Dallas City Council has made several moves to decrease the overtime police can work, leaving some citizens to wonder how far it will go. 

The budget approved for 2023 marks a dramatic shift in tactics because they have decided to increase the police budget. How this will affect police over time remains to be seen.

In 2020, the council reallocated $7 million from the police overtime budget. That vote came just after a summer marked by protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death, which was seen as a call to action for the community and policymakers to reexamine how they believed the police should operate. Citizens wanted to increase accountability and mandate officers to intervene if they found other officers’ actions were violating their duties. Some groups were pushing to remove local funding from police and direct those funds toward other social services.

Then in 2021, the council voted to remove another $10 million from the police overtime budget. They claimed that the reallocated funds would be used for other police-related needs, including more than $3.8 million to hire nearly 100 civilian workers and programs that would address the root causes of crime and improve street lighting.

Some people believe that the council is doing the right thing by reducing the overtime police are allowed to work. They think that police departments need more oversight and less autonomy and that lowering their funding will be a positive change. Others disagree, saying this is not the right time to limit officers’ overtime pay. Many of these opponents cite a decline in the number of police officers nationwide, which indicates the need to ensure that overtime is available for the limited number of public police. 

The question up for debate: Should the Dallas City Council continue to defund the police overtime budget?