The 10-5 vote preserves some library and park services — but cuts healthcare benefits, city jobs and several community programs.
By Devyani Chhetri
Dallas Morning News
https://www.dallasnews.com/
After hours of horse trading over relatively small pots of money to maintain library and park services, the Dallas City Council approved a record $6 billion budget Wednesday.
The council voted 10-5 and dug up whatever they could — from laundry services, furniture and outside legal services — to find money for neighborhood services. The largest slice of the budget went into the police and fire departments.
All but council members Adam Bazaldua, Paula Blackmon, Bill Roth, Cara Mendelsohn and Paul Ridley voted to adopt the budget.
The final tally went up from City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert’s proposed $5.6 billion budget after the City Council pulled money from reserve funds to pay for some services.
Council members who supported the budget said Tolbert and her staff had done the best they could to write a budget after spending months poring over programs to find cuts to offset a projected shortfall.
Many of the council members who voted against the budget said they opposed because it cuts community services and eviction advocacy services, which could prevent people from falling into homelessness.
The strongest support came from Mayor Eric Johnson who looked at the city manager as he said she “probably nailed” the budget if Bazaldua and Mendelsohn, typically on opposing sides, challenged it.
Dallas’ plan for the upcoming fiscal year gives public safety a boost, raises street maintenance funding and strengthens the inspector general’s office.
Council members restored recreation center hours and kept some community pools open. They also restored funding for all libraries in an eleventh-hour move after the budget was initially adopted.
The City Council also cut the tax rate by 0.10 cents and approved hiking fees, which is unlikely to lead to savings for many taxpayers. But it does reduce funding for several programs, eliminating a couple altogether.
Bazaldua decried the tax rate cut, saying the additional dollars could have helped give better merit increases for employees, fully fund libraries and provide dollars for critical repairs at City Hall as well as pension payments.
“Instead, we chose the headline over the hard decision,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mendelsohn wanted a bigger cut to the property tax rate, saying it could’ve reduced the budget by another $40 million.
Council member Laura Cadena and the five council members who voted against the overall budget opposed the final tax rate.
But the budget discussion wasn’t quite over. There were still a couple things they had to get out of the way, including approving a reduced healthcare plan for city employees.
One of the items involved restructuring and renaming departments and the council needed 12 votes to do that. But the six who had voted against the tax rate didn’t allow it. This meant the City Council had to go back and reconsider the budget all over again, opening it up to amendments.
Mendelsohn and Cadena sought to restore funding for all libraries. In the end, the majority of the council voted to protect libraries, using money from the IT reserve fund.
Budget winners
- Six pools remain open for one more year: Bonnie View, Everglade, Martin Weiss, Pleasant Oaks, Tommie Allen and Walnut Hills pools.
- Park recreation centers hours were restored, but the city clawed back funds for maintenance work, including mowing.
- Police and fire budgets went up by $83 million.
- Two public arts positions in the Office of Arts and Culture were restored. But the department lost positions.
- Investigative technology and staff will be added to the inspector general’s office.
- Artificial intelligence will support police body cameras and license-plate readers, trash routes and permitting and inspections.
- 800 lane miles will be improved, including 13 miles of full resurfacing at roughly $800,000 per lane mile.
- Dallas Animal Services got additional funding to tackle animal cruelty cases and surgeries.
- Lobbyist funding has been restored for the upcoming legislative session.
Budget losers
- A PPO program was cut from healthcare benefits for city employees.
- About 200 city positions were eliminated to make the government leaner.
- The Police Department’s first offender program was cut. Officials said Dallas County’s diversion program will take over that role.
- The Public Inebriated Sobering Diversion Program was reduced.
- The urban forestry program was trimmed.
Dallas City Hall Reporter
Devyani Chhetri covers Dallas City Hall. Before joining the Dallas Morning News, she covered South Carolina politics and presidential primaries. She went to Boston University for graduate school.
