City Hall Roundup: Tolbert Balances Budget, Boosts Police Spending

Well, it’s been one week back at work for Dallas City Council members at City Hall, and there’s already been plenty of action worth covering.

Council members were gone for five weeks for summer break while staff plugged away and worked to craft policy for the city’s elected representatives to consider.

Here’s a rundown of some of the City Hall highlights:

Cuts and Consolidation

City Manager Kimberly Tolbert published her balanced budget proposal on Friday for FY 2025-2026, teeing the nearly two-month process of negotiating the next fiscal year’s taxpayer spending on services and capital allocations for city projects.

Just about a month and a half ago, the city was staring down the barrel of a $36.5 million budget shortfall. Now, it appears, staff have managed to square away the numbers, directing funds in accordance with the city’s top priorities.

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“This year we began implementing Phase I of our new budgeting process known as Priority Based Budgeting, which aligns resource allocation with resident priorities,” Tolbert said in a press release. “This foundational phase … included an initial review of City programs — and like many cities across the country, we had to make some tough decisions without sacrificing core services.”

Respondents in this year’s annual Community Survey indicated that improving police services and infrastructure were top of mind for Dallasites ahead of budget season.

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Some 100 active positions are currently on the chopping block, as are some aging community pools and the hours recreation centers are allowed to operate. Departments were asked earlier this summer to identify where they can save on costs.

The budget proposal is also eyeing some departmental consolidation and an overall “reimagining of service delivery, the elimination of duplications, the optimization of operational efficiencies, and other measures that maintain responsiveness to the needs of the city,” according to Tolbert.

One big move would be the proposed merger of the Offices of Community Care & Empowerment; Homelessness Solutions; Equity & Inclusion; and Housing & Community Development. If approved, there would be a single department called the Office of Housing & Community Empowerment.

While some areas of city operations would be seeing cuts under the proposed budget, police services and infrastructure improvements are getting significant boosts. Property owners will also be getting some relief through a modest tax rate cut — more on that later this week.

Due to an increase in overall property tax collections, there’s an extra $61.6 million available compared to last fiscal year. Almost all of it is going to bolster the Dallas Police Department and Dallas Fire-Rescue. The proposed budget raises starting officer pay to more than $81,000, maintains firefighter pay parity, contributes to the police and fire pension system, and advances the construction of the planned police academy at UNT Dallas. Officials hope to end the fiscal year with 3,424 police officers on the street, the biggest force since 2016.

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On the infrastructure front, street maintenance funding would increase from $125 million to $162 million to improve 750 miles of city roadway. There would also be money to advance projects related to the city’s Vision Zero safety plan, and a new $10 million initiative would try to accelerate shelter diversion, rehousing, and homelessness prevention efforts.

FY 2025-2026’s proposed budget sits at roughly $5.2 billion.

Click here to learn more about the various milestones on the road to formal adoption of a budget and tax rate for the coming fiscal year.

Dallas Axes DEI To Maintain Federal Grant Dollars

Another big development coming out of City Hall this past week was the announcement that officials had suspended all diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in order to keep various annual federal grants totaling $305 million.

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed executive orders banning federal grants from supporting initiatives that might violate federal anti-discrimination laws by giving priority to individuals based on race, gender, or national origin.

In response, back in June, the city council authorized Tolber to conduct a review of any such policies that might put grant funding in jeopardy. The city manager subsequently suspended all DEI programs pending review for compliance.

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Relatedly, the Office of Equity & Inclusion’s budget for FY 2025-2026 was zeroed out in Tolbert’s proposed budget, which also proposes merging the department with two others to eliminate redundancies and increase service efficiency.

Impacted DEI programs include the city’s Racial Equity Plan and a contract policy that aims to support women- and minority-owned businesses.

“We understand that this was initiated by the federal government and not the city of Dallas, but it also shows that the city views DEI programs as expendable,” said Caleb Roberts, the executive director of the environmental advocacy organization Downwinders at Risk, speaking with The Dallas Morning News.