Dallas police, fire officials are the city’s top earners, but new programs could cut OT

Dallas’ top police and fire officials say their departments’ high overtime costs likely will only decrease when they have more staff.
But guesses on when they’ll hit their target numbers vary, with the police chief estimating it could be close to a decade before the city has enough cops.
“Once we get to a point where we have approximately 3,600 officers is when we would see overtime being reduced,” Police Chief Eddie García said during a City Council meeting Wednesday. The police department has nearly 3,100 officers. It projects having around 3,160 by the end of next September and hitting 3,600 by 2033.
If current trends hold, the department estimates needing $22 million to cover overtime in 2033. Its overtime budget is currently $42 million, but budget officials estimate costs will reach more than $55 million by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. Next year’s police overtime budget is proposed at $59 million. The new fiscal year begins Oct. 1.
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Dallas Fire-Rescue Assistant Director of Finance Alex Rodriguez said his agency could hit their target number far sooner.
“We plan to get to the right size just shortly after January of 2026,” he said. “Once we get to that point, we’re going to start hiring just for attrition.” The fire department has around 2,180 firefighters. The city estimates having 2,260 firefighters by the end of September 2025 and September 2026.
Several city council members noted as the region grows, they’ll rely more on first responders.
“Boiling it all down, until you have the officers, you have to have the overtime,” said Mayor Eric Johnson.
Dallas’ police and fire departments routinely exceed their overtime budgets, and its uniform workers are among the city’s top earners of extra work pay
The city spent $11 million more than budgeted on police overtime and an extra $13 million on the fire department last year. The top 25 overtime earners in 2022 and 2023 were all police officers and firefighters, according to The Dallas Morning News’ review of salary data in June.
Each made at least $110,000 in overtime alone in 2022, and that tally rose to at least $118,000 last year. The city reported paying more than $128 million in overtime to workers in 2022 and over $140 million in 2023.
Despite both departments forecasting the need for more overtime money than planned, the upcoming budget proposed by interim city manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert only recommends increasing overtime dollars for the police department. Rodriguez touted ongoing plans like the department hiring more dedicated paramedics rather than having firefighters also trained as medics as ways to help reduce overtime costs.
The budget proposal for Dallas Fire-Rescue overtime next fiscal year is $28 million. The current overtime budget is more than $38 million, and the department estimates needing $40 million to cover the costs.
Police and fire officials told City Council members Wednesday they’re aware of concerns about whether overtime is being used responsibly, but they said it’s necessary to ensure the city has enough first responders available to respond to emergency calls. They said they have plans to address high overtime use largely centered on boosting recruitment and retention.
“We do need to reduce our overtime,” interim fire chief Justin Ball told council members.
Under the proposed plan, the Dallas Police Department’s total budget would jump from nearly $657 million to $719 million, and the Dallas Fire-Rescue budget would increase from $413 million to almost $430 million.
The latest recommended city budget includes a pilot program for employee referrals. DPD workers can get $1,000 for referring police officer trainees or cops from other departments hired by Dallas. The pilot would cover the referral bonus to 100 DPD members. The budget also suggests the department try a new program allowing officers to receive payouts for their unused sick leave at the end of the year. The draft budget includes $2 million to cover the unused sick leave incentives.
García said the police department is also considering having more officers work 10-hour shifts with an extra day off, rather than eight-hour shifts. He said results from a trial run at some department stations have been positive.
But both agencies said recruitment and retention struggles cut into staffing numbers, but they’re hopeful numbers will improve.
The police department anticipates hiring 237 cops this fiscal year and losing 190. The two previous fiscal years saw the department lose more officers to attrition than they hired with net losses of 27 officers last year and 36 officers in the year before.
The fire department estimates hiring around 245 firefighters while losing 130. The department had a net gain of 44 firefighters in the 2023 fiscal year and a gain of 15 firefighters the year before.
Officials from both departments said they’re struggling most with trying to keep uniform workers from leaving within five years.
Of the 190 officers the police department estimates it will lose by the end of September, around 44% would be leaving after five years or less with the agency. Retirements make up the next largest percentage, 38%.
The fire department estimates 65% of people leaving this fiscal year have five years or less of experience.
Ball said the department needs to do more analysis to determine why people are leaving, but noted that reasons can include firefighting and the situations workers face on the job being more difficult than anticipated.
“They may just simply realize that this is not for me, and so they move on,” he said. The interim chief also noted there are cases where the city trains some firefighters, and they later get jobs with departments in other cities due to better pay or lighter workloads.
Fire officials said one change their agency is considering is allowing workers on 24-hour shifts to leave their fire station for up to four hours every 28 days.
Rodriguez said a national survey showed many firefighters reported leaving their departments within five years because they felt “time off is more important than money.” He noted forgetting how many birthdays and anniversaries he’s missed because of firefighting.
Police officials said the department’s policy is officers work at most 16 hours in 24 hours and no more than 80 hours in a single work week. But they admitted some patrol officers and detectives do work more than the limit.
The policy allows the police chief or an assistant chief to allow exceptions, and cases where officers have to stay past their scheduled shift also mean some may exceed the total allowable work hours in a day or week.
“It doesn’t happen often, but I think we always need to carve out exceptions because, in the case of an emergency, we don’t have the option of going home,” García said.
Martin Riojas Jr., a police department assistant director, said the agency is developing a new internal report to track better whether the department is complying with its own rules on work hours and that overtime is being taken when necessary. He said an internal report already shows overtime hours by unit and high overtime users.