The Texas House of Representatives’ Transportation Committee held a public hearing for House Bill 3187 on April 24 that featured more than 2.5 hours of testimony provided by officials and residents from across the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. North Texas officials who spoke during the hearing included representatives from:
- Dallas Area Rapid Transit
- Trinity Metro
- City of Plano
- City of Richardson
In a nutshell
Shaheen filed the bill in February and opened the public hearing with a description of what the bill aims to accomplish. Shaheen said the transit authority is bringing financial harm to many of its member cities.
He referenced the study completed by Ernst and Young Infrastructure Advisors in 2024 which found that multiple member cities contributed more sales tax revenue in 2023 than operations, capital and interest expenses cost to maintain transit service in those cities.
“Because of DART’s unwillingness to address these overpayments, I have filed HB 3187 that provides a legislative fix to these imbalances DART refuses to fix.”
What’s in the bill?
If HB 3187 were approved by the Texas House and Texas Senate and signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott, it would mandate that 25% of DART’s sales tax revenue is made available to its member cities for general mobility improvements.
Those improvements can include:
- Constructing and maintaining sidewalks, hike and bike trails, highways and streets
- Installing and maintaining streetlights and traffic signals
A quick note
The bill was originally filed with legal language that would cut DART’s sales and tax collection rate by a quarter-cent. An amended version of the bill submitted to the committee leaves the ability for DART to continue collecting sales and use tax at a 1% rate, Shaheen said.
“We have restored their 1% sales tax that they can charge everybody and we’ve rebalanced the restrictions on their bonds,” he said.
Also of note
The Ernst and Young report was presented to DART’s board of directors in September 2024. The report found that seven cities contributed more to DART in sales tax revenue than they were getting in return:
- Addison
- Carrollton
- Farmer’s Branch
- Highland Park
- Plano
- Richardson
- University Branch
DART's board of directors approved a resolution in March signaling its own intention to establish a general mobility program that would be funded by 5% of its annual sales tax collections.
What they’re saying
Nadine Lee, DART’s president and CEO testified against the bill saying taxpayers have voted twice to invest billions of dollars into the transit authority’s system, referencing elections that came in 1983 when DART was first formed and in 2000 when the voters approved $2.9 billion in long-term financing for system expansion.
Defunding DART by 25% in perpetuity will reduce available revenue for transit investments by $7 billion over a 20-year period, she said. DART officials project “devastating” cuts for the entire system’s maintenance and overhead times, she said.
“That will create a downward spiral until the entire system collapses,” she said.
Richardson City Council member Joe Corcoran testified against the bill on behalf of Richardson City Council. He said the city has invested heavily in DART over the past few decades. The transit authority has four train stations in the city and is soon to open a fifth with completion of the Silver Line commuter rail.
“The idea that we would set that progress back by implementing a 25% reduction in the sales tax contribution is very upsetting given that so many of our past investments in future plans were made with the understanding that we’d have a well-funded DART system,” Corcoran said.
On the other hand
Two North Texas mayors, Plano Mayor John Muns and Carrollton Mayor Steve Babick testified in support of the bill.
Muns also referenced the Ernst and Young study completed in 2024 saying Plano was the second largest contributor to DART behind Dallas. In 2023, Plano contributed $109 million to the transit authority and received less than 50 cents on the dollar of that investment, Muns said.
“This is an inefficient, indefensible use of the tax dollars that my taxpayers committed to benefit transit and our city,” he said.
Muns said Plano was committed to transit but that structural change was needed for DART’s “outdated” member city model.
“We really want to rightsize a 42-year old model that really hasn’t changed in those 42 years,” he said.
