The mayor of Dallas has a security detail for a reason. Even though Dallas has a weak-mayor system, this person is the face of the city, for better or worse. The mayor’s opinions and decisions will attract praise and criticism, and anger about those stances can devolve into threatening behavior.

And it’s not just any security. The Dallas police chief has assigned officers to the mayor’s security detail since 1991. Previous mayors have had a security detail with two people or so.

What no one with the city will explain is the math of Mayor Eric Johnson’s security detail. Records we obtained from the city this week show the cost of his security detail — the salary, overtime and benefits of the officers plus the team’s fleet — doubled from about $1 million in 2022 and 2023 to more than $2 million in 2024. The security detail cost even more last year: $2.23 million. 

And as of May 5, officials estimated Johnson’s security detail to have cost the city $1.7 million, more than three quarters of what it cost last year, with roughly eight months in the year to go.

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Compensation doubled from about $775,000 in 2023 to more than $1.5 million in 2024. The team’s vehicle fleet, which had cost $10,000 or less three years ago, grew in dollar figures by more than 1,500%. Starting in 2024, the cost of the fleet jumped to more than $161,000 a year, per city records.

Overtime, too, has skyrocketed. Records show overtime grew from about 2,925 hours four years ago to more than 3,600 hours last year.

We don’t know whether security threats prompted this dramatic increase in resources to Johnson’s protective detail. Noah DeGarmo, the mayor’s spokesperson, told us Johnson doesn’t oversee his security detail or make decisions regarding its operations, referring questions to the Dallas Police Department.  

For its part, DPD said the department does not discuss “specific threats, intelligence, risk assessments or changes in protective posture.” Spokesperson Allison B. Hudson wrote in an email that year-to-year costs can be affected by several factors and that comparing annual totals without accounting for those factors can provide an incomplete picture.

Overtime is driven by “the Mayor’s official schedule, events, travel and activities requiring coverage outside regularly scheduled hours,” Hudson wrote.

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We’ve struggled to get a picture of what the mayor’s job-related extracurriculars look like. As we’ve written previously, the city has blocked our request for council air travel records and has gone to court to challenge a state ruling that it must release them.

Johnson became mayor in 2019. Soon after his reelection, he announced in the fall of 2023 that he was switching to the Republican Party. The revelation prompted strong backlash within Dallas, a blue city, and made a lot of noise about politics for an office that’s supposed to be nonpartisan. In October of that year, Johnson launched the Republican Mayors Association, a group whose goal is to get conservative mayors elected in other cities.

The mayor’s security detail costs doubled the next year, in 2024.

Is there a price to getting into the partisan fray? Perhaps. 

Dallas City Hall has been guarded about releasing information. We asked for cost amounts, along with the number of detailed officers and the make and model of the fleet vehicles, in May. The city blocked our request and punted it to the office of the Texas attorney general, citing a range of statutes and security concerns. An assistant attorney general was not convinced, directing the city to release some of the information: “The fact that information may be related to a governmental body’s security concerns does not make such information per se confidential…”

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The number of officers who serve in Johnson’s detail and the make and model of vehicles in the fleet was redacted in city records. DPD declined to say, citing security reasons.

What we can describe is what people see at City Hall. At a recent meeting, council member Adam Bazaldua questioned the doubling in cost of the mayor’s security detail, pointing out the presence of six officers in the largely empty council chambers. DPD told us in an email that staffing at one event shouldn’t be interpreted as the routine staffing level for the detail.

“When I came in as a chief, I left the mayor’s detail exactly how it was before, and the mayor has been safe before then, and he’s safe now,” Dallas police Chief Daniel Comeaux, who joined the city in April 2025, told the council.

As for the fleet, people who work at City Hall told us they had previously seen a Cadillac Escalade parked in the mayor’s space. Lately, a more modest SUV — a Chevrolet Suburban — has taken that spot. No one we queried about the mayor’s detail disputed the observation.

We don’t question that Johnson needs protection. But city officials want to operate in a “Trust us and don’t ask us for the details” environment in the middle of a major budget crunch. The city can offer a more robust explanation without compromising the mayor’s safety.

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City spending can’t be unfettered. It must be reasonable and responsible — whether it’s roadwork, libraries or the mayor’s security detail.

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