Members of Austin’s Public Safety Commission approved a resolution on Monday calling for a full audit of the progress made on police training academy reforms.
In November, 2020, the city hired Kroll Associates to review and evaluate the Austin Police Department (APD) on the extent to which discrimination, racism and bigotry are present in the protocols and practices of the department, beginning with an assessment of the academy. As the resolution notes, Kroll recommended that the academy shift away from “stress-oriented military style curricula toward a resiliency -based approach.”
According to the resolution, the Kroll final report in 2022 found a lack of buy-in from academy staff related to the mandated reform efforts and a continued prevalence of “military style culture” at the academy.
In a follow-up to that report, Kroll once more evaluated progress in making the changes previously recommended. They found there was no process for the Academy Curriculum Review Committee to provide specific recommendations and that staff rarely reported back to the committee on whether they were following the committee’s recommendations.
The resolution states that there remain institutional barriers within APD, and a resistance to changing training approaches and curriculum content among sworn instructors. In general, they found that there was “a general feeling among sworn staff that the Division Manager, as a civilian employee has no authority to impose directives on sworn members and that sworn members are only required to respond to directives from the sworn chain of command.”
Members of the commission’s working group reviewing the Kroll recommendations asked for a status report in July 2024. However, as of this week, the training academy staff “has failed to produce adequate documentation of progress and/or a plan for completion for all recommendations,” according to the commission’s resolution.
According to a report prepared for the department about the 154th Cadet Class, 48 percent of the most recent academy class graduated. Students with some military background had a higher graduation rate than those that did not, 64 percent compared to 42 percent of those who did not.
That report indicates that cadets requested more time on critical skills, including defensive tactics, firearms, legal content, patrol and radio communications. They indicated a desire to “spend less time on community engagement, which some viewed as low-value”
The commission’s resolution stated that the training academy staff had undergone “significant turnover without a continuity plan or documented procedures in place.” However, it is unclear whether there is such a plan that was not shared with members of the commission. Commissioners noted that APD was removing 14 instructors from the academy and replacing them with officers of the different ranks. The previous instructors were assigned to patrol.
Members of the commission said they were opposed to reassigning current academy staff. However, that has already happened. According to Henderson’s presentation to the commission, “On August 24, 2025, 36 of the 42 instructors at the Academy, including those in the Cadet Training, Advanced Education, and Learned Skills (Firearms & DT) Units were reassigned to patrol full time. Those instructors were replaced with 27 sergeants who are still in the process of transitioning into their new roles.”
Henderson, who previously served as interim chief, has worked hard to solve one of the department’s most difficult problems– insufficient officers on patrol. Henderson told the Austin Monitor that the department had reallocated officers previously assigned to parks and some special forces, including organized crime and commercial burglary.
“Based on our attrition, there have been several iterations of officers being reassigned,” she said. Because the number of officers leaving the department was greater than the number of officers being recruited, the department needed to make changes in order to keep a sufficient number of officers on patrol.
After an evaluation of the current distribution of APD officers, the department learned that the number of Austin officers assigned to a non-patrol function is disproportionate to that of other cities of the same size.
“In other words, we have more officers doing things other than patrol than any other city of our size,” Henderson said. She noted that there are still six officers, four sergeants, and four lieutenants at the academy, and not a full turnover of personnel.
In addition to the request for an audit, the resolution seeks an expansion of the open policing data release portal “to include additional transparency on progress and completion of all Reimagining Public Safety Task Force, Kroll, Office of Police Oversight, and City Council recommendations.” The group also asked for a public application process for participating in the community advisory and professional advisory committees.
The Austin Monitor’s work is made possible by donations from the community. Though our reporting covers donors from time to time, we are careful to keep business and editorial efforts separate while maintaining transparency. A complete list of donors is available here, and our code of ethics is explained here.