Their constituents say crime is a major concern, so why won’t council members pony up for more police?
Conservative white politicians could always be counted on to press for fiscal responsibility and law and order, and there was always enough wiggle room in the former to pay for more of the latter.
Until now.
Nothing surprised me more about our cover story detailing police chief David Kunkle’s proposal to hire 300 more cops than the council’s lack of enthusiasm for his plan. In fact, few things have surprised me more in all the years I have been writing about this stuff. This is not, after all, Berkeley, Calif., where the city council is composed of Bolsheviks, anti-war protestors and dopers. This is the Dallas City Council, with its lawyers, real estate developers and other private property types. Yet one council member (who shall remain nameless to spare us the floor show that occurs when someone claims they were misquoted or taken out of context when they say something silly) said: “We certainly don’t want to end up in a police state where there’s so many cops on the street, and, yeah, we have no crime, but people don’t have a good quality of life either.”
I’m even willing to bet that if the issue comes up in this budget cycle, Kunkle will be hard-pressed to find eight votes on the council to authorize the $15 million to pay for the cops, based on the rule of thumb that it costs $1 million to hire, train, and equip 20 officers. And because I’m the emperor-has-no-clothes sort of guy that I am, note that the $15 million makes up just 1 percent of the $1 billion or so city budget, and that it is also less than most of the tax breaks the council has been shoving at developers over the past year.
So what’s going on? Why is the council so lukewarm about hiring more cops, especially since so many of them say crime is their constituents’ top priority? They cite a host of reasons, most of which sound like excuses a kid offers his parents when he doesn’t want to go to school — the “Mommy, my stomach hurts” approach to government. My favorite is that there is no reason to budget for the cops since it’s impossible (see the story for the reasons) to hire them. Somehow, though, I don’t think this is the same philosophy the various council members use in their own businesses.
Part of their indifference might also stem from the prevailing view of government, which says that anything government does is suspect. This means that if the chief says he needs more cops, he’s probably trying to pad his budget instead of making the cuts that are necessary to keep the force lean, mean and more efficient. Part of it might also come from a mindset that sees tax breaks as economic development, while more officers are just another expense. And part of it could be that no matter how bad crime is in their districts, it’s usually worse in the less well-off parts of the city — read black and brown — and council members over the past 10 or 15 years have been notorious for their inability to see past their district boundaries.
Or, in other words, why should they ask their constituents to pay for police who will go elsewhere? (And it probably doesn’t hurt that their districts are affluent enough to participate in the city’s rent-a-cop program.)
And to complicate matters more, no one is sure what the Legislature will do this year to pay for school finance reform. Its goal is to cut property taxes by one-third, which means two things. First, they have to make up the difference elsewhere, so we really won’t be seeing a tax cut. Second, the absolute last thing the council — and especially those with political ambitions — is going to do is raise property taxes that have just been cut. This probably violates about 27 rules for getting elected, even if it benefits the public good (which are, of course, two completely different things).
So no extra cops. Unless, of course, the voters ask for them. And wouldn’t that surprise the council?
