One of the proposed amendments to the Dallas City Charter that voters will get a chance to weigh in on in November concerns police staffing.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the Dallas Police Department has been grappling with a longstanding officer shortage. The department only has around 3,000 officers in the field at present, whereas a prior City analysis advised that roughly 4,000 were needed to reduce police response times and properly maintain public safety.
In just a few months, Dallas residents will vote on a charter amendment proposition to increase the number of police officers in the City, increase DPD salaries, and shore up the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System.
Dallas HERO, a bipartisan initiative seeking to amend the Dallas City Charter, submitted the citizen-driven petition from which the amendment stems. The city secretary recently certified the signatures on the petition. The Dallas City Council will vote to add the amendment to the ballot; however, it is unclear whether they will try to amend the language to neuter the measure or confuse voters.
The public safety amendment spearheaded by Dallas HERO requires the City to have at least 4,000 officers. It also states that officer pay must be in the top five for police departments in Dallas, Collin, Tarrant, Denton, and Rockwall counties. Also, the City would be required to use half of any increased year-to-year tax collection to pay into the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System.
Pete Marocco, the executive director of Dallas HERO, said the community longs for law and order. He noted that people have been frustrated with the rampant criminal activity in the City. He said the amendment would force Dallas leaders to address the long overdue issue.
“Since the City leadership has known about [the police shortage], why is it that they have not been able to fix it?” he said to DX. “You have overworked, underpaid police officers. You’re being forced into bad decisions about how to use the resources you do have.”
As noted above, the Dallas City Council must adopt ballot language for residents to vote on. Dallas HERO suggested the ballot proposition read, “Shall the City Charter be amended to prioritize an appropriation of year-over-year City revenue increases for specific public safety objectives, including funding the Dallas Police and Fire Pension system, increasing the number of sworn police officers, and ensuring their pay is competitive?”
The Austin City Council lost a lawsuit in 2021 after the Supreme Court ruled it enacted misleading ballot language. Matt Mackowiak, co-founder of Save Austin Now, which won that lawsuit, warned that this tactic is common among municipal leaders.
“[City leaders] all play games with ballot language,” Mackowiak previously told DX. “Cities don’t like citizen petitions because it reduces their power. It reduces their ability to control policy and to control decisions. It can be a very effective tool because it becomes a check on the powers of the city council and mayor.”
Austin’s legal department played a significant role in crafting ballot language, and it turns out Dallas’ might too. However, it is unclear what kind of guidance Dallas City Attorney Tammy Palomino will provide council members on how to construct the ballot language for November, as previously reported by DX.
Still, Marocco said Dallas residents have an opportunity to protect their City from collapsing.
“It’s only a matter of time before everybody has clear benefits, clear data to show that there are trends and drivers that are taking cities to the point of being Portland or Chicago,” he told DX. “Right now I think our city is surviving on a great culture, a citizenship that regards itself as an investing class city.”
“But after a certain amount of time, if you don’t have the numbers of security resources, there’s a lot of indicators of what happens,” he continued. “When you’re underresourced, security is one of those things you’re not going to be able to keep past a certain point.”