A third-party evaluation of the Austin Police Department Training Academy’s curriculum review process found it lacked “a clearly defined mission and scope, which hampered its effectiveness from the beginning,” and that it suffered from instructors’ resistance to reform and did little to improve police-community relations, echoing previous concerns. At City Council’s direction, city staff hired […]
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City Council takes step to restart Community Police Academy
After a three-year pandemic hiatus, the Austin Police Department’s Community Police Academy, a 14-week program designed for members of the public, may soon resume classes. City Council voted last week to direct city staff to report back on the possibility of restarting the academy, which had graduated 2,716 community members across 101 classes as of […]
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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 […]
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Council adopts ordinance to preserve police benefits
City Council voted unanimously Thursday to approve an ordinance that preserves the pay and benefits Austin police officers currently receive and directs interim City Manager Jesús Garza to come up with incentives for new recruits to the department. Council also directed Garza to develop and implement a program to address the shortage of APD officers by March […]
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Mayor seeks to add sweeteners to ordinance for cops
At Tuesday’s City Council work session, Mayor Kirk Watson added some details to the police pay and benefits ordinance that will be on this Thursday’s agenda. Council Member Ryan Alter authored the proposal in line with ideas Watson outlined on the City Council Message Board last week. Under that proposal, officers would not only continue […]
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Ordinance would extend officer benefits if police labor contract expires
City Council will consider an ordinance Thursday that would preserve the current police labor contract’s provisions for officer pay and benefits, even if the contract expires without a successor in place, after the Austin Police Association said it wouldn’t negotiate a one-year labor contract extension with the city. “(L)et me be clear – this is […]
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Austin police investigate series of street racing incidents over the weekend
Lee esta historia en español. The Austin Police Department is investigating a series of incidents over the weekend in which cars were racing and blocking traffic. One officer was injured and multiple law enforcement vehicles were damaged, APD said. Between Saturday night and early Sunday morning, officers responded to four separate incidents, starting at the intersection of Barton […]
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Council directs negotiators to bring back one-year police contract
City Council voted 9-2 on Wednesday to instruct staff and outside counsel to negotiate a one-year extension of the current contract between the city and the Austin Police Association without taking an explicit position on a four-year deal announced last week by outgoing City Manager Spencer Cronk. Council members Alison Alter and Mackenzie Kelly voted […]
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Council delays vote on one-year police contract extension, citing confusion
After nearly a year of negotiations, with just seven weeks to go until the current police labor contract expires, with city staff and the police union working to finalize a tentative four-year agreement and in the run-up to a local election with two competing ballot measures related to police oversight, Austin City Council is weighing […]
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CM Vela proposes one-year police labor contract extension
As the city of Austin and the Austin Police Association continue to negotiate a new, four-year labor contract, several Council members have endorsed a short-term extension of the current agreement that would allow voters a chance to weigh in. District 4 Council Member Chito Vela proposed a resolution directing the city manager to negotiate the […]
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Public Safety Commission calls out APD’s resistance to training academy reform
The city’s Public Safety Commission criticized the Austin Police Department for stonewalling a committee formed by City Council in 2021 to review the police training academy curriculum as part of a broader push to “reimagine” public safety. “Just to summarize, two years ago, maybe longer, the City Council, which is supposed to run this city, […]
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City, police union move toward removing OPO from labor contract
With less than three months until the current police labor contract expires, the city of Austin and the Austin Police Association recently returned to the bargaining table and moved closer toward consensus regarding civilian oversight of the Austin Police Department. Lowell Denton, an outside attorney for the city, acknowledged the union’s movement toward meeting the […]