Dallas’ chief financial officer has announced that the city will not release its commissioned police salary survey until “the next few weeks.” This delay means the survey may not be made public until just days before the City Council’s scheduled budget vote on September 17, which will determine pay and staffing levels for the Dallas Police Department.
The delay has raised concerns among public safety advocates, who argue that without timely access to the data, the Council could be voting on a budget that fails to meet the requirements of Proposition U, the voter-approved charter amendment mandating competitive police pay and a minimum of 4,000 sworn officers.
Town Hall Exchange
During a joint public town hall for Districts 12 and 13 on Thursday night, a Dallas resident asked whether the peer-city salary survey would be made public.
District 12 Council Member Cara Mendelsohn responded, “You would have to send an open records request to receive it.”
The resident followed up: “Do you expect to see any pushback on that? Because I have colleagues that have submitted requests and have had issues getting some information. Is there any reason why that shouldn’t be difficult to get?”
Jack Wade Ireland Jr., the city’s chief financial officer, then said, “We do intend to respond to some council questions related to the survey information that was done regarding the police and fire pay. We plan to release the information to Council. It will be posted on our website with our release of memos that we send to the city council.”
When the resident asked for a specific timeline, Ireland replied, “It will be in the next few weeks. It will be before they vote on the budget.”
In Context
On August 14, The Dallas Express reported that Mendelsohn warned in a memo that the city’s existing police pay data is outdated and poses “serious concerns” for recruitment and retention. She called for an “urgent” review of police salaries to ensure the city’s compensation is competitive with the Metroplex market.
A day earlier, DX reported that the proposed FY26 budget already falls short of Prop U requirements, ranking Dallas police pay 12th regionally and leaving the department 576 officers short of the charter’s 4,000-officer minimum.
Ireland’s “next few weeks” timeline means the updated salary data may not reach the public or the Council until days before the budget vote, potentially leaving little time to address gaps in pay or staffing.
Public Records Dispute
On August 6, Dallas HERO — a citizen-led advocacy group — submitted an open records request stating:
“Please provide me with a copy of the city commissioned survey of police salaries at the departments in the cities surrounding Dallas with a population over 50,000 as per the Prop U charter amendment that was passed last November.”
The City of Dallas responded:
“The City received a public information request from you on 8/6/2025. The City has reviewed its files and has determined there are no responsive documents to your request. PLEASE NOTE: Meet and Confer is not complete.”
On X, Council Member Cara Mendelsohn replied, “That is a very specificly [sic] worded request, and they are right, the document doesn’t fit the criteria you submitted. Try again with a request that is not so limited.”
Dallas HERO responded that the request had been intentionally specific to avoid such a response, saying the city was “playing games” and asking if there was another name used at City Hall that might yield results.
Mendelsohn replied, “The city secretary can only respond to what you ask, not what they assume you mean. You got nothing because you asked it incorrectly, not because they are playing games. They will respond based on your request. Think it through and try again.”
Dallas HERO later reiterated its view that the response was overly technical and asked Mendelsohn to help obtain the records.
What’s at Stake
If the city’s existing salary survey is too outdated to be useful — as Mendelsohn has suggested — a fresh peer-city salary analysis would likely take weeks or even months to complete. Collecting, verifying, and compiling compensation data from multiple municipalities is a time-intensive process.
With just over four weeks until the September 17 final budget vote, there would be virtually no time to complete a new survey, analyze the results, and adjust the budget accordingly. That could lock Dallas into pay rates and staffing levels that fall short of Prop U’s mandates for another fiscal year.