My 22 year old son has applied. Any advice I can pass along about the department?

Look up John-in-Austin. He is fairly prominent over in GD. I believe he is retired APD.

Yea, go be a firefighter.

SEE ABOVE POST.   Apply to Garland PD instead if he desperately wants to be a cop.

I'll be very, very, honest. Have him pull the application and go apply somewhere else.  Austin PD has been effectively destroyed. If it turned around tomorrow it would take 15 years or better to rebuild.

Yes, his chances are very good for the simple reason they cannot get enough applicants to fill a class. Warm and breathing is pretty much all that is required.  

Yes there is a bonus if he stays for a year or two. (they tried to get retirees to stay with a bonus too, I don't think a single one did)

Patrol has priority manning. Even detectives are working patrol. His chances at specialized units is going to be few and far between, assuming the specialized unit is not disbanded for patrol bodies.  Half his day or more will be dealing with the mentally ill. Mostly homeless.

Yes, he chances for promotion are very good at least up to corporal.  He'll stall a bit at that point but will see Sgt MUCH faster than officers used to.

Leftists took over the academy and gutted it of any skill he would need to survive on the street. The curriciulum is so screwed as to be unrecognizable as a police academy.  All training materials must be approved by a committee of democrat activists that disallow training videos based on the skin color of the actors, etc.  

Firearms training is still mostly intact, the committee cannot ignore state standards. So at least that's spared.

A police oversight board reviews all of your video and passes on violations of policy to internal affairs. Better not cuss or leave your camera on when joking with your co-workers. (Or THEIR cameras)  There are SIX city depts that have oversight of the PD.  From the oversight board, police review committee,  to the city racial equity/civil rights  office. He'll be under a constant microscope.

Field training officers that he would go to after the academy used to have an average of 12-15 years on patrol  Now it's closer to two or three.  Supervisors that used to have 10 years in before promoting are now closer to 4-5. The officer that was murdered last week was on SWAT  had only about three years on the dept.  That was unheard of just 5 years ago.  

Lastly, assuming he can stand the career his retirement is a new one, MUCH less and longer to qualify for vs the old one I retired under.

Go up around Dallas/ Ft Worth, find one of the richer suburbs and apply to them.  Irving would be a good choice as would Temple and Waco, San Marcos and New Braunfels.

Just a caveat, there is a new law in Texas requiring school districts to stand up police depts and put officers in schools.  Do NOT apply to a brand new just out of the box dept. Find one that has already been established if he wants to go that route.

Stay out of Dallas County. Go further East or South where the pay is still good and the job isn't completely dead.

John very much knows what he's talking about. Look outside and around Austin. Travis County S.O. isn't a terrible place to work if he really wants the Austin Area, I have a lot of friends there still.

Hays County, Bastrop County, Bastrop ISD PD, Manor PD, Manor PD ISD are decent options, pay has gotten somewhat competitive with Austin  and not near the amount of bullshit on every level APD has to deal with.