Candy Evans: Dallas City Hall Says a Property Tax Reduction is on The Table, But It’s Not The Tax Break You Think

I was in Nashville, Tennessee, recently, interviewing agents there as I perused their gorgeous property offerings. Found out a lot of people are choosing Nashville over Dallas (and Texas) as they relocate from either California, the Midwest, or the East Coast. Why?

Tennessee property taxes are one-third of Texas’. And there is no state income tax in Tennessee. Tennessee doesn’t tax salaries and wages but does tax bond interest and stock dividends.

So while I am grateful for preliminary news that Dallas City manager T.C. Broadnax is offering an almost 3 percent reduction in property taxes, I am incensed still — the city has collected 15 percent more in property taxes because our market has shot up in values so strongly. So the city is netting 12 percent more in tax revenue.

Why not give it back to those who paid for it?

Three For You, 15 For Me

According to reports late Friday, City Manager T.C. Broadnax is recommending a $4.51 billion budget for the city’s next fiscal year. It includes $160 million more than the spending plan approved last year by the Dallas City Council because Dallas saw record revenue from sales taxes and property taxes.

Sales and property taxes make up nearly 80 percent of the city’s general fund, out of which most of the city’s day-to-day operations are pulled.

But hold onto your hat: Broadnax giveth and then stick-eth. His proposal calls for increases in the rates and fees we pay for city services: sanitation, storm drainage, and our water bills. He plans to increase starting salaries for city employees from $15 an hour to around $18 an hour under the proposal, after reports that it takes at least $17.03 an hour to earn a living wage in Dallas, or $30 an hour for single parents.

The city published an overview of Broadnax’s budget proposal Friday with a summary of recommended investments. The full budget proposal, which would include funding recommendations for each city department, is set to be released Saturday.

The City Council will receive its first public briefing of Broadnax’s spending plan on Tuesday.

Dallas Morning News

A few thoughts.

The city manager’s proposal calls for $4 million on financial incentives to try to keep trained police officers on the verge of retirement to stay for at least one more year. (He said he hopes at least 30 officers agree to stick around.)

Dallas is having trouble hiring and retaining police, like most major cities, because frankly, few want to be police officers anymore, and Dallas’s pay is notoriously low.

He wants to hire more paramedics, which is good.

He wants to buy six more ambulances, which is also good.

He wants to spend $18 million on fire emergency equipment and $1.5 million to create a monitoring team for the city’s entertainment districts. Hmmm. City tax dollars should pay for this? Why not the districts, clubs, and venues themselves?

According to the Dallas Morning News, here are other proposals in the budget followed by how I score them:

• Spend $157 million on improving city infrastructure, including $6.3 million to improve sidewalks, $4.4 million in repairs to bridges, and $2 million to clean up alleys. I’ll give this one an A+.
• Pay $2 million to remove trees infected by emerald ash borer beetles and slow the spread of the invasive insects that eat ash trees. That’s a lot, but trees are crucial. A
• Spend $1.5 million to develop a program to clean up city properties with hazardous substances, pollutants, or contaminants. Important, but why can we not charge the creators of such pollution or contaminants to do this? THIS IS A PROGRAM, not the actual doing. I smell bureaucracy: D.
• Expand the development services office to address months long delays in the city issuing residential and commercial building permits, including creating a team dedicated to focusing on approving single and multifamily housing projects. This should not cost a dollar more than making major personnel changes over on Jefferson: F.
• Spend $2.5 million to create a Homeless Action Response Team, to more quickly address homeless encampments. Sounds great, but I fear this will be another waste of resources. Maybe create more places for the homeless to live to get them off the streets? D
• Increase library hours in at least nine branches around the city that lack internet access and other resources. Nice, A.
• Hire more staff in the code enforcement department dedicated to apartment inspections and more animal services workers to respond to calls about loose dogs. A+, as long as they do their jobs.
• Spend $300,000 to analyze how to bring at least 20 city-owned buildings up to standards with the Americans with Disabilities Act. F. Maybe the city owns too many buildings? Maybe time to sell some off …
• Spend $70 million for new vehicles. If necessary, okay, not a great time to buy vehicles. C.
• Spend $1.5 million toward street safety improvements as part of the city’s Vision Zero plan, such as speed bumps. A+
• Hire new employees who would be in charge of overseeing how plans seeking to address traffic deaths and racial disparities are implemented. F — great example of how we waste good money on bureaucracy — sounds vague and phony. See “speed bumps” above.

Less Than One Percent City Survey Says …

Lastly, only 1,200 people out of a population of 1.3 million, or .9 percent of the city’s total population, responded to a survey asking citizens how they want to spend their tax dollars in Dallas. That’s less than one percent. Most of this tiny pool said they wanted to see:

• increased funding for the arts and culture programs,
• social services,
• and repairs to streets, sidewalks and alleys.

They wanted less money to:

• code violations,
• court services
• and police: the things we need to keep us safe.

These respondents have a limited view of reality. But the truth is, Dallas is run by the “less than one percent” because of voter apathy. Landlords who don’t maintain properties lead to dilapidated properties, which endanger the lives of the folks living there and render them homeless. Court services are needed to keep up with our rising crime rate, as are the police.

Your water and trash collection bills are about to get jacked up, so this “gift” from the city manager (about $77 on a $350,000 home) will vanish in about a month. Don’t buy the “it’s the biggest tax decrease in history” rhetoric.

And it’s vital that you give your input on this budget ASAP. Call your Dallas City Council representative. Email, write, and shriek. They should be sending out emails about in-person and virtual town hall events scheduled to run from Aug. 11 to Aug. 25. This is your last hope, for amendments to the proposal before the final plan is adopted and the new fiscal year takes hold on Oct. 1.

Just in time for Halloween.