Dallas City Budget season temperatures rise

August is the start of serious budget season at Dallas City Hall and there’s a forecast for rising temperatures with competing priorities and new policies that call for new spending.

Here is a schedule of August Budget town hall meetings:

Mayor Eric Johnson issued his budget season advisory in a June inauguration speech at the start of his 2nd four-year term.

“If Dallas residents don’t feel secure, our city’s other objectives are guaranteed to fail,” Johnson said.

The mayor’s top priorities are public safety, the best park system in the state, and substantial tax rate reduction.

“I think what I heard the mayor say and I completely support, this time we want to see a rate reduction that means people are going to write a smaller check,” City Council Member Cara Mendelsohn said.

At the same time, Dallas has a new racial equity plan that calls for more spending in neighborhoods that suffered from inequity in the past.

And a new housing plan calls for creating more affordable housing and preserving existing affordable neighborhoods as Dallas housing costs soar.

“There’s a tension that’s coming, and I do want to pay attention to that tension in terms of the reduction, the tax reduction rate and the needs,” Council Member Zarin Gracey said.

Gracey is the new member replacing Casey Thomas who was the champion of the equity policy. Garcey wants to see it through in the new city budget.

“I can now actually make sure that it actually gets executed, implemented and executed. And that’s the piece that I’m really looking for,” Gracey said. “Where those services are provided. How they’re provided. How often they’re provided, all of those things.”

Gracey spent 16 years working at city hall in budget and finance positions.  He knows how the city operates but he said working with other elected officials at the city council horseshoe is a new dynamic.

Councilman Chad West said he supports Mayor Johnson’s public safety and park priorities but slashing taxes and maintaining services that residents demand may be difficult without other revenue options.

“You can’t have perfect roads, you can’t have just straight out single-family neighborhoods throughout the city and still have a tax rate reduction,” West said.

He supports allowing three smaller housing units on vacant inner city lots to help provide additional affordable housing and more taxes.

“Allowing for more density in the appropriate areas is a way we could do that and not have the tension you are referring to,” West said.

Dallas City Manager T. C. Broadnax will present his budget proposal this week with a month of public input meetings ahead and more city council debate to follow.p

A final city council vote on a new budget that takes effect October 1 is scheduled for September 20.

A June briefing set up many of the issues the manager is considering for his budget plan.

A memo last week said Dallas has more property tax revenue than expected thanks to rising values and new construction.