Editor's Note 2/17/2025, 9:12 a.m.: This story has been corrected to note that a quote attributed to Dallas City Council Member Cara Mendelsohn in the original version is from Dallas City Council Member Gay Donnell Willis.
Staffing within the Dallas Police Department seems to be top of mind for the Dallas City Council. In Monday’s Public Safety Committee meeting, council members voted to raise the department’s recruitment goal from 250 officers to 325 in the current fiscal year.
The motion will go before the full city council in the coming weeks to be made official or to be struck down. At the end of January the Dallas Police Department had 3,168 officers sworn in, a retention briefing said. For this fiscal year to date the department has lost 48 officers to attrition and hired 94.
Ever since the November passage of Proposition U — a city charter amendment that demands the hiring of 900 additional police officers and increased funding for the pension system — Dallas has debated what the hiring mandate means for the city’s future. On one hand, rating agency Moody's Investors Service downgraded the city’s economic outlook in light of the amendment, which could make it harder for the city to issue public bonds.
On the other hand, Council Member Cara Mendelsohn argued that hiring more officers could be an opportunity to address residents’ concerns about crime, which 52% of residents rated a “major problem” in Dallas’ 2024 community survey.
Mendelsohn initially suggested the police department’s recruitment goal be pushed to 400 officers for the fiscal year to counteract officer attrition and the number of recruits who flunk out of the academy and field training. The last day of the fiscal year is Sept. 30.
“We have to be thinking a little bit differently because the rest of the city knows this is a crisis. Somehow in this building, people don't get that,” Mendelsohn said. “I'm not saying that the academy won't be busting, but we need to be busting.”
Interim Police Chief Michael Igo told NBC 5 last month that 400 officers could be an attainable goal for the department.
In Monday’s meeting, Igo maintained that a hiring goal of 400 officers would be achievable for the fiscal year but warned that the manpower required to train those additional officers could “cause problems in other areas” because of the number of officers who would need to be pulled from day-to-day patrol units in order to help with recruitment and training efforts.
Even with Igo’s reluctant green light for a 400-officer mandate, several council members balked at Mendelsohn’s motion.
Mayor Pro Tem Tennell Atkins voiced concern that bumping the department’s hiring goal by 150 officers was an unattainable “knee jerk.”
Atkins proposed raising the goal to 300 officers for the current fiscal year, 350 for the next and 400 in fiscal year 2027. Council Member Gay Donnell Willis supported Atkins’ resolution, stating that putting too much pressure on the department could harm the ongoing search for a new police chief.
“We're in a police chief search and I think if we want the most robust pool of candidates we can get — to impose a number that I would love to see, that our residents would love to see, that the Dallas Police Department would love to see, but that just isn't a realistic bar in 2024-25 — to do that artificially, I think, could hinder us in having a really meaningful search,” Willis said.
Arguing against Atkins’ proposal of aiming to hire 300 officers, Willis said any police chief candidate would want to be hired to lead a robust department. She added that if money is an obstacle hindering hiring, the council will find the necessary funds.
Last week, City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert proposed a mid-fiscal year budget amendment that would move more than $7.7 million in federal COVID-19 funds from various city departments to police hiring and retention efforts. The council is expected to vote on the funding proposal in May, after the city council election.
“If we can find more officers, we will find the money to pay them,” Willis said. “The issue is having people raise their hand and say, ‘I want to put my life on the line every day for all the residents of Dallas, Texas, and I'm called to do that.’”
Atkins amended his motion to a 325 officer goal for the current fiscal year. The suggestion passed 3-2 with Mendelsohn and council member Jesse Moreno voting against.
