While Austin’s leadership remains in the grip of police defunding lunacy, Dallas mayor Eric Johnson has stepped up to request 275 additional police officers:
Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax’s proposed budget is due next month, and Mayor Eric Johnson is requesting that it include enough funding to hire 275 additional police officers during the next fiscal year.
In a press statement on Tuesday, Johnson also called for a pay bump for first responders and said that “public safety must come first.”
“While we cannot depend on police alone to prevent crime, our officers play a unique role in taking dangerous people — especially repeat offenders — off our streets,” Johnson said. “Our police department has been strained in recent years by short staffing, which has necessitated substantial police overtime spending.”
The mayor also said that the city should expand its police force “to meet the demands of our residents and to make our communities safer and stronger.” The current fiscal year’s budget and an initial draft of the coming fiscal year’s budget only provide for 150 new officers, according to a July 15 memo from Johnson to Broadnax.
Adding 275 officers would also be “70 officers above the expected attrition.”
According to the city manager’s office, the Dallas Police Department (DPD) has hired and trained 77 officers so far this fiscal year, and 144 officers have resigned, retired, or otherwise lost their jobs. This has created a net loss of 67 police officers so far.
DPD was the center of controversy last year when the city council chose to cut 25 percent of the department’s overtime budget for the current fiscal year. Following the budget cut and a series of other dustups, then-Chief Renee Hall left her post in December.
Johnson has been an ardent supporter of the department and actively fought a movement to divert funds away from the department during last year’s budget talks. The mayor called the DPD overtime cut “unconscionable” and proposed cutting the salaries of high-level city employees instead.
While other cities have abandoned police defunding lunacy, Austin’s blinkered far-left city council and mayor still refuses to protect citizens from rising crime rates.
should hire the entire austin police department all at once. just transfer them all to houston.
should hire the entire austin police department, all at once. just sign them up in houston and leave austin hanging.
The Dallas DA, OTOH, is a Soros clone who has already proposed not prosecuting thefts under $1000.
“who has already proposed not prosecuting thefts under $1000”
even after california’s experience with such a practice has been published for all to see? that’s seriously insulting.
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