Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson is blasting a City Council decision to cut $7 million from the Police Department’s overtime budget, calling it an inappropriate response at a time when violent crime is rising.

“The city of Dallas is facing a serious uptick in violent crime, and it’s not just a few days or weeks or months in the making. We’re talking about a couple of years now of steadily increasing aggravated assaults, steadily increasing homicide and steadily increasing domestic violence,” Johnson said Friday while taping a segment for Sunday’s edition of Lone Star Politics, a political show produced by KXAS-TV (NBC5) and The Dallas Morning News.

“I don’t believe, and neither do the people of Dallas … that now is the right time to be defunding the police, or cutting funding to the police to send a message or anything like that.”

Johnson said public safety should be a priority, and he’s called for cutting the salaries of highly paid city employees, instead of the 25% reduction in the police overtime budget.

“We need to prioritize public safety right now,” he said. “I do believe that there are ways to generate revenue to do some things that we all agree on the City Council are important to do that don’t involve cutting the public safety budget at a time like this.”

But Johnson’s view is being rejected by almost all council members, and in response he’s taken his argument directly to the public. After Wednesday’s council meeting he emailed a letter to Dallas residents about the issue. And he’s making the rounds on local Sunday television shows to air his grievances against the council.

Council member Adam Bazaldua, who introduced the amendment to cut police overtime, said Johnson’s comments were “insulting” and amounted to “media grandstanding.”

“It’s disappointing that he sees this as a moment to be more combative than productive,” Bazaldua said.

Arnold’s rebuttal

In a Friday memo to her constituents, Dallas City council member Carolyn King Arnold defended the council’s action to strip the police department’s overtime budget.

“Twelve of my colleagues and I voted to reprogram $7 million in police overtime pay in order to create programs and outreach efforts that will help reduce neighborhood crime rates,” Arnold wrote.

She added: "This action does not represent a lack of support for DPD. The DPD budget still has several million dollars available for overtime compensation. If an emergency should arise, the City Manager and Council could move funds from the reserve account to address the matter.”

On Wednesday the City Council tentatively agreed to cut the police department’s overtime budget. The move comes after a summer of protests in Dallas in response to the shooting death of George Floyd in Minnesota.

Anti-police brutality activists have been calling for City Manager T.C. Broadnax and the council to “defund” the police, a controversial term that means different things to different people.

Johnson discussed the term on Lone Star Politics.

“I think we need to have a very serious conversation about these topics, and I’ll say this. When I first heard the phrase to defund the police several months ago, I very genuinely and earnestly asked the question what does that mean, and I was actually met with some ridicule and met with some derision and accused of pretending not to know,” Johnson said. “People are all over the place on what it means.”

Arnold dismissed the controversy over the vote as politics.

“It’s budget time at Dallas City Hall, so there’s a whole lot of politicking going on,” she wrote.

Johnson said city officials were already looking at ways to improve the police department and address some of the concerns voiced by activists, including funding for mental health professionals to respond to mental health calls where armed police officers were not necessary.

Though some council members see it as a step toward reforming policing amid the social justice protests, reducing police overtime is a drop in the ocean compared to the department’s overall budget.

Compromise amendment fails

Johnson has pushed a compromise amendment to cut City Hall salaries and use the savings, about $6 million, to fund his various budget priorities, including public safety.

But the City Council on Wednesday overwhelmingly rejected his proposal. Council member Cara Mendelsohn was the only person to vote with Johnson.

Also on Lone Star Politics, Johnson addressed this week’s resignation of Police Chief Renee Hall. She’s leaving at the end of the year. He said the council was turned off by Hall’s response to the violence that occurred after Floyd’s death.

"There was very little police response to some of the violence and the looting that happened in the first few days, and then we had an incident on the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, where the response was problematic and where the answers to the questions about what happened that night were not satisfactory to a lot of members of City Council,” Johnson said. “So I’d say it was a combination of those events that sort of put some things in motion, which resulted in what we had this week, which was her resignation.”

Johnson said one of his biggest concerns since becoming mayor is the rise in violent crimes.

“We really do need to get that moving in the right direction,” he said.

Lone Star Politics airs at 8:30 a.m. Sunday on NBC5.