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It’s been more than a month since the Austin City Council voted to approve $1.4 million to create a new Office of Joint Emergency Communications, pending final findings from its consultants: Mission Critical Partners.
At Tuesday’s work session, council members reviewed the report’s recommendation that civilian 911 call-takers remain within the Austin Police Department but under civilian leadership.
The consultants compared three options for the city’s civilian 911 call-taking operation: keeping the current structure without major changes; keeping it within APD while making targeted improvements; or creating a standalone public safety answering point outside APD.
Mission Critical Partners recommended keeping call-taking within APD while adding civilian leadership, quality assurance, technology and other operational improvements. The consultants said keeping the call-taking operation within APD offers stability and the lowest implementation risk, while a standalone department would impose higher costs and risks without providing comparable operational benefits.
“The greatest opportunities … come from governance, quality assurance, analytics, technology and so on and really don’t require organizational separation,” said Mission Critical Partners Vice President Bonnie Maney.
During Tuesday’s work session, Maney said that change could address many of the issues identified in the assessment without creating a separate 911 department. However, Tuesday’s discussion showed that the council isn’t abandoning other options.
Source: Mission Critical Partners
District 6 Council Member Krista Laine, who pushed for the new office, said the report does not settle the question of whether 911 eventually should operate independently of the Austin Police Department.
“It is not a foregone conclusion to me at this point that I would not ultimately want that move to be the next step,” she said.
Suggested improvements
The consultants’ recommendation would leave civilian 911 call-takers within APD but put the operation under a dedicated civilian emergency communications leader.
Maney said the position would provide specialized expertise in public safety communications, technology, operations and budgeting while avoiding the disruption of moving call-takers into a new department.
She said one problem with the current structure is that police leadership can rotate through communications assignments, undermining long-term institutional knowledge and strategy.
The consultants fell short of saying that civilian leadership would guarantee better performance, however. Maney said APD’s current leaders have made significant gains in recent years and that civilian leadership was just one way to address service gaps.
The report found APD answers about 97% of calls within 15 seconds, above the National Emergency Number Association’s 90% benchmark. The report also points to improvements in recruitment, retention, compensation, career progression and cross-training.
The report identified several operational changes the city could make without moving 911 out of APD. Those include reducing repeated questions and unnecessary transfers; improving coordination between 911 and 311; creating a dedicated quality-assurance team; and modernizing call-handling technology. The consultants also recommended expanding data collection and reporting so the city can better track call outcomes and identify areas of improvement.
Maney said Austin’s staffing, training and retention also compare favorably to other 911 operations.
“When we told the chief of police that you’re within the top 5% in the country, we mean that,” Maney said.
Solid foundation
Corby Jastrow, a District 10 resident, also urged the council to keep 911 within APD, pointing to the city’s existing partnership with Integral Care. The partnership places Center Crisis Clinicians, or C3s, in the 911 center to assess mental health calls and, when appropriate, connect callers to mental health services instead of sending police.
“This progress happened through steady investments in our system we already have, not by tearing down anything … or starting over,” Jastrow said.
Maney said Austin’s existing efforts deserve more recognition, pointing to the city’s use of 311 to handle administrative calls and its integration of mental health services into the 911 system.
“You guys are doing so much more than you’re getting credit for, and I mean that nationally,” Maney said. “You’re doing so many really good things, but does that mean you can do more? Absolutely. We need to get more calls over them.”
Ryan Poppy, speaking on behalf of United Workers of Integral Care, said behavioral health professionals supported moving toward an independent system because they viewed 911 as the entry point to Austin’s broader emergency response system.
“The front door of Austin’s emergency response system should be neutral,” Poppy said. “How quickly we answer the phone matters, but so does what happens next.”
Mental health response
Mental health response was one area council members said the report did not fully address.
District 7 Council Member Mike Siegel, who sponsored the resolutions pushing the city to examine an independent 911 department, cited a Human Rights Framework Impact Review Report that found mental health calls to Austin 911 increased 269% between 2014 and 2024, while average response times increased 180%. He asked whether Mission Critical Partners had examined why response times had increased.
The consultants had not.
Maney said that in other cities Mission Critical Partners has worked with, rising call volume can partly reflect greater public awareness.
“The increase in call volume is typically because more people are aware of it, and cities are providing more opportunities to have that connection,” she said.
Maney also said Austin has room to expand its use of alternative response without necessarily changing the structure of 911.
“There are a lot of opportunities to increase those calls that are going to some sort of alternative,” she said, “but that does not require a structural change.”
Next steps
Siegel said those unanswered questions should be part of the city’s continued work on the 911 system.
“Some things weren’t explored,” Siegel said, including mental health intervention, customer service data and call classification accuracy. He said the city should use the $1.4 million already allocated by the council to hire a civilian 911 leader and support staff while continuing to study those questions.
“That doesn’t mean we establish an independent department. Doesn’t mean we move anyone out of APD,” Siegel said. “But we should use the dollars to hire, budget, and staff and keep exploring these questions, because our goal ultimately is to save lives.”
Laine called for quarterly updates to the Public Safety Committee as the city implements the assessment’s recommendations and establishes baseline performance data and a quality-assurance unit.
The civilian 911 call-taking operation remains within APD for now. Whether that remains the council’s long-term direction is still an open question.
Shelby Ligon is the government reporter for the Austin Free Press.
Support for the Austin Free Press’ reporting on government accountability and watchdog reporting comes from the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation. Sponsors do not influence AFP’s editorial decisions.
