City Hall Roundup: Municipalities Want to Slash Funding to Dallas Area Rapid Transit

Rowlett, Plano, Irving, Carrollton, and Farmers Branch recently approved resolutions saying they want to reduce the amount of sales tax they’re paying to Dallas Area Rapid Transit. 

It appears some Dallas elected officials are considering following suit.

In a June 24 meeting of the Dallas City Council’s Government Performance and Financial Management Committee, members agreed to seek a restructuring of DART sales tax contributions through its 2025 legislative priorities. 

Reducing the contribution by a quarter-cent could translate to over $100 million a year, Dallas Councilwoman Cara Mendelsohn pointed out in the GPFM meeting. As the city struggles to close a deficit in its police and fire pension fund, every penny — and quarter-penny — matters. 

The Dallas City Council is expected to vote on its legislative priorities in September. 

The Fight Against DART

D Magazine’s Matt Goodman covered “DART’s existential crisis” earlier this month and broke down how it works. 

The suburbs that passed resolutions codified their “desired intent to pay the public transportation provider 25 percent less than what state law presently requires,” Goodman wrote. 

Dallas Council Reluctantly Agrees to Accept Reduced Amount in DART Sales Tax Revenue

“The state statute that created DART in 1983 requires its member cities to divert a penny from every dollar spent in their jurisdiction— sales tax revenue —to the transit agency. The recent council resolutions signal a growing desire from at least some of DART’s 13 member cities to change the transit agency’s funding structure, be that through creating a new funding arrangement altogether, an across-the-board decrease in how much sales tax dollars they are required to pay, or establishing a cap for how much money the agency would bring in each year. DART says if 25 percent of its funding is removed, it would mean a reduction of $6 billion over the life of its 20-year financial plan,” the article states. 

Petition For DART to Reject Funding Cuts

There has been pushback.

Dallas transportation advocate Hexel Colorado started a petition on Change.org urging the DART Board of Directors to reject proposed funding cuts, officials announced Tuesday.

Since its launch, the petition has amassed over 1,000 signatures, according to a Change.org spokeswoman. Transportation activists say the proposed funding cut would have severe consequences for the 220,000 passengers who rely on the service daily, particularly low-income residents, students, seniors, and individuals with disabilities. It would also impact the livelihoods of DART’s 3,812 employees, including bus and rail operators, police officers, and maintenance workers, the petitioners say.

The Process of Cutting Sales Tax Contributions

The city-approved resolutions don’t immediately pull money away from DART, Goodman writes. 

“No city can do this unilaterally; the DART board would have to vote to trigger an election in each of the 13 partner cities, whose voters would decide whether their cities get to hold back sales tax revenue,” the article states. “If that doesn’t happen, the Texas Legislature, which will begin its 89^th session in January, could vote to open the statute and change how DART — and potentially the transit agencies in Houston and Austin — is funded. Legislation was filed by Plano state Rep. Matt Shaheen in each of the last two sessions to reconsider the statute. This time, the lobbying effort would have more formalized support from other member cities, putting additional pressure on legislators to act.”

City Prepares as Legislation on Affordable Housing, Infrastructure, And Roosters Goes Into Effect Sept. 1

Mendelsohn has been at the forefront of the DART issue in Dallas and advised her colleagues in June to get ahead of the matter before it is taken up in the Texas Legislature.

“There will be a Death Star 2.0 coming,” Mendelsohn said. “In addition to perhaps providing input into things that might need adjustments that have already passed. I think under local control we’ll be talking about this again.”

House Bill 2127 — deemed the “Death Star Bill” — undermines cities’ authority to enact policy.

“The Republican-backed law aims to stop local governments from enacting a wide range of progressive-leaning policies by barring cities and counties from passing local ordinances that go further than what’s allowed under broad areas of state law,” the Texas Tribune reported last year. 

District 1 Councilman Chad West, who chairs the Government Performance and Financial Management Committee, said the intent of the panel’s action last month was to “leave it broad.”

“We’re not setting it in stone today,” he said. “We’re saying it can be flexible and the use of the recaptured proceeds is flexible.”