Debate continues over whether Dallas is following HERO prop as response times remain higher than targeted

DALLAS — The organization that successfully worked to pass a charter amendment requiring more police officers said the city’s budget proposal does not meet the criteria Dallas voters approved in November, but the city of Dallas argued it does. 

Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert told WFAA in an interview this month that she believes her proposed $5.2 billion budget “goes above and beyond” the proposition’s requirements. 

Proposition U, which passed with 50.5 percent of the vote in November, includes a number of requirements for the city’s public safety spending:

• Dallas must dedicate at least 50 percent of “excess revenue” to the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System.
• The city must maintain at least 4,000 police officers.
• Dallas must conduct an annual survey of starting salaries for police officers in cities with a population over 50,000 in Dallas, Collin, Tarrant, Denton and Rockwall Counties.
• Dallas must adjust its starting salary for its new recruits to be within the top five of the departments analyzed in the annual survey.

Dallas said it is devoting millions of dollars to fund the pension system, above and beyond the requirement in the proposition. Tolbert’s budget calls for hiring 350 new officers next year and ramping up the number of new hires in future years. 

“We are doing more and we’re doing it on top of what the proposition would require,” she said in an interview with WFAA. “That’s good faith, but that’s also back to the commitment that this city clearly has for our public safety.” 

Her proposed budget increases by 7.7%  the starting salary for new police officers and firefighters, the city said. The budget proposal indicates the city undertook a comparison of salary and benefits across the counties outlined in the amendment and will offer $81,232 to new hires “in alignment with the charter amendment.”  

The city is currently in “meet and confer” negotiations with the public safety associations ahead of the expiration of the contract for existing employees next month. 

“This is a city that truly commits and supports public safety across the board – police and fire,” Tolbert said. 

However, the Dallas HERO organization, which lobbied for Proposition U, said the city’s proposed budget does not do enough to meet the competitive pay requirement. 

“Our calculations show that the proposed police pay does not come close to placing Dallas in the top five of regional departments, as required by the city’s charter,” said Dallas HERO director Damien LeVeck. “By failing to fully comply with the law, the city manager and city council are disregarding both the charter and the voters who approved it.”

Some City Council members have also raised concerns. In a memo to the city manager posted to X, Council Member Cara Mendelsohn said the city’s survey was conducted in March — and other cities have increased starting salaries since then. 

“The current pay proposal does not appear to meet the intent of the voter-approved proposition requirements for public safety pay,” Mendelsohn wrote. 

In a Council briefing last week, Dallas Chief Financial Officer Jack Ireland said the survey timing is set by the city’s meet and confer agreement. 

“We are not in the top five on starting pay,” he said. “But when you look at starting pay and non-pension benefits, including education pay, bilingual pay and assignment pay, we do rise up within the region.

“Based on the survey and the time it was done, that pulls us to third place,” he said. 

One of the reasons Dallas wants to hire more officers is to try to cut down on 911 response times that remain stubbornly above DPD targets. New data from the department showed the average response times to the most urgent calls remained above the department’s target of eight minutes in nearly every division. 

In the Southeast Division, which includes South Dallas, it takes officers on average nearly 14 minutes to respond to the most urgent calls. Less urgent 911 calls could take more than two hours on average to get a response in some places, the data showed. 

“It is frustrating,” said South Dallas resident Willie Mae Coleman. “I think they forgot this is still part of Dallas.” 

In a statement, the department said several factors influence response times, including “the geographic size of each division, staffing levels by watch, the volume of active calls, and citywide events—such as demonstrations and special events—that may temporarily divert resources.” 

The spokesperson said balancing responding to calls with the department’s violent crime reduction plan “remains a priority.” To improve response times, DPD said it now sends a “pending calls by division” email at the start of each watch. 

“This helps Watch Commanders and higher-ranking officers monitor activity within their respective divisions,” the spokesperson explained. 

“We’ve also implemented accountability measures across all supervisory levels. Supervisors are now required to acknowledge overdue calls and either respond themselves or assign available patrol units,” DPD said.