Community Investment Budget
Dozens of local organizations collaborated to create or have endorsed the 2025 Community Investment Budget, an effort to determine from the ground up what spending is necessary to address the urgent needs of this moment.
The City’s budget is a reflection of our values. This year, our residents face serious new challenges from a federal administration that has already reversed the nation’s course on climate, equity, inclusion, civil rights and citizenship — and our residents need help urgently.
As American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds run out, and the Trump administration continues to cut off already approved grant funds, critical services to our most vulnerable are on the chopping block. We understand that Council cannot print money, but we expect every available dollar to be applied to community priorities and living wages for City workers.
Austin made modest progress last year on long deferred costs (e.g. more parks require more park services, city worker COLA increases). We must now keep the police budget as flat as possible given the pay increase that must be covered this fiscal year. We urge Council to ensure that APD pays for its own proposed programming from existing departmental funds. The City must maintain what we have gained in other departments and support needed expansions like legal support for migrants, access to all books at the library, climate programs and other critical needs.
The undersigned organizations jointly urge the city to fulfill the promise made to AFSCME (3%) when the Budget Office created a financial forecast right before urging passage of a police contract, add modestly to fill well documented gaps in city services ($35.1M or 2.5% of this roughly $1.4B general fund budget), and continue to invest [NO CUTS] in the priorities listed below in community health, housing, affordability, sustainability and safety for FY25-26. As the President pushes for steep cuts to health coverage, SNAP benefits and more, now is not the time to walk back our local services to our most vulnerable people.
October 2024 Police Contract
On Thursday October 24, City Council voted 10-1 FOR a police contract that threatens implementation of the APOA and costs an eye-popping $218M. The coalition of groups for this very expensive deal included RECA, the Chamber, the business group Downtown Austin Alliance, Gary Farmer’s Heritage Title and California-based glass tower owners Kilroy Properties. Between Tuesday’s work session and Thursday’s meeting at which Council voted, more than 250 Austinites testified, mostly in person. The nine hour hearing on October 24th featured vocal opposition from labor, environmental groups, social justice groups, parents, elders and residents of every district. It was quite literally the people vs big business. But this fight is NOT over. We are taking it forward in several ways. Check out our endorsements for City Council and vote your values!
https://equityactionatx.org/equity-action-2024-general-election-endorsements/
Here is some digested information about this contract and why we opposed.
Background Documents
Text of the Austin Police Oversight Act
Text of the Tentative Police Contract
Equity Action Legal Memo to City
Equity Action Proposed Changes and Appropriate Cost
Altamirano Critique of Budget Assumptions to Clear $218M Cost Without Deficit
After Court Ruling Manager Moves to Eliminate Secret Police File
Officers to get largest pay raise in decades, secrecy for police files reinstated
Police Union says proposed contract reinstates secret police file for all existing records
Police Union reverses and agrees that g-file not made secret by provision
Police Allow Officer to Resign Before Discipline, Files Still Kept from Public
Equity Action Letter to Council — Impact of the contract on the voter mandates including g-file
Ultimately, the police want to move forward even with a deeply unclear provision about the g-file, because they hope for a “change of venue” on the final decision. They lost with the voters. They lost with the courts. Now they hope this contract will let them take the dispute to a police union approved arbitrator, who will interpret the meaning based only on the words in this contract and not on the voter approved ordinance.
And there’s more. Developed in secret, the words on the page were not available for analysis until Sept. 26. With time to read it, other issues have emerged. The grievance provision will illegally allow police to take many issues with the voter approved ordinance to an arbitrator based on confusing language in the contract. Issues with the still not launched Commission, issues with the OPO’s investigatory authority and more.
For example, the contract says the officer’s statement and answers to questions are not included in the definition of “investigation,” a remarkable move with major implications for both the Office of Police Oversight and the Commission) and their ability to make recommendations about discipline — a core function of both entities.
The City MUST NOT vote for a contract that violates the voter mandates because the Charter prohibits any change to a voter approved ordinance in the first two years. The city wasted 18 months of that time simply ignoring the most important provisions of that voter approved law. Now that it is moving forward with implementation, this contract would illegally limit that implementation.
Cost of the Deal
AFSCME opposes contract, demands visibility into impact on other departments, other staff
33 Community Organizations Say Austin Values Demand No on Proposed Deal
Even worse, the city is about to pay $218 million for the privilege of again failing to hold officers to reasonable transparency and accountability standards.
$218M is so much money, it threatens the welfare of all other city workers and the continuation of programs and services that Austin loves and relies upon. This year, Council did not have enough money to fully fund critical public safety needs:
24/7 alternative response to mental health calls
Harm reduction for substance abuse
Emergency rental assistance and other services to prevent homelessness
Jobs and housing assistance for formerly incarcerated people
Next year, all this could be cut along with park maintenance, library hours and much more.
The Austin Police Oversight Act is now the law, or is it?
Equity Action has sued the City of Austin for failure to create the oversight system passed overwhelmingly by voters in May of 2023. On June 12, 2024, more than a year after the election, we finally got a hearing before a judge. On the most important points, last fall, the judge agreed with our interpretation of state law and ordered the City of Austin to comply with critical transparency provisions that facilitate civilian oversight and make sure the public can know about all complaints and misconduct.
Although it passed with nearly 80% of voters in support, and a watered down version backed by the police association failed by an even greater margin, the City of Austin still has not fully implemented the law. Council has twice directed City Staff to implement the new law. Lawmakers in 2025 considered but ultimately failed to pass proposals by the police union to overturn our voter mandated oversight system.
The major issue — as described in the Austin Chronicle in December 2023 — was the “g file,” an optional secret file maintained by the police department into which go all records of actions that do not result in a suspension. Which is of course almost all of them, regardless of whether policy was violated or people were harmed. Most police departments do NOT have a g-file and operate just fine. The Public Information Act in multiple exceptions to disclosure protects material related ongoing investigations. No police departments without a g-file have an excess of transparency. But in agencies with a g-file, secrecy creates an incentive against appropriate discipline. Conduct that results in a suspension becomes public, while conduct that does NOT garner discipline can be kept secret. Lesser or no discipline at all may be preferred in order to keep the conduct secret. The Austin Police Oversight Act declares that Austin shall not have one, and yet our city acted like we did until yet another legislative session closed down with no pre-empting legislation passing. Our act is STILL THE LAW.
In May of 2025, near the end of the legislative session, the new Commission on Police Oversight created by the voter ordinance finally met for the first time, and again in June. The members were clearly frustrated by the more than two years long delay and ready to get started reviewing cases. They also wanted to make sure that no one at the city cherry picked for them the cases they would review and were anxious to look at everything in their mandate. We celebrate the long overdue arrival of the commission and will be monitoring it and the Office of Police Oversight closely in the coming weeks.
We expect the new Commission to look closely at the General Orders related to use of force, training that is needed before officers deploy less than lethal weapons, and the ongoing issues around surveillance tools like Automated License Plate Readers. Groups representing migrants have asked for clarification in the General Orders to ensure that Austin remains a city where migrants can work and raise their families free of fear about unidentifiable police acting on behalf of ICE. These kinds of issues in policing are urgent and immediate, and we now have an oversight system in place that can lead us towards a safer and better justice system. We just need the City to finish setting it up.
Find our Austin Police Oversight Explainer here!
If you still have questions, maybe our FAQ will answer them!
Full text of the new law here!
Now that must change.
The Austin Police Oversight Act gives the Office of Police Oversight (a city department reporting to the City Manager) unfettered access to the information it needs to review the facts of a complaint about police conduct, determine whether a full investigation is warranted and recommend next steps. The Director can also recommend the level of discipline, but the Office is merely advisory with respect to discipine. The final decision remains with the Chief.
The Office of Police Oversight will also become a repository of documents related to police conduct — including force data and public filings in lawsuits against the City over police conduct. A new consultant report estimated that lawsuits over police conduct have cost the city $70 million in recent years. Its time to shine light on the problem and fix it.
We believe police shouldn’t police themselves and Austin police — like most major departments — require external oversight to ensure accountability. We believe more records about police brutality and misconduct should become publicly accessible and records should no longer be permanently sealed — at least to the same extent that officer conduct records are public at the Sheriff’s department or DPS. But the police contract has always given police in Austin special rights, and for decades has failed to secure a strong and effective oversight system.
That’s why we created the Austin Police Oversight Act. It sets out what our oversight system can do and prevents a police contract from undermining it. For example, the new ordinance will give the Office of Police Oversight:
- unfettered access to body/dash camera video and 911 call audio,
- the ability to pose questions to witnesses
- the ability to identify additional witnesses who might have relevant information
- the right to determine whether an incident needs a full investigation based on its review of the evidence, and then participate in that investigation.
The Office of Police Oversight should be “eyes on the process” throughout the process and ensure that conduct that violates policy is met with appropriate discipline. Civilian oversight systems like the one we propose work to improve accountability in cities all across America. It is so common that there is a national association of civilian oversight systems and a detailed history about what has worked. Our Act is based on a careful evaluation of such models as well as the historic role the OPO has played in Austin in recent years.
The City recently claimed to have implemented 82% of the new law. It reached that assessment by redrafting the provisions, then claiming to have accomplished the reworked requirements. It claims to have almost completely implemented City Council’s most recent directive, known as Item 99, related to the new law by doing the same. Here is our side by side of Item 99’s requirements and the city’s rewritten provisions. And here is our side by side of the portions of the Austin Police Oversight Act where the City has claimed compliance by redrafting the requirements.