Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax recently unveiled the City’s proposed budget for the 2023-2024 fiscal year, which recommended adding only a few hundred police officers to the severely understaffed Dallas Police Department.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the proposed budget totals roughly $4.5 billion and calls for implementing a police retention initiative targeted at officers who are planning to retire. It also marks an additional $14.3 million in spending to cover overtime at the Dallas Police Department (DPD).
However, the budget only recommends an additional 290 officers to beef up the force, despite a previous City analysis determining that Dallas needs about three officers for every 1,000 residents.
DPD staffing levels have been hovering around 3,100 sworn personnel, with the City only having authorized a force of 3,200 for the current fiscal year. If the new budget is adopted, the City’s new target level would still fall roughly 12.5% below the 4,000 mark.
Antong Lucky, president of the anti-violence activist organization Urban Specialists, told The Dallas Express that national “narratives” about policing may be at play. While noting that officers that break the law and abuse their authority should be held accountable, he said that social media has driven a skewed view of the situation.
“As long as bad narratives can drive the conversation, as long as all you see is bad narratives on social media and news organizations, we are working against getting officers to take part in the profession,” Lucky said.
Police response times have suffered dramatically as a consequence of the ongoing police shortage. During the first four months of 2023, the average time it took for DPD to respond to a call about random gunfire was more than five hours. Year over year, that number had shot up by almost 100%, with a random gunfire call averaging a response time of around 160 minutes in the first four months of 2022.
Additionally, the shortage led to DPD implementing a new online reporting requirement for specific categories of crime considered “non-emergency,” as previously reported by The Dallas Express.