowing more of them to partake in the city’s prosperity. Some workers must keep several jobs to get by, the advocates said.

County Manager David Smith estimated the increase would cost the county anywhere from $1 million to $13 million if approved late next year.

In other action, the court approved a $1.25 million annual contract with the Center for Health Care Services that expands mental health assessments and treatment services in the city-county magistration process.

The pact allows more mental health screenings during evenings and weekends and will enable staff to more quickly identify whose with histories of mental health issues, officials said.

The contract also provides for detox and sobering, and access to Haven for Hope residential services.

The court also agreed to accept an unusual gift — a dog specially trained to assist in arson investigations. The accelerant detection canine is the gift to the Bexar County fire marshal from K9s4Cops, a Houston nonprofit group that has provided 50 working dogs to law enforcement agencies in 17 states since 2009.

Worth at least $10,000 after training, the dog would be the county fire marshal’s first arson canine. The office has been using arson dogs from other law enforcement agencies, but that arrangement sometimes results in delays, officials said.

A dog handler from the marshal’s office will travel to a Houston kennel to select a dog that will be trained for arson work. The animal would be only the group’s second dog trained for arson duty, director of operations Melanie Boyd said from Houston.

San Antonio Fire Department has one accelerant detection canine named Kai, a labrador retreiver. The shelter dog has been in service almost four years, the SAFD reports.

jgonzalez@express-news.net