Dallas City Council stirs controversy by stripping away 1988 police staffing requirements | Law Enforcement Today

DALLAS, TX - The Dallas City Council followed two highly controversial votes with a third on Wednesday. Ensconced in a closed-door session, the council passed a motion to strip away portions of a 1988 ordinance that bound the city to a set police officer-to-resident staffing ratio. This measure followed two prior amendments to the city’s charter, creating police officer hiring mandates and removing the city’s sovereign immunity to lawsuits.

As reported by KERA, the 2024 Proposition S measure opens the city to lawsuits from its citizens for violations of the charter, any local ordinances, or state laws. The removal of the 1988 ordinance was reportedly taken as a route to avoid a potential lawsuit for breaking a series of predetermined police staffing increases built into it.

In the text of the now repealed ordinance, it required, “The city manager will increase the total number of police officers serving the city by at least 150 per year for each of the next four years and, thereafter, will maintain a ratio of at least three police officers per one thousand citizens.”

While the ordinance was stripped, the 4,000 staffing requirement has been reapplied through 2024’s Proposition U. Dallas was already in a state of non-compliance with the 1988 standard, and under the newly approved Proposition U is required to hire hundreds of new police officers until it reaches a total staffing level of 4,000 personnel.

The proposition further requires that the city “spend no less than 50% of the annual revenue that exceeds the previous year's annual revenue to fund the Dallas Police and Fire Pension and increasing starting salaries for Dallas police.”

Dallas HERO Executive Director Pete Marocco, who leads the group responsible for getting both Propositions on the ballot told Fox4 News, "Today’s reckless and spiteful decision by the city council only demonstrated their total lack of professionalism and research, and egotistical grudge against the people’s express will. Once again, the city council has abused executive session instead of deliberating an important subject before the people, but the people still prevailed in the right to sue for violations of the law."

He added, "It wasn’t appropriately brought to vote, added to the agenda in the dead of the night and five cowardly members of city council were absent.  Dallas’s city council continues to push their own political agendas instead of representing the very people who elected them to serve."

The city’s police department is 900 officers short of the 4,000 staffing requirement under the 1988 ordinance and newly minted Prop. U.

City documents explaining the change to the 1988 ordinance obtained by The Dallas Morning News stated, “Upon review, it was determined the recommendations in the city manager’s proposals for improvement of the police department have either been achieved or are outdated.”

Following the vote, council member Gay Donnell Willis told the outlet, “Per capita staffing is an old model that even the International Association of Police Chiefs don’t support.” Willis added, “I’d rather see DPD staff to optimal response times and do not want any limits on what that could take.”