For the last two years, Dallas’ highest paid police officer wasn’t Chief Eddie García. It was Sgt. Robert Salone.
The patrol sergeant brought home over $300,000 last year — more than half of that from overtime work. Only four other city employees, including former City Manager T.C. Broadnax, topped that in 2023.
Salone isn’t the only first responder working so much overtime that it’s practically an additional full-time job.
The city’s top 25 overtime earners in 2022 and 2023 were all police officers and firefighters, according to a Dallas Morning News analysis of salary data released by the city. Each made at least $110,000 in overtime alone in 2022, and that tally rose to at least $118,000 last year.
The Dallas Police Department and Dallas Fire-Rescue routinely exceeded overtime budgets.
The city spent $11 million more than it budgeted for police overtime and an extra $13 million for fire department overtime during the last fiscal year, which ran from October 2022 through September 2023. DPD projections show the trend is expected to continue for police this fiscal year.
Dallas police and fire officials attribute high overtime costs to fewer workers and steady demand for services. The police department has around 3,100 officers, about 400 fewer than in 2014 for a city of 1.3 million residents.
“Until we’re staffed to the level we need to be staffed for the city, we’re going to have to continue to rely on overtime to provide the public safety that our community deserves,” García said. He estimated Dallas needs at least another 500 officers.
As overtime for police and fire continues to rise, some city leaders are frustrated that Dallas must cover more costs than initially planned.
“Something’s got to give because we know recruiting has been an issue across the country, and that’s not anything unique to the city of Dallas,” said City Council member Adam Bazaldua. “If they’re going to really focus on efficiency, then they need to show us with better utilizing the resources that they have, and that has not yet been the case.”
Overtime makes up 6%, or $42.5 million, of the police department’s nearly $657 million budget and 9%, or $38.7 million, of the fire department’s $413 million budget. They are the highest-funded departments in Dallas’ $4.6 billion budget.
Interim City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert said that as Dallas plans for its next budget, officials are looking for ways to reduce spending in all departments. Police and fire officials in particular are tasked with reviewing overtime to make sure it is used in cases vital to public safety, she said
Keeping the departments within overtime budgets is a “high priority,” she said.
While both departments are looking for ways to be more efficient, it’s hard to predict extreme events such as the May 28 storms, major fires or spikes in violent crime that require prolonged emergency response, she added.
“We have to be ready to respond and stay on the scene until our work is done. Sometimes that requires overtime for our first responders,” Tolbert said. “We do everything possible to hold that overtime down to a minimum. But job one is providing the police and fire services our residents need when they call for help.”
‘I just work’
If Salone sees an open shift and wants to work, he said he picks it up.
Often times, it’s to cover for co-workers or help with an anti-crime initiative, such as trying to stop street racing, he said.
No Dallas police officer made more in overtime pay in 2022 and 2023 than Salone, who joined the department in 1998.
He clocked more than 1,970 hours of overtime in 2023, higher than his nearly 1,870 regular shift hours, records show. The $177,103 he earned through overtime work made up nearly 60% of his total gross pay, which amounted to $301,881.
“I don’t particularly just track how much I make in overtime,” Salone said. “I just work.”
García, who leads the police department, took home $16,000 less than Salone last year, according to city wage records. City officials recently committed to ensuring García is the highest-paid police chief among Texas’ largest cities, and his base salary is now $306,440.
Dallas reported paying more than 9,800 city workers over $128 million in overtime in 2022. The next year, more than 10,000 city employees earned over $140 million in overtime, according to city data.
The payouts in 2023 ranged from 54 cents to more than $184,000. The range the year before ran from $2.38 to nearly $156,000. Dallas’ municipal government had more than 13,000 full-time employees during each of those years.
Overall, 47 city employees made at least $100,000 in overtime last year, and 38 of them made more in overtime than their base pay. There were 45 employees who made at least $100,000 in overtime pay in 2022, 33 of them made more in overtime than their base pay.
All city employees who made more than $100,000 in overtime in 2022 and 2023 were police and firefighters except for Jose Bravo, a water meter reader for Dallas Water Utilities. City records show he earned $104,946 in overtime and $39,332 in base pay last year.
Firefighter Jerromie Jones was the top overtime earner of all city employees in 2022 and 2023, records show. Last year, he made $184,039 in overtime pay, which is twice his $91,734 annual base earnings. In 2022, Jones made $155,739 in overtime and earned $87,563 in base pay.
Jones and Bravo didn’t respond to multiple phone calls and text requests for comment at phone numbers listed for them. Jones has worked for the city since 2000, and Bravo has worked for the city since 2005, records show.
Salone said he doesn’t believe his department is reliant on overtime but said it is necessary to ensure the city is adequately covered.
For example, transporting someone to the county jail and processing can take hours. That means officers may have to work overtime to complete the transfer, or others may need to fill in since those waiting at the jail can’t work on the street, Salone noted. He said all of his overtime work complied with department policies.
“We can only do so much in eight hours and with the amount of call volume that we have,” Salone said.
Lt. Andre Taylor, president of the Black Police Association of Greater Dallas, said there is always concern that officers are working more than they need to, which could lead to burnout, but officers’ duties aren’t always confined to set shifts.
“Honestly, you can’t replace a person. That person does work,” Taylor said. “When you don’t have enough of those people doing that, someone still has to do it. Crime still has to be solved. Calls still have to be answered. I don’t know how you stop that.”
Dallas isn’t alone in seeing police overtime costs surge.
The Chicago Police Department, for example, spent $293 million on overtime last year, nearly three times its $100 million budget, according to WTTW News. San Diego spent $50 million on police overtime in 2023, $10 million more than budgeted. Auditors found in a February review that the city exceeded planned overtime allocations for police overtime 10 of the last 11 fiscal years.
And in Minneapolis, that city spent $21 million in police overtime in 2023, eclipsing the department’s $8.6 million overtime budget, according to KSTP-TV.
Dominique Artis, who was the Dallas’ fire chief until being promoted earlier this month to the city’s chief of public safety, said in April that Dallas Fire-Rescue had at least 100 vacant positions last year. The fire department has about 2,000 employees.
“The impact of overtime costs on Dallas Fire-Rescue’s budget is an annual concern,” Artis said.
Minimum staffing requirements make overtime necessary to fill shortages on a daily basis, he said. Special programs — such as RIGHT Care, which responds to 911 mental health calls, and the opioid response team — are often staffed through voluntary overtime shifts, he noted.
Dallas fire officials made overtime mandatory for many at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure enough staffing to respond to emergency calls, said Lt. Jeff Patterson, president of the Dallas Fire Fighters Association Although the mandate was dropped, overtime work is still sought by many, he said.
“A lot of the guys count on it because they either have kind of gotten accustomed to having that or they rely on it to help them get by,” Patterson said. “Everyone’s situation is a little bit different.”
‘There is a cost to that’
City officials already budget tens of millions of dollars a year for fire and police overtime, but it hasn’t been enough.
Last fiscal year, the fire department had an overtime budget of $34.2 million. It spent $47 million. The previous fiscal year the department had a $31.2 million overtime budget but exceeded it by $10.8 million.
The police department was budgeted $36.5 million for last fiscal year’s overtime but spent $47 million. In the 2022 fiscal year, it had a $28 million overtime budget but overspent by $9.5 million.
In recent years, the police department’s overtime budget was boosted by $8.5 million in federal coronavirus relief money, but that ends Oct. 1.
Police officials estimate needing $55.6 million to cover overtime for the current fiscal year, more than the $42.5 million budgeted, according to May estimates.
Bazaldua said city officials must do more to hold the police and fire departments accountable for repeatedly going over overtime budgets and set an expectation that it shouldn’t be the norm.
“I’m hoping that, as we have tough decisions to make and tough conversations to have for this budget season, that we’re going to get past the national politics of a conversation that is much more about fiscal responsibility and efficiency of local governments and figuring out how the crazy amounts of overtime can be reined in,” he said.
Department officials want increases to their overall budgets for the next fiscal year.
Police officials in May said they were planning for a budget of almost $710.8 million, up from $665.4 million. The increase was partly due to personnel expenses, they said. Overtime spending is planned to be $37.5 million.
Sr. Cpl. Jaime Castro, president of the Dallas Police Association, noted that the department is trying to modify work schedules as one way to reduce overtime.
García said an example of that is having officers work 10-hour shifts with an extra day off, rather than 8-hour shifts. Officials are considering redrawing patrol division boundaries to ensure adequate staffing levels across the city. García said the city hasn’t redistricted police divisions in more than 15 years.
DPD overtime costs have increased 42% since 2020 while overtime hours have risen by just 26%, according to the police department.
“It’s not that we’re working an overwhelming amount of overtime. It’s the fact that the cost per officer goes up year by year,” García said.
Even if the department hired 500 new officers overnight, the impacts wouldn’t be immediate.
García estimates that it would take around 18 months for an officer to go through the academy and receive enough training to start solo patrols. And if the city were to get that many new recruits all at once, it would also require hiring more staff to ensure they’re properly trained.
During a June 10 council public safety committee meeting, fire officials presented a budget of almost $419 million, up from the department’s current $413 million budget. They haven’t detailed yet how much they want for overtime.
Tolbert said in order to help increase staffing more quickly, the city is looking to hire more police officers, firefighters and paramedics from other cities.
That would cut down on training costs and get qualified public safety officers on Dallas streets faster, she said. The fire department is using a program to hire and train accredited firefighters from other cities, cutting the training time to three months compared to at least a year, she added.
City officials announced Friday that police and fire employees will now be able to show their tattoos at work and police officers will also be allowed to display groomed, natural beards.
The policy changes are meant to help the city’s recruitment and retention of first responders.
“At a time when both departments are understaffed, overtime is essential to maintain service levels,” Tolbert said. “The city is committed to providing our residents the emergency services they expect, and there is a cost to that.”
