City announces police pay package ahead of police labor contract expiration

The city of Austin announced a plan to preserve police pay and benefits and to address long-standing staffing shortages when the current police labor contract expires at the end of this month with no likely successor in place.

“We are delivering on our promises, and just one week after a Council directive, the interim city manager has presented us with a substantial pathway to financially supporting the officers who serve this community,” Mayor Kirk Watson said in a Thursday news release. 

The plan, effective April 1, includes a 4 percent pay raise for all Austin Police Department officers below the rank of assistant chief, as well as signing and retention incentives and other provisions. 

City Council approved an ordinance last week that preserved officer pay and benefits and directed staff to develop a plan for alleviating the staffing shortages. The ordinance also authorized the city’s Office of Police Oversight to investigate allegations of police misconduct, including anonymous complaints, and granted it “independent and unfettered access to APD personnel, records, and processes.” 

The ordinance emerged after Council signaled its preference for a one-year police labor contract extension – rather than the four-year tentative agreement with the Austin Police Association that former City Manager Spencer Cronk championed before his firing – citing the May 6 election, which includes two opposing propositions related to police oversight. 

With APA refusing to return to the negotiating table to hash out an alternative, short-term agreement, Council sought to avoid falling out of contract – and potentially exacerbating the police department’s attrition rate, if officers retire in droves to secure contract benefits – while also allowing Austin voters to weigh in on oversight. 

“Some people wanted to say these things are mutually exclusive: oversight as well as taking care of officers,” interim City Manager Jesús Garza said at a Feb. 23 news conference after Council passed the ordinance. “And I think what’s been demonstrated together is that you can have both.”

But it remains to be seen whether the plan will curb the police department’s vacancy rate, which mirrors nationwide challenges around police recruitment and retention. 

“All police departments right now are struggling with staffing, sworn and civilian,” APD Chief Joseph Chacon told the city’s Public Safety Committee on Feb. 28 during a presentation on the department’s staffing levels.

As of Feb. 11, APD’s sworn officer vacancy rate was more than 14 percent, and its civilian staff vacancy rate was nearly 25 percent, reflecting a concerning shortage of 911 call takers and dispatchers.

Chacon told committee members that interventions – including hourly pay raises and shortening the training period for such staffers – have helped somewhat, but sworn officers still end up filling in for vacant positions, at an hourly cost differential of as much as $75. 

“Usually anywhere from 40 to approximately 55 people per month are having to come back on a temporary basis, put caseloads to the side, so that they can answer 911 calls,” he said. 

Despite these challenges, Chacon said increased pay has helped drive interest in call center job openings.

“I think the numbers are kind of bearing that out to some degree – the great number of applications, the greater number of people we have right now in training that are on their way to becoming a dispatcher or call taker – I think those numbers kind of speak for themselves,” he said. 

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