Dallas voters were clear with City Hall last November that the police force needs to grow and police need better pay with a secure pension.
Proposition U, a charter amendment requiring the city to spend half of new revenue on police pensions and salaries, passed with just over 50% of the vote.
Now there is criticism that the city isn’t fulfilling its obligations under the amendment. We disagree and think the math indicates that City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert is fulfilling not only the letter of the proposition’s requirements but also its spirit of getting more and better paid cops on our streets.
Like most charter amendments, Prop U has some complicated legal language under it that most voters never read. The ballot language voters approved called for the city to spend 50% of new money on the pension and on increasing starting salaries while building the force to 4,000 officers.
Opinion
Turns out, most of the city’s money is restricted. All “new” money can’t be spent any way the city wants. If you pay for a building permit, you expect that money to go towards the inspector. That’s a fee for service. Same with your water bill. Same with enplanement fees at Dallas Love Field. Then there is the portion of property tax that is devoted to paying off the city’s debt. Debt service gets carved off for a reason; the city must pay its bills.
The proposition recognizes this and so defined the revenue that could be spent as those funds not already restricted under state and federal law.
That leaves about $61.6 million in new money, according to a city analysis. A half share of that is $30.8 million.
The city already plans to raise its pension contribution by more than that amount, according to Tolbert and Chief Financial Officer Jack Ireland.
But the proposed budget also calls for raising the starting salary for officers to $81,232 from $75,397. There is some debate as to whether that meets the charter’s requirement that Dallas be in the top 5 of “starting salary and non-pension benefits” among cities of 50,000 or more in the five-county area. City management believes the city is, but this is a moving target. Will Dallas have to do a perpetual analysis? That isn’t reasonable and isn’t called for in Prop U.
The proposition also doesn’t state a point in time for Dallas to hit 4,000 officers from the current staff of about 3,100. Tolbert plans to have more than 3,600 on the payroll by 2027. That’s moving in the right direction.
In addition to raising starting salaries, the city plans to adjust all officer pay upwards. All told, that’s another $25.5 million investment in pay, not counting the pension adjustment.
A lot of the money Tolbert plans to spend on salaries isn’t new. It’s coming from the city eliminating open jobs in other departments and turning the funding over to police.
That’s over and above the requirements under Prop U. But it’s what residents want, and credit to city management for delivering it.
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