Texas DPS scraps $1.2 billion active shooter training center plan

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The Texas Department of Public Safety is pulling back on its $1.2 billion state-of-the-art training center for active shooters, instead aiming for a much lower goal of $381.5 million to upgrade its current campus with housing and renovated buildings, Director DPS. Steve McCraw said this week.

First appearing in the department’s budget request as an “initial contribution” of $476 million for a six-year commitment to a multi-stage project, the DPS rejected the proposal and reduced it to a “basic need” to improve conditions at the current campus outside of Waco, McCraw told The Texas Tribune.

“We’re just looking across the board – what are we focusing on?” McCraw said Thursday after testifying to the Senate Finance Committee about the aging facilities and the lack of adequate housing and food on campus. “The problem with a phased approach that focuses on a real learning center. [is] … we still have nowhere to put people. You must have a place to sleep. You must have a place to eat.

The agency is still under fire for its role in the bungled multi-agency response to the Robb Elementary School massacre in Uvalde last year, when it took hundreds of officers from multiple agencies, including DPS, 77 minutes to break into a classroom where a gunman shot himself. 19 students and two teachers.

More protests came when the agency’s proposal for a new training center became public.

According to minutes obtained by the Tribune, the proposed site for active shooters was part of a presentation McCraw made last year to captains of the Texas Highway Patrol, a division of the DPS.

Minutes say the facility will include the Advanced Rapid Response Law Enforcement Training Program, an active shooter training system developed 20 years ago at Texas State University at San Marcos that has been the national standard for active shooter training for a decade. .

Speaking before the Legislative Budgetary Council in October, McCraw presented the project as a six-year proposal to turn the nearly 200-acre Williamson County DPS Tactical Training Center complex in Florence into a Texas law enforcement academy for use by agencies across the state.

“You play the same way you train,” he told them at the time. “You need to practice in real conditions.”

McCraw said in his Oct. 4 presentation that a “state of the art” facility for active shooters would immediately improve the Texas law enforcement response to active shooters.

No more discussion

On Thursday at the Capitol, McCraw briefly confirmed that the larger project was no longer under consideration. There was no further discussion of the plan he outlined in October.

Senate budget planners expressed support for a newer idea of ​​a simple $381.5 million training center upgrade, as well as consideration of legislation that would require intensive training for active shooters for law enforcement officers in all types of jurisdictions.

The Williamson County DPS site opened in 2003 with a network of tracks and city streets similar to a residential area or downtown for ambulance training; shooting range; and classes for both recruit training and advanced training. There is no lodging or cafeteria, officials said, despite officers from across the state using it.

McCraw said the new plan will be a one-stage upgrade of dormitories, a cafeteria and a technological upgrade of classrooms and other facilities for soldiers, deputies, local police and other lifeguards who want to receive required or additional training at the 20-year-old facility. .

Finance Chair Joan Huffman, R-Houston, noted the costs incurred and the lack of access for some smaller budget departments that currently have to pay for room and board on any study trips.

McCraw said there are “nuances” that exacerbate problems, such as breaking into patrol cars parked outside hotels and the need for security guards in some cases, that could be alleviated by on-campus housing and dining.

State Senator Pete Flores, a Pleasanton Republican committee member and former gamekeeper, said it was “not a good thing” to waste time on training by officers traveling back and forth from campus to sleep and eat.

“The surplus we have now is best spent on capital construction and the like,” Flores said, referring to the $32.7 billion cash surplus that the state could spend on top of its overall revenue over the next two years. “When we have such facilities, such expenses are very appropriate.”

It would also be helpful if lawmakers decide to require more active shooter training, which will increase the need for community-based services, McCraw said.

Asked after the hearing if any lawmakers approached him with concerns about the larger project, McCraw replied, “Not really.”

“There are always priorities when money is tight,” McCraw said. “You can ask for so much and they have been very accommodating to government employees right now. [proposed across-the-board pay raise] and we remember and are grateful for what they provided us.”