APD Training Academy audit shows improvement – but not enough to curb attrition

An external audit of the Austin Police Department’s 148th cadet class, which graduated in September, shows progress in “reimagining public safety,” but attrition remains a constant challenge.

Under internal audit protocols developed by Kroll Associates in March 2022, APD is required to report to City Council the progress of each cadet class and of ongoing academy reforms. After a delay, APD leadership reported the inaugural audit’s findings – for the 147th class – in August. Kroll followed up with its presentation on the 148th class to the Public Safety Committee on Monday. 

The 148th class began with 34 cadets and graduated 19, for an attrition rate of 44 percent. Rick Brown, a Kroll consultant, told committee members that this rate increased for underrepresented groups.

“Although a small sample size, the 15 cadet separations had a slightly negative impact on overall racial, ethnic and gender diversity, with the total number of Black, Hispanic, Asian and female cadets declining by 50 percent or more due to resignations and terminations,” he said. 

Commander Wade Lyons, who oversees the training division, said 10 of the separations were due to personal reasons. Two were due to academic test failures, prompting the academy to add four hours of study skills instruction in future cadet classes.

Interim Chief Robin Henderson added that attrition remains a departmentwide issue, fueled by several factors. She cited a temporary suspension of the academy following mass protests against police violence and racism as well as changing attitudes toward policing, increased job opportunities in the private security sector and a departmental hiring push in the early 2000s whose beneficiaries are now becoming eligible for retirement. 

“That’s a long explanation of saying, ‘No, the number of onboarding cadets that we have is not making up for the amount of attrition that we do have,’” she told committee members.

To offset attrition departmentwide, the academy would need to onboard close to 120 cadets in each class three times a year, Henderson said. 

Ongoing classes have fallen short of this metric. For example, the 149th class, set to graduate in December, includes 22 cadets, down from 34 at its start, Lyons said. 

Although attrition remains a major obstacle, the academy has made progress in other areas, complying – or working toward compliance – with 20 of Kroll’s 23 “priority audit domains.”

“Since we started looking at the academy a few years ago, the academy staff now does a much improved job of ensuring a more logical flow of class content and better integration of de-escalation principles, mental health awareness and community perspectives into the training,” said Mark Ehlers, a Kroll managing director. 

But certain domains remain sticking points, including an ongoing imbalance of authority between sworn and civilian academy leadership.

Dan Linskey, another Kroll managing director, said this isn’t uncommon across police departments. 

“Civilians have often been looked at by police with jaundiced eyes because they haven’t gone through an academy, haven’t taken a civil service test, and it takes time and relationship-building to bridge that gap,” he said, adding that he feels this gap is narrowing at the academy. 

The Fiscal Year 2023-24 city budget includes funding for seven new civilian positions within APD to implement Kroll recommendations regarding the academy. 

But members of the now defunct Academy Curriculum Review Committee – subject of a different Kroll report, released in March – worry this imbalance of authority will persist.

“The Kroll report seems oddly hopeful that more and new civilian staff will somehow overcome this dynamic, and I don’t see a lot of cause for hope for that,” Phil Hopkins said during public comment. 

The Kroll audit also rated APD “non-adherent” in three domains, including developing an evaluation process for academy instructors, providing those instructors with professional development opportunities and compiling a library of academy video materials for external review. 

Lyons said academy leadership met with Kroll earlier this month to provide an update on progress made in each domain since the report was released in September. 

District 10 Council Member Alison Alter recognized the academy’s “clear progress on certain elements” while lamenting the delay in other areas. She also encouraged APD leadership to carry the mantle of consistent, and timely, class audits.

“I want to just underscore with the chief, et cetera, that we do expect these reports to be coming,” she said. “This is really important if we want to keep the sustained momentum that we have.” 

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