Austin City Council looks to establish reserve police force amid officer shortage

The Austin City Council will consider creating a reserve police force this week that will use some retired Austin police officers to help cover special events in the city.

The push comes at a time when the department faces a record number of about 330 vacancies — a problem not unique to Austin, but one that's put a strain on local policing efforts.

The City Council is set to vote on the reserve force during its Thursday meeting. The reserve force is not a new concept and is typically included in the officers' long-term contract.

But since the city's four-year contract with police ended March 31, and a contentious battle between the police union and City Council has since ensued, there's not a system in place for the reserve force. The contract not approved by the council would have had the power to create a similar reserve force, and the two previous four-year contracts also had this provision.

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Mayor Kirk Watson said the reserve force has been in the works for weeks and is not related to the recent suspension of the city's agreement with the Texas Department of Public Safety to supplement its law enforcement presence.

"It’s one approach the city is taking to manage the understaffing at the Austin Police Department," Watson said in a written statement.

The reserve force is on the council's consent agenda, or a single agenda item that contains multiple routine topics to be approved in one vote. That means the council will not discuss the reserve force publicly during Thursday's meeting unless a council member asks to do so.

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What is the Austin reserve police force?

Essentially, the reserve force will use retired Austin police officers of a certain age to work special events in the city if there are not enough officers to cover the events, said Dennis Farris, president of the Austin Police Retired Officers Association, who helped set up the deal with the city.

These officers won't be used for patrols, and Farris said they are not going to be added to the police department's number of sworn officers. The unit will comprise 75 people, and according to the ordinance, it will be used at the chief's discretion.

"The police chief may call any or all members of the police reserve force into service at any time the chief considers it necessary to have additional officers to preserve the peace and enforce the law," the ordinance states.

A statement from a spokesperson with the department said the "Reserve Force will be used to work special events, traffic control and barricade assignments."

Farris said that when he was approached about the force, he wanted to work out provisions that were beneficial to both retired and active officers.

He said the officers in the reserve unit have to be retired Austin officers. The ordinance states, "All reserve police officers shall hold a permanent peace officer license."

An Austin police spokesperson said the program will only use officers who retired "in good standing from APD."

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Originally, the reserve force was only going to be open to people who had retired in the past 10 years, but Farris said there are some officers who retired early more than 10 years ago and are in their 50s or 60s now and still healthy. He said the department will now take officers on a case-by-case basis to assess if they're healthy enough to join the force.

Additionally, officers who join must have not been under investigation when they retired, he said, and they'll have to pass a background check.

There are 68 former Austin police officers who are considering joining the reserve force, Farris said, and he made it clear that they would not be taking jobs away from active officers. He said active officers would have two weeks to fill a special event, and if there still weren't enough people to work them, then it would open up to the reserve force.

"They all have one thing in common: They all want to come back and help the city of Austin," Farris said of the prospective reserve officers. "More importantly, they want to help the Austin Police Department. ... They realize that we're in crisis and that something has to be done to alleviate it."

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: City of Austin consider reserve police force amid APD's staff shortage