Dallas Police Department Hopes to Hit 4K Officers by '29, Despite Scaled-Back Hiring Plan

Dallas officials think they can meet the city’s mandate of having at least 4,000 police officers in four years, though their hiring goals rely on a plan that the City Council voted to scale back months ago.

The plan includes hiring 350 new officers over 12 months starting this fall and 400 new officers each following year until 2029. The projections assume the Dallas Police Department will continue to lose dozens of officers every year through attrition.

“We went from seeing recruiting classes of 10 and 20 to now in the 45-50 range,” said Dominique Artis, Dallas’ chief of public safety. “So if we can continue that momentum and attrition doesn’t go up, then we can feel confident about hitting our goal numbers.”

The Dallas City Council considered a resolution in February to increase this year’s police hiring goals from 250 to 325, set them at 350 in 2026, and up them to 400 in 2027. But the council voted 12-2 to drop that plan and instead set this year’s goal at 300, without addressing any future plans.

The vote came after police officials, including then-interim police Chief Michael Igo, warned that setting expectations higher than 300 new officers would lead to impacts like longer emergency response times as patrol cops would have to be pulled from the street to help train more new officers. He expressed confidence that the department could recruit at least 300 new officers by the end of September.

“Three hundred sounds like we have a goal that is obtainable,” said council member Adam Bazaldua, who suggested setting the 300 benchmark in a motion during the Feb. 26 council meeting. “Three hundred is an obtainable goal that’s not going to come at the expense of compromising the already strained resources that we have in the Dallas Police Department.”

As of June, the department forecasted hiring 320 new officers by the end of September, when the current fiscal year wraps up, and losing 172. Dallas currently employs around 3,200 officers.

Proposition U's staffing and spending mandates

The push around increasing Dallas police hiring goals was driven by voters passing Proposition U last November. The charter amendment mandates a minimum of 4,000 cops as well as other city requirements for police-related spending.

The mandate to hire more police officers is especially challenging in light of another charter amendment passed by voters last November, Proposition S. The proposition lowers the barrier for residents and businesses to sue Dallas by forcing the city to waive its governmental immunity if charter rules and other laws aren’t being followed.

Dallas Hero, a nonprofit that spearheaded getting Propositions S and U onto the election ballot, threatened to sue the city in March for not taking “immediate action” to comply with all of the requirements of Proposition U, including the mandatory minimum number of officers.

Art Martinez de Vara, an attorney who represents Dallas Hero and sent the March notification letter, questioned why the city needed four more years to reach 4,000 officers.

“If the City Council followed the charter and increased police salaries, it could have 4,000 officers immediately,” he told The Dallas Morning News via text. He didn’t immediately respond Wednesday to a follow up message asking if he sent any additional notices to the city or if a lawsuit would be filed against the city related to Proposition U.

Increasing police starting salaries to among the highest in North Texas is also a new amendment in the city charter ushered in by Proposition U. While Dallas offers a higher starting wage for police officers at $75,397 a year than places like El Paso ($55,405), San Antonio ($58,452), and Austin ($70,644), the city lags behind cities closer to home like Fort Worth ($76,076), Allen ($76,138), Carrollton ($77,812), Arlington ($81,229), McKinney ($81,629), Irving ($82,308) and Plano ($83,841). Houston police starting salaries rose to $81,600 a year starting July 1.

Damien LeVeck, Dallas Hero’s executive director, told the City Council during a February meeting that Dallas needed to set hiring goals to make 4,000 officers possible “in three to five years.”

Dallas Police Department's staffing struggles

Dallas has struggled to meet its police hiring goals. For the past few years, the city set a target of hiring 250 officers annually but fell short until last year. At the same time, the department has faced nearly as many departures as new hires annually.

Under the city’s police officer staffing estimates, Dallas officials estimate having 3,270 officers by the start of October. They plan to hire 350 new officers, project losing 190, and have 3,430 officers by the end of September 2026.

The city estimates being able to hire at least 400 new officers in the 2027 fiscal year, 2028 fiscal year and 2029 fiscal year while losing 190 cops annually. The city lost 193 officers last year, but that tally was in the 200s the previous three years.

If Dallas hits its numbers, the city will have 4,060 cops by the end of September 2029.

Council members this year voted to shift $7.7 million in federal COVID-19 pandemic relief money from various city departments to police hiring and retention initiatives. The city has also recently tried incentive programs to slow down attrition like paying veteran officers an extra $40,000 to stay another two years.

The Dallas City Council approved changes to police hiring standards in June, allowing applicants without prior college experience to join the force in an effort to expand the applicant pool.

Artis said the city doesn’t yet know how many more police recruits the new rule could yield. The police academy saw 43 recruits in May, city records show. Recruit numbers from January 2024 to January 2025 ranged from 26 in March 2024 to 62 in September. In 2023, numbers dipped to 14 in April 2023 and were no higher than 42 in September 2023.

“We’re seeing positive numbers right now, and so we’re hoping to continue to build on those,” Artis said. He later added that cities around the country have struggled for years to attract and retain cops despite their efforts.

According to law enforcement employee numbers reported to the FBI, only San Antonio and Arlington of Texas’ 10 largest cities saw year over year increases in police officer numbers in 2022, 2023 and 2024, the latest year available. The federal agency said San Antonio reported going from 2,373 in 2022 officers to 2,514 in 2024 and Arlington police ranks went from 679 in 2022 to 736 last year.

All the other cities, including Houston, Austin and Fort Worth, either had numbers go up and down, or stayed roughly the same over the three-year period.

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