Police, EMS Staffers Not Happy

Police Chief Art Acevedo (l) and APA President Ken Casaday (Photo by John Anderson)

The Austin Police Association executed a bit of public venting last week when it released a morale survey suggesting membership's got a problem with Police Chief Art Acevedo and the way that he's been running things. Well, half the membership's got the problem. Or maybe it's a quarter. Put it this way: 883 members of the local union's full body of 1,728 due-paying members (51.1%) filled out a morale survey. Half of those officers surveyed aren't happy with their department.

The survey was conducted during a two-day stretch in mid-May, two weeks after an APA complaint led to a high-profile disciplining of Acevedo by City Manager Marc Ott, in which Acevedo was docked five days' pay (see "Ott and Acevedo at Odds," May 6 – and you can see the full results here). In general, it portrays a participating membership that, like most public safety departments (not to mention most local unions), has grown overworked and underserved. 54.5% of the participants classified APD morale as presently "poor," with 30.9% voting "fair" and only 13.2% suggesting it's "good." Voters were in agreement about their problems at APD: 47% (414 members) suggested the department could use new leadership; 42% (374 members) pointed to a need for more officers in the wake of the current staffing shortage (where vacancies have risen to 150). Only 29% agreed at all that officers receive an adequate amount of continual training to do their job safely.

Specifically concerning Acevedo, voting members suggested that the chief is "often arbitrary or politically-driven in high-profile disciplinary cases" (704 of the 883 agreed to some degree with that sentiment) and more than 65% thought the chief often "relies on fear and retaliation in managing the department." More than half of those polled suggested the boss could improve his openness and honesty in "dealings with subordinates." The survey's final question, a vote of confidence in the chief, yielded 195 yays, 362 nays, and 301 who were uncertain. Chief Acevedo issued a written statement following the survey's release, saying that he was "excited at the opportunity this survey provides to address the concerns raised."

Though the APA's fondness for Acevedo has waned in recent years, it's no surprise that the association held off on running a morale survey like this one until recently, as the fallout from the David Joseph shooting – and subsequent indefinite suspension of Officer Geoffrey Freeman, which membership invokes throughout the survey – has put the chief's relationship with his rank-and-file under scrutiny like never before. (Freeman is currently awaiting his appeal of the termination. A grand jury chose not to indict him on criminal charges in May.) That the APA returns to the bargaining table to negotiate another meet-and-confer agreement (civil service speak for "contract") with the city in six months is also notable. APA President Ken Casaday has made no bones about preparing for negotiations well in advance of the actual bargaining period, with grievances flying to the city manager through the winter and recent spring.

Elsewhere on the Public Safety Labor Associations Morale Survey Beat, results from this winter's questionnaire sent out to EMTs and paramedics in the Austin-Travis County EMS Employee Association are back, and nobody there is happier. The survey, second in a series of local studies conducted by UT professor Noel Landuyt, suggests that 43% of medics feel disengaged with the department and 41% feel only moderately engaged (57% of the department's uniformed staff of about 450 completed the survey). Medics and EMTs seemed content with their pay and salaries but felt, as usual with ATCEMS, as though executive staff wasn't communicating with its rank-and-file, or being attentive to their problems.

The results were "fairly consistent" with the first survey, conducted in 2012, said ATCEMSEA president Tony Marquardt. "It was good to follow through to completion. The first time we did it, we had a suicide. As Dr. Landuyt pointed out, when you take those, they're a snapshot in time. So you want to do a couple of them. It came out about the same. I think the things that the association was responsible for rated higher than the others. The difference is that it showed, because of the practices, that the people start to have a greater dissatisfaction among each other. In the first one there was more unity."

See the Police Association survey results.