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Consultants outline staffing, data and technology fixes for Austin Police Department
Summary
A consultant team presented findings from a multi-part operational review of the Austin Police Department, calling for records-management fixes, a change-management plan, recruitment and academy changes, and a patrol workload analysis expected in December; council members pressed for clearer technology integration and disposition codes.
Consultants working with the Austin Police Department told the City Council Public Safety Committee on Dec. 1 that a set of operational changes and technology fixes are needed to stabilize patrol workload and improve data reliability.
The briefing by the consultant team and APD leadership laid out findings from work that began in February 2024 and included targeted audits of investigations staffing, data-analytics functions and records-management workflows. Consultant representatives said a patrol workload analysis is pending and is expected to be completed in December, and many recommended items will move into functional development in Q4 with implementation work beginning in Q1 2026.
The report identifies three near-term priorities: improving how incident data flows from the computer-aided dispatch (CAD) and mobile systems into the records-management system (RMS); adding quality-assurance protocols to ensure data consistency; and addressing recruiting and academy training to reduce attrition. The consultants said some changes are short-term routing and process fixes while a second phase of technology integration — including deeper work on the CAD–mobile–RMS interfaces — will require vendor cooperation.
"We expect that report to be completed in December," one consultant told the committee, noting the patrol workload analysis will include response-time metrics by priority. The team also argued that improving electronic data capture and reducing duplicate entry are ways to recover officer time; the presentation quantified that APD spent an average of about 48,000 hours handling motor-vehicle crashes over the last two fiscal years.
The briefing included specific operational recommendations: adopt a change-management strategy (the consultant flagged ADKAR/Prosci practices), revisit patrol beat and district assignments using geo-plotted activity, develop disposition codes (including a separate code for "closed without APD response"), and conduct audits of academy curriculum delivery to confirm fidelity to training standards.
Chief Davis and staff responded to questions about vendor integration, confirming the city uses separate vendors for CAD/mobile and RMS and that interface challenges can impede data movement. On staffing, the consultant summarized workload findings by saying the department is "roughly 300 positions short in patrol," a shortfall the presenters tied to limited discretionary time for proactive enforcement.
Council members pressed for specifics on timelines, technology costs and how short-term process changes will be enforced. The consultant said many recommendations will begin being implemented in Q1 2026 and that larger RMS/technology work may extend beyond initial phases. The committee requested follow-up materials, including the upcoming patrol workload report and datasets referenced in the briefing.
The committee did not take formal action on the consultant recommendations at the meeting; staff said implementation work and pilot decisions would be reported back in future meetings.
