McKinney prioritizes public safety in new budget, adds more fire and police positions

Starting Tuesday, a new budget for McKinney, totaling nearly $888 million, goes into effect. It includes money for more first responders as the city tries to keep up with the population boom.

McKinney and its neighbors in Collin County consistently rank among the fastest-growing cities in Texas and the country. In May, the U.S. Census Bureau named four Collin County cities -- Princeton, Anna, Celina and Prosper -- in its top 10 fastest growing in the country.

“The population growth across the South in 2023 was driven by significant numeric and percentage gains among its cities,” said Crystal Delbé, a statistician in the Census Bureau’s Population Division. “Thirteen of the 15 fastest-growing cities were in the South, with eight in Texas alone.”

With the accelerated growth in North Texas, especially since the pandemic, the need for more people to address that growth is crucial, according to Chief Paul Dow of the McKinney Fire Department.

"The growth is incredible, but it does come with the unintended consequences. And that's just like the regular growing pains of any city,” he said. “You start to expand your footprint. When you do that, you stretch in a lot of the resources that you currently have."

That’s why McKinney is prioritizing public safety in its new budget, with 47% of the general fund dedicated toward public safety services.

“Public safety continues to be a priority of our community,” City Manager Paul Grimes told The Dallas Morning News. “As we continue to grow, we’re just going to have to have more people to be able to deliver services.”

The budget adds 10 more police department positions, including six officers, two detectives, and two forensic investigators.

The fire department is getting 11 new positions, including eight firefighters, a new medical unit (ambulance), a nurse practitioner for its community health program, and two logistics crews to help maintain fire department equipment.

"With the rapid growth that we're experiencing here, demand for fire and EMS services is only increasing. This year's investment allows us to expand our operations, which is going to improve our response times,” he said.

Dow said they've seen a 30% increase in call volume over the last two years, which has made it difficult for first responders to meet response times during peak hours.

"There's peak hours where we may not have a med unit available because they're all on calls or dropping off patients at the hospitals. So we go into what we call ‘med unit overload’ and that's becoming more common,” Dow said. “That's why adding this new med unit with this year's budget is going to have a real impact on the service that we can provide."

This new budget comes at a time where cities across the state are competing for the same group of applicants in police and fire departments amid staffing shortages.

The city of Dallas has been vocal about its own staffing struggles for first responders, with many efforts being made in its own budget in the last year to address shortages and retention.

The boom towns across Collin County are dedicating what dollars they can toward bringing in and keeping new hires.

Dow said McKinney fire hired dozens of firefighters just to fill existing vacancies, with those positions expected to come onboard in the next few months. According to a city memo, recruit salaries start at $76,000.

McKinney police is actively hiring for new officers, with recruits starting at $78,000.

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Dow said in the near future, there are more plans to expand services.

“We're very blessed that we have land to build four new stations and we have the funding to actually build on two of those lots that we have.  That's already money that was approved by voters in the spring of this year in that $50 million bond that we got for the fire department,” he said. “So with the building of new stations, that offers a lot of growth.”