Dallas City Council members have asked City staff dozens of questions related to the proposed fiscal 2027 budget in recent weeks. Many of those questions required additional research before staff could respond. The answers to those questions can be found in three memos published Friday and linked here for your reading pleasure.

Budget Q&A: Set 1

Budget Q&A: Set 2

Budget Q&A: Set 3

https://youtu.be/qYYbfJ_hulY?si=SE-elyGbfgbe6MIn

There's a new dirty word at Dallas City Hall.

City officials, including council members, are increasingly using the word "stipend" to describe public dollars that are allocated to outside arts, parks, and other organizations, including some that manage City-owned assets. The use of the term comes as council members are deliberating potential cuts to arts, parks, libraries, and other essential quality-of-life services.

Veteran Dallas arts leader Chris Heinbaugh said in public testimony to the mayor and council members this week that the term "cheapens what the arts bring to the city."

City Council members are now receiving the briefing linked below on potential changes to City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert's proposed budget. Watch live here -- share your questions or thoughts.

DropboxDiscussion of FY 2026-27 and FY2027-28 Biennial Budget.pdfShared with Dropbox

The faux-causal, all-lowercase style really grinds my gears.

You're not fooling anyone into thinking it's an email just to them... bruh.

We've got double the fun this week: a City Council agenda meeting today AND a budget workshop tomorrow.

Below are my meeting highlights from this week's Meetings of Interest newsletter. Watch it all live here.

💼 Dallas City Council Meeting, 9 a.m., Council Chambers, 6th Floor, Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St.

• Item 4 is an ordinance sunsetting the City’s College Advisory Commission, created just three years ago, because it has struggled to “recruit members, maintain quorum, and sustain Commission operations over time.”

• Item 11 is a $13.68 million funding agreement that includes federal, state, and city dollars for Phase V of the Trinity Forest Spine Trail, which features a route along the relatively hidden Parkdale Lake in southern Dallas. Learn more.

• Item 28 authorizes an application for a $10 million state grant for the long-planned Dallas Police Department Law Enforcement Training Center at the University of North Texas at Dallas. The academy faces at least an $82 million funding gap that officials hope to close with a bond election this November.

• Item 29 authorizes a separate application for another $5 million state grant for the DPD academy at UNT Dallas.

• Item 30 is a $2.34 million construction services contract that includes repairs and renovations to all four elevators at the Wyly Theatre in the Dallas Arts District. The funding was approved as part of the 2024 bond program.

• Item 33 is a public hearing and adoption of a maximum proposed property tax rate for the fiscal year that begins on October 1. City Council members can still set a lower tax rate when they vote on the final budget on September 16.

• Item 35 will amend the City’s Living Wage Policy by raising the applicability threshold from $100,000 to $300,000, narrowing coverage to labor-intensive service contracts, and setting the wage floor at the lesser of the MIT Living Wage Calculator for Dallas County or the federal 50th-percentile market wage for a given occupation. The move is intended to save the City millions of dollars annually. Read more.

• Item 43 authorizes another $600,000 to pay outside attorneys for legal services in the City’s three-year-old lawsuit against the federal government alleging that the Navy breached the terms of a 2002 settlement agreement on environmental cleanup. The added fee brings the total for legal services to $1.45 million. Need more information? There’s a Robert Wilonsky column for that.

• Items 47 and 48 are more closed-door discussions of Downtown’s Thanks-Giving Square, tied to a City Council decision to stop funding a 75-year contractual obligation after 53 years. There’s a Wilonsky column on this one too. (The Thanks-Giving Foundation is a GoldHam Group client.)

• Public Hearings 4 - 19 are the annual required hearings and votes for the City’s Public Improvement Districts’ (PID) assessments and service plans. PIDs are created at the request of property owners to fund supplemental services and/or improvements in defined areas of the city.

• Public Hearing 20 is to receive comments on the proposed fiscal 2027 budget.

One of the two briefings scheduled for Wednesday's City Council meeting and budget workshop was posted online today. The Transportation and Public Works Department is the third-largest department by budget after the Dallas police and fire departments. This briefing outlines fiscal 2027 and 2028 priorities, including improving streets, pavement markings, bike lanes, traffic signals, bridges, parking meters, and more. Check it out here.

www.dropbox.com

I thought they'd at least keep rates the same instead of cutting Thanksgiving Square, libraries, etc. Either that or close out some TIFs or just stop extending them so the funding can go back to the general fund. Everyone loves lower taxes but spreading that $2.3M cut to everyone will likely be noticed less than the service cuts.

Criminal defense attorney David Payma writes in today's Dallas Morning News:

Dallas is running a municipal court system that costs taxpayers $28.4 million a year and collects only $13.3 million in fines and fees. That's a $15 million annual subsidy for a system that, by its own internal performance metrics, is failing on almost every measure that matters. And rather than fix it, the city keeps setting the same ambitious targets, watches the court miss them by a mile, and then resets the clock as if nothing happened.

Dallas NewsDallas Municipal Court is broken. Here's the proofDallas Municipal Court wastes taxpayer money while failing to meet performance targets. It suffers from outdated technology, severe case backlogs, excess capacity and poor accountability.

Thoughts? What other City of Dallas departments might need a closer look?

...Meetings of Interest should buy one:

Well this sucks.

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