Mendelsohn: Lower Tax Rate is a Farce, Property Owners Will Be Writing Bigger Checks

Dallas property owners got a little relief Wednesday as the City Council approved the largest tax reduction in recent history along with a $4.97 billion city budget. 

But Far North Dallas Councilwoman Cara Mendelsohn wasn’t giving hugs or high-fives at the horseshoe. Shortly before the budget and tax rate were adopted, Mendelsohn introduced an amendment that failed to remove a new $3 “environmental services fee” that would generate $10.5 million. She commended staff for finding efficiencies but said it’s not enough to offset other rising fees and taxes. 

“Before everyone at City Hall takes a bow on the budget, let’s just review the facts,” she said. “The city is increasing fees by $57.6 million. The budget will approve increases and fees to residents for sanitation services, drinking water, stormwater, and sanitary sewer. The reduction in the property tax rate doesn’t do enough to counteract the 8.5% increase in [property tax] appraisals, meaning we can talk all day about a historic tax decrease but nearly every homeowner in this city will be writing a bigger check than last year and every renter will feel the impact of another rent increase.” 

Proposed $5 Billion Dallas Budget Highlights Safety, Street Cleanup, and Repairs

North Oak Cliff Councilman Chad West called Mendelsohn’s 11th-hour action “disrespectful.” 

“This is last-minute; I see this as grandstanding at this point,” West said. “The guise and the interest of being fiscally conservative, fiscally responsible … I support being responsible, certainly, but doing it in this manner I think is disrespectful to the city manager, to the whole staff, to our colleagues and to everybody who’s watching and in the horseshoe.

“This budget is the most responsive that I’ve seen in my five years of being here and that’s why we’ve seen, at least until today, almost no amendments,” West continued. “I remember when we were here until one or two in the morning during COVID because there were 80 amendments filed. We’ve had less than a dozen amendments until now … and no one has provided us with any preliminary copies. It could have been handled in a more professional manner.” 

Mendelsohn fired back at her next opportunity to speak, noting that budget amendments are often introduced at the final public hearing. She said after the meeting she intentionally brought the matter up on the day of adoption, and “everyone knew I was going to do it.”

“We have to have people who will champion different ideas and it’s perfectly fine if they get voted down, but to make it a personal attack is completely counter to the democratic principles that we should be abiding by,” she said.

Interim City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert’s $4.97 billion budget represents a 7.4% increase over the current fiscal year’s budget. The tax rate approved Wednesday has been billed as “ the largest single-year property tax reduction in modern history” — a decrease from 73.57 cents to 70.47 cents per $100 assessed valuation. 

Watch Wednesday’s Dallas City Council meeting here or view the City of Dallas press release on budget adoption.

Fee increases 

When Mendelsohn moved to strike an environmental cleanup fee from the budget, that’s when the discussion became heated. The fee increase is expected to generate $10.5 million, as outlined in a staff memorandum issued last week. 

“This was a fee we were recommending that has been utilized by other cities not only within our area but around the country to deal with overall environmental cleanup,” Tolbert said. 

Chief Financial Officer Jack Ireland said the anticipated revenues from the $3 monthly fee will be allocated to the Department of Sanitation, Office of Homeless Solutions, Department of Transportation, and Public Works. 

“Eliminating the fee and the revenue would be to eliminate the services which the fee would have supported,” Ireland said.

Those activities include homeless encampment cleanup, illegal dumping mitigation, and dead animal removal. 

The fee increase ultimately was approved, with only Mendelsohn and District 2’s Jesse Moreno voting to strike it, but Mendelsohn took some parting shots. 

“Any congratulations about our lower tax rate in Dallas is fake, as the city has gone to the maximum legally-allowed rate without going to the voters to ask for an even greater tax increase,” she said. “The budget is limited only because the state of Texas Senate Bill 2 limited us on property tax revenue growth.”

The proposed budget not only goes to the maximum for property reappraisal revenue increases, but it also shifts services previously funded by the general fund into a new tax disguised as the Environmental Cleanup Special Revenue Fund, Mendelsohn said. 

“This feels like an end-run around the legislative intent to keep tax bills predictable and reasonable for taxpayers,” she said.  

The councilwoman added that she’s not suggesting the city no longer provide environmental cleanup services, but they ought to do it within their own departmental budgets rather than by taxing residents. 

Skillman Southwestern Library Will Stay Open … For Now

District 9 Councilwoman Paula Blackmon, who represents White Rock Lake and East Dallas, withdrew a previous proposal to reduce the Office of Economic Development’s transfer to the infrastructure investment fund by $485,486 to keep the Skillman Southwestern Library open 53 hours a week, six days a week. The low-performing facility had been on the chopping block, drawing dozens of residents to City Hall to plead against its closure.

Blackmon said she heard the concerns of her colleagues about decreasing money from an infrastructure fund and instead proposed using American Rescue Plan Act funds designated specifically for District 9. A majority of the council supported the amendment so the Skillman Library will stay open for at least a year. 

Blackmon acknowledged this is a one-off expenditure and there’s no long-term solution. 

Councilwoman Blackmon Playing Budget Jenga to Help Save Skillman Southwestern Library 

“Maybe this gives us a year,” she said. “So, yes, I’ve bought a year, and they know it. I’m hoping that [with] the rest of our budget, we can figure out the money … that we can put toward keeping all of our services across the city available to all our residents. It’s about growing the pie. It’s not taking a slice of somebody else’s and giving it to them.” 

The Council approved another budget amendment introduced by West, regarding the reduction of an annual expenditure for the City-owned Bullington Truck Terminal and leased pedestrian tunnel at Thanks-Giving Square. That situation is complicated and warrants its own story, so we’ll be covering that in a future edition of CandysDirt.com. Deadlines, y’all.