Austin City Council approves independent 911 operations separate from APD

August 26, 2026

Austin City Council approved a resolution on August 12 to move 911 operations out of the Austin Police Department and place them under a new Office of Joint Emergency Communications. Council made the vote during its budget approval meeting, and implementation will follow completion of a city public safety report.

The decision follows a 2024 State of Public Safety presentation by the Austin Police Department that showed emergency and urgent call response times have grown longer since 2022. Under the current system, APD answers all incoming 911 calls, then redirects calls about fire, mental health and other non-APD matters while keeping APD-related callers on the line.

The primary operational shift will have call takers route calls to every relevant department when they first answer, rather than filtering them through APD. City materials name the new unit the Office of Joint Emergency Communications, and a City of Austin spokesperson said the department’s development will rely on findings from a report by Mission Critical Partners.

Austin’s Combined Transportation, Emergency and Communications Center, which supports APD’s call operations, has recently increased staffing. Michael Bullock, president of the Austin Police Association, credited Police Chief Lisa Davis and city officials for those staffing gains and said the center has begun improving response times.

Bullock criticized the Council’s vote, arguing that creating an independent joint emergency communications department adds layers that could slow responses and reduce departmental ability to act quickly. He also noted the new department would take $675,000 from the APD budget, and said the department remains short roughly 700 officers for the size of the city.

A preliminary city study found many delays in response times stemmed from the availability of emergency responders, not from call center staffing or operations. Council Member Zohaib Qadri, who represents District 9, voted for the resolution and said routing calls to the appropriate professional, including mental health teams when appropriate, requires a different system.

City Manager T.C. Broadnax has not set a timeline for finalizing the new department, according to a city memo. The Council’s resolution directs the city to use the Mission Critical Partners report and other findings to inform how the Office of Joint Emergency Communications will be structured and implemented.