Vacancy Savings Sticking Point for APD's Rank-and-File

One issue to keep an eye on as the Austin Police Association moves toward collective bargaining and a new meet-and-confer agreement in 2017 is vacancy savings in APD's budget. The rank-and-file's position is that the city is making a mistake in withholding its associated dollars from use by the department's chief. Vacancy savings refers to the amount of money city departments don't use on personnel expenses as a result of department vacancies.

At APD, where the number of vacancies for sworn full-time employees (FTEs) currently hovers around 150, the projected amount of unused money – including salaries, benefits, and pensions – totals $11.5 million. The department's proposed FY 2017 budget amounts to $402.5 million, up from last year's amended tally of $391 million. Since that $11.5 million won't go toward FTE expenses, it's currently slated to transfer back to the city's general fund, where it will be earmarked for what the budget office defines as "future one-time funding." That means, in theory, APD's budget of usable dollars will total something closer to last year's $391 million.

The APA believes this is a fundamental problem, suggesting that if the city wants 984 patrol FTEs working 40-hour weeks – a total of 39,360 patrol hours throughout the city – it should provide the department with the necessary dollars to pay for the work, through the allocation of overtime if necessary.

APA President Ken Casaday and the Greater Austin Crime Commission's Michael Lauderdale suggest that is how the city's objective of instilling community policing efforts will be made possible. As Lauderdale leaked Monday at the Public Safety Commission meeting, the community policing study conducted by Richard Brady and the Matrix Consulting Group (see "Asking About APD," May 13) should soon reveal that APD's current rate of community engagement – the amount of time in which patrol officers are not simply bouncing from call to call – hovers between 17 and 22%. That's far lower than the prescribed rate of 35%, said Lauderdale: another reminder that the city's grown too big and busy to maintain so many patrol vacancies on the street.