AUSTIN (Talk1370.com) -- Calling the City of Austin's proposed budget that would restore funding to the Austin Police Department "wholly inadequate", Save Austin Now and law enforcement leaders are asking City Council to increase the amount of funding for additional officers in the city's next budget.
Speaking Monday afternoon, Save Austin Now co-founders Matt Mackowiak and Cleo Petricek were joined by representatives from the Austin Police Association, the Combined Law Enforcement Association of Texas, the Texas Police Association, and the Austin Police Retired Officers Association.
Austin Police Association president Ken Casaday laid bare the staffing problems that the department is struggling with. "APD is authorized for 1,809 officers. We presently stand at 1,650. At an attrition rate of 15 people per month, we'll lose 135 more officers by the time the 144th cadet class graduates," Casady said. "You do the math. By then we'll have maybe 80 people graduate, but by then we'll have lost 135 more officers."
Despite the pilot cadet class that began last month, and the two others currently called for in the proposed budget, Casaday says more officers are needed. "The next class will start maybe in February or March [of 2022]... yes, we are having two more classes, but we're going in the wrong direction," said Casaday. "Right now, what we've been authorized in this budget is simply not enough."
Casaday said APD will soon start offering retention bonuses to officers approaching retirement. "Bonuses for people like me that can retire today if I wanted to," said Casaday. "To say, if you promise to stay another year, we’ll give you a $5,000 bonus, and then do that repetitively to try to get people to stay."
Mackowiak called the proposed budget a sleight of hand, as a response to the Legislature's recent passing of House Bill 1900 - a bill that aims to punish cities that defund police. "They are not trying to hire more police, they are not trying to make our city safe, they are not trying to improve public safety in any meaningful or measurable way in my view. What they are trying to do is come into basic minimum compliance with state law," said Mackowiak.
Under House Bill 1900, a city determined by the governor's office to be "defunding" its police department would be blocked from increasing property taxes or utility rates, have a portion of its sales tax revenue appropriated to the Department of Public Safety, and blocked from annexation. Areas that have been annexed within the last 30 years would also be able to vote to de-annex themselves from the city. Austin City Manager Spencer Cronk, in presenting his proposed budget to City Council members, called the financial consequences of such a move "severe."
The group's petition effort, if enough signatures are gathered and the ordinance is approved by voters in November, would aim to establish a requirement of 2 police officers per 1,000 residents. It would also call for an elected director of police oversight, as opposed to a director that reports to the City Council.
So far, the group says it has collected about 16,000 of the 25,000 signed petitions that it is seeking ahead of a July 20 deadline.