Dallas City Council voted to approve the budget Sept. 20 after nearly two months of meetings and back-and-forth debates over the property tax rate. Five members of the 15-member council, including Mayor Eric Johnson, voted against its adoption.
“In an environment of such economic uncertainty for our residents and businesses, with inflation and interest rates being where they are, I simply could not vote for a budget that is the largest in the history of the city and that is paid for by raising taxes on our residents and businesses,” Johnson said in a statement following the Sept. 20 meeting.
He and other tax relief proponents on City Council argued that despite the lower rate, many residents will still receive larger tax bills because of rising property values.
The overview
In mid-August, Johnson instructed City Manager T.C. Broadnax to revise his initial budget recommendation to lower the initial tax rate proposal of $0.7393 per $100 valuation and lobbied for a lower rate throughout the budget adoption process.
The adopted tax rate is $0.0101 lower than the previous fiscal year’s rate. This is the eighth year in a row Dallas’ property tax rate has decreased.
The breakdown
The $4.6 billion budget includes a general fund budget of $1.8 billion, which is the city’s main operating fund for uses such as police, fire department personnel, code compliance, libraries and parks. Property tax revenue accounts for 57% of the general fund, according to a city news release.
The rest of the budget, made up of enterprise funds, comes from other services that pay for themselves through fees, such as water utilities, trash and recycling pickup, and Dallas Love Field Airport revenue.
The budget includes eight focus areas:
- Economic development
- Environment and sustainability
- Government performance and financial management
- Housing and homelessness solutions
- Public safety
- Quality of life, arts and culture
- Transportation and infrastructure
- Workforce, education and equity
Public safety was a high priority on the budget, with funding allocated to hire 250 police officers, offer incentives to retain tenured police officers, hire 100 firefighters, and increase overtime for both the police and fire departments.
What they’re saying
“I will be supporting this because I feel that if you vote against it, you voted against the additional 250 [police] officers. Every item in [the budget], you either support it or you don’t. ... We don’t get to do a line-item [vote]," said City Council member Paula Blackmon, who represents Lakewood and voted in favor of the budget.
“Property owners who are seeing increases in their taxes are simply passing that increase along to their tenants [by raising rent prices]. So it’s making housing more expensive for everyone, ... and it is potentially driving people out of Dallas," said City Council member Paul Ridley, who represents parts of east Dallas and voted against the budget's adoption.
What else?
Among its new funding priorities, City Council also allocated $1.4 million to create a short-term rental registration program and inspection team, following its decision in June to ban most short-term rentals from the city.
Fifteen Dallas Public Library locations will expand operations to six days per week due to a $3.1 million allocation. Other allocations included $151.7 million for public works projects, $9.5 milllion for parks and trails, and $1.7 million for a senior home repair program.
“We could have done a better job for our residents. We really could have,” said City Council member Kathy Stewart, who represents Lake Highlands and voted against the budget adoption. “But I also say it’s a good budget because of the kind of work that I know will get done next year because of [these allocations].”
The new budget, which gave nearly every city department an increase in funding, went into effect Oct. 1 and will end Sept. 30, 2024.
