eliminating its college credit requirement<\/a> to widen the applicant pool, holding off-site applicant testing events like the one held at the State Fair of Texas earlier this month, raising starting salaries and offering tiered referral bonuses that reward officers for recruits who remain with the department over time.<\/p>\nFrom October 2024 through September, the department processed more than 1,200 police applicants, Colunga told the committee. The department reported that the top three draws were the city\u2019s website, 22%; officer referrals, 19%; and social media, 19%.<\/p>\n
The fiscal year saw an increase in the number of applicants from referrals, which Colunga attributed to the tiered referral bounces available to current officers. \u201cThat\u2019s never been above 10%. So DPD officers are actually putting the word out, \u2018Hey, come hire with us,\u2019\u201d the deputy chief said.<\/p>\n
The six recruit classes since November 2024 have brought in between 38 and 76 recruits each. The class of 76, which started on Sept. 24, is the second-largest in the department\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
Mendelsohn praised those results, commending former Dallas police Chief Eddie Garc\u00eda and current Chief Daniel Comeaux for making what she called \u201cfundamental\u201d changes to how the department markets itself and draws applicants.<\/p>\n
City Council member Adam Bazaldua, who represents District 7, said he saw the hiring totals as proof the department\u2019s current salary offerings and state of the pension system have not deterred recruiting efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese numbers you have brought,\u201d Bazaldua told police officials during the meeting,\u201d have really cut to the bottom of the fact that when we\u2019re strategic and intentional, we\u2019ll see results.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attrition for the past fiscal year fell to 176 officers, marking the lowest figure in the past five years, according to materials presented to council members. That\u2019s a decrease from 192 officers lost in fiscal year 2023-2024 and the over 230 officers lost in previous cycles.<\/p>\n
Retirements accounted for the largest share of departures for the last fiscal year at 63, followed by resignations for \u201cpersonal reasons\u201d at 37 and transfers to other public-safety agencies at 19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas police officials said Tuesday the department had surpassed its recruiting goal set by city council members earlier…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":305626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,347,1596,14841,14842,8629,5292,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-305625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-dallas-city-hall","12":"tag-dallas-police","13":"tag-local-politics","14":"tag-public-safety","15":"tag-texas","16":"tag-tx","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115378796134562900","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Dallas](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/QUW4UCQ2G5DVHELK32ABCJMB4I.jpg\")
<\/p>\n