APD hopeful about staffing despite audit claiming ineffective recruitment practices
AUSTIN (KXAN) — A city audit has called the Austin Police Department’s recruitment process “not efficient,” highlighting things like inconsistent data collection, a lack of a recruitment “pipeline” or recruitment and social media strategy.
The police department had 330 vacancies as of January, and the audit said 41% of those positions had been open for more than a year.
Still, Chief Lisa Davis has told KXAN things are going in the right direction and she expects vacancy rates to drop significantly over the next few years.
“I think we can look at, if we’re doing three classes a year between 60 to 80 people, I think we can really look at the end of ’27 maybe being short 40 officers,” she said in a March interview.
The audit tracked vacancy rates and strategies from 2020 through 2024. During that time, the vacancy rate increased from 7.4% to 18%. Below are some factors that impacted staffing numbers.
- 2021: Austin City Council halted cadet classes until APD revamped its diversity and use-of-force protocol.
- APD operated without a police contract from March 2023 to October 2024
“Attrition has really slowed down after securing the contract, people who are leaving are scheduled to leave just based off of retirement,” Davis said.
The graph below shows a spike in separations in 2023.
The audit was discussed during the Audit and Finance Committee’s meeting this week, and you can watch it here.
During this meeting, the department acknowledged gaps in its data tracking in terms of determining why some recruits don’t make it through until the end and flagged that as a priority moving forward. Chief Davis also said recruitment strategy changes in recent months have resulted in recruitment numbers trending upward.
