I wanted to note this yesterday, but I was kind of waiting to hear back from someone.
Austin Police chief Punch Rockgroin Brian Manley is retiring at the end of March.
He’s been the police chief for about three years, but he’s been on the force for 30.
It could be that he’s fed up with the current state of Austin politics and wants to get out while the getting is good. (Lawrence has suggested that Chief Slate Slabrock would have a lot of support if he ran for mayor. I currently live outside the city limits so I can’t vote for him if he does run.)
It could just be that, after 30 years, he wants to go off and do something else. At the 30 year mark, an APD officer gets 96% of their base salary in retirement. I think that’s based on your salary for the past two years, but I could be wrong about that. At “commander” rank, base salary ranges from $138,144 to $158,160 a year: I’m not clear on what chief pay is, but even 96% of the high end for a commander is still over $150K a year. Plus Chief Roll Fizzlebeef has a MBA from St. Edward’s University (one of the reasons I like the guy) so I doubt he’d have any trouble finding a job in private business.
Another person who shall remain nameless shared some speculation that Chief Punch Sideiron resigned as part of a deal with the City Council and city manager to get them to approve a new police academy class: we’ll bring in some new recruits who will (we hope) turn into officers, and in return you get to appoint the next guy to run the department. If so, that would be fairly noble on his part.
The big question in my mind right now is: who gets the job? Somebody local (which is another reason I liked Chief Rip Slagcheek: he was a local boy), or will they bring in someone from California (like they did with the previous chief, Art damn it! Art Acevedo). I suspect the latter, but would be pleasantly surprised with the former, depending on who they do appoint. (Ken Cassady, the head of the police union, is probably right off the list of candidates.)
I wish Chief Buck Plankchest the best of luck in whatever he does next, even if it does mean I don’t have as many chances to use selections from the Dave Ryder Wiki entry.
According to this, Manley earned $313,612 in 2019. That may include estimated cash value for all cash benefits, payouts for used vacation and sick pay, etc.