Over the past few years, Dallas City Council has reduced the #police overtime budget to the tune of millions of dollars. This is a positive change, as we need to focus on ensuring that police are not instituting racial profiling and authoritarian policies.

However, the budget approved for 2023 is going to add to the police department's funding, which is a dramatic change of pace since previous years were focused on the opposite tactic. It makes no sense to change our game plan now, right when we are at the precipice of an important turning point.

For the 2021 budget, the City Council decided to reallocate $7 million out of a police budget of $500 million. Everybody was up in arms, but how was this supposed to bring about a big change? It was approved in 2020 by an 11 to 4 vote. This amount of money was needed to create programs and various effective activities that will assist in reducing crime rates in the long term, which also reduces the overall need for police to work overtime in the first place. The allotted amount that was sanctioned for other purposes was just one-third of their total overtime allocation. The City Council had to make some tough choices to ensure that all the programs in need of funding got a portion of the funds.

Council needs to vote to fund programs that would have a greater long term impact on reducing #crime by cleaning up problem areas and attempting to develop better preventative measures, instead of just responding to problems that have already happened. The Dallas Police Department still has enough budget to compensate for their overtime needs, and they don't need more to be added.

What we really need to do is to combat poverty and desperation issues throughout the city, which will result in a reduction of crime. Overall this is a great improvement to use the dollars in other activities to improve social safety and reduce the crime rate. Use of these dollars for various social aspects is much needed and very much appreciated.