What were they thinking?

User avatar
DallasCop2566
Posts: 1
Joined: 08 May 2020 02:52

What were they thinking?

Postby DallasCop2566 » 28 Nov 2020 04:57

I would like to explain how the Mayor and City Council of Dallas oversee the safety of the citizens.

There is an enormous shortage of police officers in Dallas, that is well known. This presents a very serious safety issue to both the police officers and the citizens, this is well known.

Beginning with the new physical year, beginning October 1, 2020, the City Council of Dallas voted to reduce the funding for overtime pay to the Police Department, this was publicized and announced, this is well known.

So not paying officers for their overtime, instead they are given compensatory time at a rate of one and one half times the overtime. An example: If an officer works 2 hours overtime, he is given 3 hours compensatory time, which the officer can allow to accumulate to a full day or two or more full days.

Now myself being a person with common sense (I hope), it appears that this greatly affects the officer shortage that already exists. Am I wrong?

I am setting here listening to my police scanner on Dallas Police Channel 3, the channel for the Southeast area which includes South Dallas, Parkdale, Urbandale, Pleasant Grove and Kleberg.

It is 2:35 a.m. and the dispatcher is begging for Elements to take priority calls. This happens night after night. The problem all the Elements are already on Priority Calls.

When I was a rookie cop, being field trained at the Northeast Substation, we had a Shift Lieutenant that would often read from the Bible (he was kind of weird to say the least), but always closed with a prayer for the safety of all in attendance. He has long passed away, but I can only hope he is doing the same from Heaven.

Join me in praying for the safety of our First Responders, our Police Officers, Firefighters and Paramedics and this Virus Tragedy is only adding to the situation.

User avatar
I45Tex
Posts: 896
Joined: 26 Jan 2017 05:52

Re: What were they thinking?

Postby I45Tex » 28 Nov 2020 13:33

Will do.

Seems like elected officials need to hear publicly that any given emergency is more likely to escalate into a dangerous or life-threatening altercation if they (through budgets) made it take a longer time before any first responders can get away from addressing another priority call to get to a new one.
Most of these are not situations where community dispute resolution facilitators can take the place of EMTs or of trained and sworn peace officers. The hope for the facilitators is in causing fewer situations to arise in the first place, but if it works in Texas to any degree, its effect is not going to be immediate. The new budgets fail to acknowledge the foreseeable danger that this creates in the foreseeable future.

User avatar
electricron
Posts: 392
Joined: 29 Oct 2016 11:07

Re: What were they thinking?

Postby electricron » 28 Nov 2020 20:35

I'll tell you what they were thinking, that they did not want the city to go broke. Revenues are down, that is why those responsible for maintaining a healthy purse are coming up with ingenious ways to move overtime pay into like time off.
How bad is the budget? Here's the latest pdf posted by Dallas
https://dallascityhall.com/departments/ ... 202020.pdf

Note: It is the August report.
Revenues are down nearly $37 million as the budget was amended
from initial budget, revenues are down $45 million.
Expenditures are down nearly $74 million as the budget was amended
from initial budget, expenditures are down $81 million.

So the City has already cut the budget to the bone and managed to keep the budget in the black. But that was with 6 months of covid affecting the budget, the council now has to look at covid potentially affecting the budget over an entire year. They really do not want to cut more, and they really do not wish to raise taxes more either. So they get creative looking for every potential cut possible, short of laying people off.

And by the way, some of the police and fire expenses were off set by the Covid Relief Funds distributed by the US government. There are no CRF funds agreed to by the US Congress for next year - yet.

User avatar
Hannibal Lecter
Posts: 818
Joined: 19 Oct 2016 19:57

Re: What were they thinking?

Postby Hannibal Lecter » 29 Nov 2020 12:58

I agree that keeping the budget in the black is crucial. But watch the politicians yell and scream how the sky is falling and they need more money when so far things aren't that bad. From https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2 ... -pandemic/

"For the last fiscal year, of which COVID-19 infected the community for six months, sales tax receipts reported to the city of Dallas were only down less than a percentage point from the prior year. In all, Dallas brought in just $2.7 million less than it did in 2018-2019, an encouraging sign for the economy, if not for public health. That loss amounted to .9 percent."

From https://dallascityhall.com/departments/ ... evenue.pdf

And of course property values, and thus property tax collections, are still headed up.

User avatar
eburress
Posts: 1103
Joined: 19 Oct 2016 18:13

Re: What were they thinking?

Postby eburress » 30 Nov 2020 09:36

If ours were any indication, property tax collections must be headed WAY up! hahaha In all seriousness, with the rate at which the city is gentrifying, in a variety of areas (East Dallas, south/Oak Cliff, West Dallas, etc), it sure seems like the city's future is bright.