Dallas Council Members Submit Budget Cuts With Goal of Slashing $104M From City Manager’s Proposal

Dallas City Council members haggled over budget amendments Wednesday and even agreed on a few during a seven-hour briefing. The most significant of the six amendments, approved in a straw vote Wednesday, was submitted last minute by District 7 Councilman Adam Bazaldua and therefore was not included in the council agenda packet. 

Amendment 28A represents about $13.4 million in cuts to City Manager T.C. Broadnax’s proposed $4.63 billion budget. By making those cuts, the tax rate can be further reduced by 1 cent, Bazaldua said.

“I believe this was a good middle ground in a spirit of compromise,” Bazaldua said. “It includes a lot of the use of funds that was desired by what was turned in by the council last Friday. I hope we can get this approved, drop the tax rate, and get started working on this budget.”

City officials promised to distribute a memo Friday that summarizes the approved amendments.

Dallas City Council members asked last month for a lower property tax rate, with Mayor Eric Johnson likening the city’s current financial situation to the Titanic headed for an iceberg. 

Broadnax and Chief Financial Officer Jack Ireland reluctantly responded, providing an alternative budget scenario based on a tax rate that’s 5.33 cents lower than Broadnax’s proposed 73.93 cents per $100 assessed valuation.

Council members offered their suggestions for how to slash Broadnax’s proposal by $104.2 million. 

The alternative “no new revenue” scenario and the council’s budget amendments were unveiled last week and debated in Wednesday’s Dallas City Council budget briefing. 

The budget and tax rate are scheduled for adoption Sept. 20. 

City Manager Pushes Back Against Lower Tax Rate

Ireland clarified in a Sept. 1 memo to council members that Broadnax “does not recommend lowering the tax rate beyond the 0.65-cent reduction that was incorporated into the recommended budget.” 

“Further, the City Manager does not recommend reducing the expenses included in the attached alternative [no new revenue] tax rate scenario,” Ireland wrote. “This scenario is only provided as requested by City Council members.”

Ireland explained as Wednesday’s meeting wrapped up around 8:30 p.m. that while it appears that the council landed on an even larger-than-proposed figure of $4.98 billion, that’s because some items are “double counted” and will show up temporarily in the operating budget as a transfer and in the capital budget as an appropriation.

“Some items get double counted as we transfer them between different funds,” he said. “Your action today reduced the tax rate by an additional 0.36 cents, for a total tax rate reduction from the current year of 1.01 cents. We will send out a summary on Friday that summarizes the six amendments that were passed today.”

Dallas City Council Budget Amendments

District 12 Councilwoman Cara Mendelsohn took the biggest hatchet to Broadnax’s proposed budget in an effort to provide tax relief she says residents have demanded.

“Some people want to continue to tax and grow a very slow and inefficient government,” Mendelsohn said. “Other people would like a very efficient and effective government that lets people keep their own money. They can solve a lot of their own problems if they have those resources, but we keep taking them … I hope that when we have our next long budget session we’ll be able to continue cutting.”

Mendelsohn and other council members fought to remove budget allocations for full-time employee positions that have long been vacant and to “freeze” departmental budgets at their current rate rather than making additions. Here are a few of Mendelsohn’s proposals:

The 63 budget amendments proposed in an 18-page document by Dallas City Council members also included: 

• Reduce allocation of street improvements (Public Works) by $1 million — West, Schultz, Moreno. District 1 Councilman Chad West told CandysDirt.com on Thursday this initiative passed, and the funds will be reapplied to the 50/50 sidewalk program to double the impact of sidewalk construction.
• Reduce the Public Works budget for the Real Estate Division by 25 percent ($381,786) in FY 2023-24. Initiate a request for proposals process to a third party to outsource this function in FY 2024-25 — West
• Eliminate Dallas Police Department Mounted Program ($310,997) — Ridley 
•  Eliminate additional demolition funding in Code Compliance ($250,000) — Bazaldua
• Reduce the number of Dallas Police Department officers hired from 290 to 250 — ending FY24 with 3,144 officers. Reduce the class 398 and 399 from 42 to 22 — no change to remaining classes ($3.15 million) — Bazaldua
• Reduce Communications, Outreach, & Marketing budget to FY 22-23 level of funding ($1 million), reduce Data Analytics & Business Intelligence budget to FY 22-23 ($1.3 million); eliminate funding for the IT Governance committee to use for the General Fund portion of Citywide IT projects ($1 million); reduce Human Resources department budget to FY 22-23 level of funding ($1 million) — Willis 

‘No New Revenue’ Budget Scenario

Mendelsohn first introduced the “no new revenue” initiative in mid-August. Backed by Mayor Johnson and a majority of council members, the elected panel has not let up on its demands that staff find a way to lower the tax rate. 

Dallas Mayor Pleads With Council to Turn The Ship Around as Property Tax Ceiling is Set Wednesday

Mendelsohn sent the following email to CFO Ireland on Aug. 25, copying CandysDirt.com and other local media outlets. 

“Please provide a link on the city’s financial transparency webpage of the draft budgets submitted by each department this spring that show an 8 percent reduction scenario,” she wrote. “As the budget amendment process begins, it is in the interest of transparency and governance for council members, the public, and the media, to understand which line items departments contemplated for reductions in their budget. Since this information is already available in the budget office software, please work to post it as soon as possible, preferably today, but no later than the close of business Monday.”

Ireland replied that staff was already working on a response to share with the City Council “that includes departmental budget reduction scenarios prepared earlier in our budget development process.”

“This information is not included in our third set of responses being distributed this afternoon but will be provided early next week,” Ireland wrote in an email that was copied to CandysDirt.com. 

Ireland’s memo, which included the alternate scenario built around Mendelsohn’s request for a “no new revenue budget” was posted Sept. 1.