Trooper Fitness and Waist Standards to Return to the DPS Commission Aug. 27

The five commissioners who govern the Texas Department of Public Safety will meet Aug. 27 to take up the fitness and appearance standards every commissioned officer has to meet — a policy that has not appeared on a posted commission agenda since at least April 2025. The notice says only “report, discussion, and possible action,” and does not say what the commission means to do.

The policy the commission adopted in 2019 works in two parts. Commissioned officers take a physical fitness test twice a year — rowing, a combat fitness course, or push-ups, crunches and a mile-and-a-half run — and must score at least 70 percent for their age and gender. Separately, a “command presence” standard requires a waist under 40 inches for men and 35 inches for women, or compliance with a height-and-weight chart or a body-fat measure. Officers who fall short cannot be promoted and cannot take off-duty work that uses their commission or uniform. The Legislature had just directed the commission itself, rather than the agency, to adopt the program and certify by resolution that it squares with accepted science and with labor law.

The waist rule drew a lawsuit from the Texas DPS Officers Association in 2019, and the commission softened it in August 2022, restoring a 2 percent margin and detaching a command-presence failure alone from promotion, off-duty work and overtime. The association had asked the commission to scrap the standard outright, citing reporting that more than 200 commissioned employees had passed the fitness test but faced discipline over waist size. Nothing found in the agendas posted since April 2025 points to another rewrite, though three sets of approved minutes in that span are scanned images that could not be searched.

Three driver license rules are also up for adoption. The one with the most reach narrows what counts as proof of identity: it drops the words “valid or expired” from the visas the department accepts, drops Canadian provinces as secondary identification, and strikes “and/or gender” from the provision on court orders changing a person’s name. The department says the changes align Texas with the federal REAL ID law; its own impact statement for that rule says it limits an existing regulation. The other two allow electronic signatures on online applications and update a motorcycle training reference. Commissioners also take up the fiscal 2027 internal operating budget, the department’s 2028-29 request to the Legislature and nine contested cases over vehicle-inspection and private security licenses in which the notice describes no findings. The commission meets separately the afternoon of Aug. 26 on a single item: one trooper’s appeal of his discharge.

Watch whether the commission votes on the fitness policy or only receives a staff report.

Meeting at a glance

Commission members

• Steven P. Mach, Houston — chairman; industrial group executive; term to 2028.
• Nelda Luce Blair, The Woodlands — real estate attorney; reappointed in 2026.
• W.D. “Dan” Hord III, Midland — investment company partner; term to 2030.
• Larry B. Long, Dallas — investment firm owner; term to 2028.
• Steven H. Stodghill, Dallas — law firm partner; term to 2030.

The roster follows the governor’s appointment releases for Blair and for Hord and Stodghill, because the department’s own commission page is incomplete: it lists only four members, leaves Hord off entirely and still shows Blair’s term ending in January 2026, though she was reappointed in March to a term running to 2032. The department reported 4,782 commissioned officers in August 2025. Meeting contact: Sophie Yanez, (512) 424-7771.