Dallas Mayor Eric L. Johnson, early Thursday morning, voted against the Fiscal Year 2025-26 budget, which passed on an 11-3 vote. After the vote, Mayor Johnson released the following statement:
“In a time of growing competition with Dallas’s suburban neighbors, I could not support a budget that doesn’t deliver meaningful tax relief for our residents. This is the first Dallas budget to exceed $5 billion. To pass the largest budget in history without the City Council making a real effort to combat waste is unconscionable.
“City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert gave us an excellent starting point—focusing City Hall on the basics, investing substantially in public safety and streets, and reducing the tax rate. Unfortunately, the City Council failed to substantially build on the foundation laid by the City Manager.
“I challenged my colleagues to join me in identifying and eliminating wasteful spending to reduce the tax rate. And I applaud Mayor Pro Tem Jesse Moreno, Chairwoman Cara Mendelsohn, Chairman Paul Ridley, Chairwoman Kathy Stewart, and Chairman Chad West for stepping up to my ‘tax rate challenge’ and proposing amendments to eliminate $6.5 million of unnecessary spending and reduce the tax burden on our residents.
“Regrettably, the City Council did not support the majority of these amendments, resulting in a tax rate that remains too high, a rate reduction that will not offset rising property values, and higher tax bills for too many residents. As I said early in our budget discussions, if we are unable to cut even the low-hanging fruit that these amendments targeted, then we are unlikely to accomplish the much more difficult work that will be required to right size our City budget.
“The result is a bloated budget that fails to provide much-needed tax relief for Dallas residents. The newly created Committee on Government Efficiency now faces the crucial task of identifying and eliminating waste at City Hall wherever it can be found.”
