It’s not easy making cuts to a $4.63 billion budget when the public is begging for property tax relief and pretty much everyone wants increased public safety, capital improvements, and driveable streets.
The Dallas City Council is slated to approve a budget and property tax rate on Wednesday.
Earlier this month, council members offered 63 amendments to City Manager T.C. Broadnax’s proposed budget, based on a property tax rate of 73.93 cents per $100 assessed valuation.
Council members agreed that’s not enough tax relief for homeowners, but it’s unclear exactly what will go down at Wednesday’s meeting.
Based on the amendments made earlier this month, the tax rate council members are slated to vote on Wednesday has been dropped to 73.57 cents per $100 assessed valuation.
Council members debated in a Sept. 6 briefing over where to make cuts. Communications and Marketing, Human Resources, and Data Analytics had to fight for their budgets more than other departments. Ultimately, just five amendments passed.
Amendment 28A, approved in the Sept. 6 meeting, consolidated several proposals from council members and provided roughly $5 million in additional tax savings.
Broadnax on Friday posted three memos regarding the budget: responses to questions about the proposed budget, final steps to adopt the 2023-24 budget, and fee and rate adjustments.
The new fiscal year begins Oct. 1.
Broadnax Pushes Back
City Manager Broadnax took issue with the narrative that major cuts are imminent in 2025, something that’s been widely reported and repeated since the budget season began.
“Let me just clarify one thing,” Broadnax said during a meeting earlier this month. “You made a statement that we’re going to have to do massive layoffs and major cuts in 2025. There is nowhere in this budget — which actually is a two-year budget — there are no massive cuts, there is no degradation of existing services, being proposed in the 2024-25 budget. The statement is not an accurate statement about the future of this city.”
Broadnax explained that 90 percent of the growth since he came to Dallas in 2017 has been in police, fire, tax increment financing district payments, public works and transportation, parks and recreation, courts and detention, code compliance, libraries, housing and homelessness, and the city attorney’s office.
“The narrative is that we’re out of control and we’re growing,” Broadnax said. “Those areas of growth, the dollars we’re investing, are the No. 1, 2, 3, and 4 priorities of this community and this council. The money has been invested where the council has asked for it to be invested, 90 percent.”
The budget is sustainable and will continue to be sustainable, the city manager added.
“That notion and that narrative about where we’re headed … We understand how to manage the finances to a point where we don’t put the council and the community in an upside-down situation. We will not run off a cliff,” he said. “We are not adding positions for the sake of adding positions.”
Council Feedback
Council members Cara Mendelsohn and Adam Bazaldua have been outspoken about the budget but from different ends of the spectrum.
“We cannot continue to increase the people’s taxes in Dallas,” Mendelsohn said during the Sept. 6 meeting. “We’re already overtaxed. We already have the highest tax rate of the surrounding cities.”
Bazaldua indicated he may vote for a tax rate closer to the ceiling set by council members — also the proposed rate set by Broadnax — in order to provide services that constituents are demanding.
“I think it’s important that we stay genuine with our messaging,” he said. “We aren’t just being emotional on this front. It is also very political. With other things that have been proposed, you can’t have sacred cows. You can’t talk out of both sides of your mouth and want the biggest tax cut in our city’s history but not be willing to touch a couple of departments that your emotions would be impacted from. I think it’s important for us to stay focused on the task at hand and not bash others’ attempt at adequately representing the constituents who elected them.”
City of Dallas Property Tax Rate
In a Sept. 8 memo to Mayor Johnson and council members, Chief Financial Officer Jack Ireland pointed out that appraisal districts are required by the Texas Transparency Act of 2019 to establish a property tax database for truth in taxation purposes.
Residents can submit feedback through the site on whether the tax rate proposed by the governing body should be adopted.
While there haven’t been an overwhelming number of responses, the verdict is that residents think their property taxes are too high.
In order to drop the tax rate even lower, something has to give, Councilman Chad West said.
“My whole problem with this budget is, if a department is doing a good job, they need more money because they want to grow and do more good things,” he said. “If they’re doing a crappy job, they want more money so they can get more people, so they can do a better job. Where does it end?”
