As I wrote previously, yesterday’s post about the relatively low percentage of Dallas Police officers who live within the city proper got me curious about what those numbers look like for all city employees. So I asked.
According to the city public information office, as of July 2013 (the most recent info they had) 36.2 percent of the 12,316 city of Dallas employees are also residents. The city’s data claims a slightly higher percentage of cops (21.7 percent) than was in the FiveThirtyEight post (19 percent.) The fire department has fled the city at an even higher rate though, with only 17.2 percent of its uniformed personnel Dallasites.
The city charter requires only that the city manager, auditor, attorney, and secretary live in town. If you look at the department-by-department breakdown below, you’ll see that cops and firefighters are the least likely employees to be residents. Among the city’s civilian workforce, 48.6 percent call Dallas home. The city manager’s office has the highest number — 71.4 percent — but they’ve only got 14 employees Sanitation Services boasts a 70.1 percent residency rate among its 458 employees. Meanwhile 74.4 percent of the employees in the city controller’s office are suburbanites.
So, is any of this a problem? It certainly makes it easier to argue that most city employees have an Us vs. Them mentality when it comes to dealing with residents.
Here’s a guide to the city department codes, if you want to point a finger at any other departments.
