If that assessment leaves you confused, you aren’t alone.
Wednesday’s discussion on the police academy comes one month after an investigation from The Dallas Morning News found the plans for the new southern Dallas campus, which had been in the works since 2021 and were endorsed by voters through a $50 million bond measure last year, had drastically changed.
Some city officials' reactions to the news made it appear that the whole endeavor was dead in the water. Even Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick threatened to withdraw a $5 million pledge to the new campus because the uncertainty was so murky, a move that Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson applauded online.
“Lt. Gov. Patrick is right to pause funding. We have collaborated with UNT-Dallas on plans for a regional law enforcement academy for years. We took the time and effort to sell these plans to voters and to state leaders,” Johnson posted to X. “The university’s sudden change of heart caught us completely off guard.”
Johnson’s statement further called for officials at UNT Dallas to explain themselves to city officials, emphatically indicting the university in the switch-up. University officials, though, blamed the city for changing its mind about building the entire facility at the college.
To date, no one has offered answers on how the plans unraveled or why blame was so quickly tossed out. Despite the protest of some council members, Wednesday’s briefing seemed to show that if city leaders have their way, last month’s snafu will be pushed aside entirely as a new iteration of the police academy plan moves forward.
Addressing the meeting, council member Carolyn King Arnold said she attended a neighborhood association meeting earlier in the week and after the meeting concluded, was approached by a neighbor who asked, “Why do you all seem so confused about the training facility?”
A Change in Plans
Dallas’ leaders have discussed the need for a new police academy for years. Police training takes place in a Red Bird facility that former police Chief Eddie Garcia called “embarrassing” for its outdated amenities and general disrepair. Advertising that disrepair was a strategy ahead of last year’s billion-dollar bond election when voters were sold on a $50 million allocation to a new, state-of-the-art training facility on the UNT Dallas campus.The new plans, presented Wednesday, would use 20 acres at UNT Dallas for training facilities for recruits and in-service officers. A 60-acre public safety complex featuring a driving track and shooting range will be built concurrently in a second yet-to-be-determined location. Bob Mong, UNT Dallas’ former president who retired last year, told The Dallas Morning News that multiple training sites were always, to his knowledge, the plan because a shooting range and driving track would have been incompatible with a college campus.
Lt. Gov. Patrick (@LtGovTX) is right to pause funding. We have collaborated with UNT-Dallas on plans for a regional law enforcement academy for years. We took the time and effort to sell these plans to voters and to state leaders. The university’s sudden change of heart caught us…
— Mayor Eric L. Johnson (@Johnson4Dallas) March 4, 2025
Still, with turnover among City Hall's and UNT Dallas’ leadership, that message fell through the cracks, leaving council members and residents confused about the plan's status.
The city had initially targeted 2027, the year the city’s lease with the current Red Bird facility ends, as the project's finishing date, but new projections shared Wednesday showed completion dates of March 2028. Multiple council members expressed concern for the pie-in-the-sky site plans, which included a 1,000-person auditorium, basketball courts, and indoor and outdoor training facilities.
“I think one of the consensus items I’ve heard around the horseshoe today is that we all want a facility, and we want it as soon as possible,” council member Paul Ridley said. “I’m just concerned that by shooting for the moon, we aren’t going to get it as soon as possible, and we’re going to be stuck in our existing training facility for much longer than necessary.”
Ridley added that he would prefer the city work with UNT Dallas to gain access to the campus's auditorium and workout facilities rather than spending the money on the police campus having their own.
According to the briefing, a feasibility study to find a site for the public safety complex is expected to start in May and conclude in September. At the UNT Dallas site, city staff said a topographic survey will be one of the “next steps” in finishing the site plan.
“So this site might not even work?” council member Jesse Moreno asked.
City staff said they believed it would.
Hamstrung by Funding
Tolbert emphasized the need for the council to settle on a vision for the training academy to avoid further delays. Some council members were visibly frustrated at the request, stating that without more detailed financial information, it was impossible to move forward.Council member Adam Bazaldua said he thinks the UNT Dallas campus is being “shoved down [the city council’s] throat” because a significant portion of the funding raised for a new facility hinges on its construction in that location.
Of the $101.5 million fundraised for a new police training center, $70 million ($50 million from the 2024 city bond and $20 million from the state Legislature) is allocated to the UNT Dallas-specific plan and would be forfeited if city officials choose to move forward with an alternate location. In 2021, estimates showed a $140 million price tag for a new training facility, but that has yet to be updated with current price estimates.
In Wednesday’s briefing, city staff did not give a price breakdown of how much specific buildings are expected to cost. They said that analysis is in the works.
While some council members criticized city staff for asking for plan approval despite missing financial information, others urged the council to move forward on a plan while putting trust in the “great fundraisers” tasked with filling any money gaps. Council member Gay Donnell Willis said that with the uncertainty surrounding tariffs, a final construction cost estimate might be impossible to ask city staff to pin down.
“It will be a hamster wheel if we don’t start making some decisions, even understanding that there is some uncertainty,” Willis said. “You have to have a little bit of gambler syndrome because you’re selling this premise, and you’ve got to get people to buy into it.”
Philanthropist Lynn McBee is a fundraiser for the new facility and warned that “it’s not going to be good” for future acquisition efforts if “half the [council] is for [the UNT Dallas campus] and the others aren’t.” She added that some of the upgraded amenities presented Wednesday, like the large auditorium for academy graduations, could be attractive to private donors seeking naming rights.
“We’re out raising money for something, and we don’t have consensus and buy-in, that’s going to be a very bad look,” McBee said. “It’s not a look of unity.”
By the end of the meeting, it seemed the message was that the council wants to prioritize supporting recruits — something that has been mandated by the voters time and time again, said council member Kathy Stewart. And if that’s the case, the city needs to get moving.
Already, the openings of the two training campuses have been pushed back, which means the police department will need to rely on the Red Bird campus for additional time.
“We’ve sat in the room with the very [officers] who are trying to recruit the individuals who are currently using the existing facilities, and we know that they deserve better,” Tolbert said. “We want to be able to move as quickly as we possibly can.”
