The Dallas City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to pass a $5.3 billion budget for fiscal year 2025.
The budget represents a roughly 9% increase from the current fiscal year’s $4.6 billion total. City council members also voted during their September 18 meeting to decrease the property tax rate, which leaders noted would not necessarily result in lower taxes due to increased property values.
The unanimous vote from city council members came with a dramatic pause from Council Member Cara Mendelsohn (District 12), who appeared conflicted for roughly ten seconds before voting ‘yes.’ The current fiscal year budget received ‘no’ votes last year from Mayor Eric Johnson and Council Members Mendelsohn, Kathy Stewart, Gay Donnell Willis, and Paul Ridley.
Mendelsohn, despite her eventual approval vote, expressed criticism of the budget process throughout the meeting.
“One of the profound things I’ve learned is how flawed and problematic the budget is,” Mendelsohn said. “We rely on our one building department with an inadequate budget to do a lot of maintenance work. Our assets fall into a worse condition until they’re in a catastrophic condition until we replace them with using debt, usually through a bond program.”
“And this is how we get into $7.5 billion worth of debt,” Mendelsohn continued. “We actually need a radical change in how our entire city budget is put together and our budget philosophy.”
Mendelsohn recommended that the City look at its specific programs next year.
“While we did have presentations from each individual department, there were questions that were not able to be answered. One of them was a listing of every single program that the department was administering,” Mendelsohn said, adding, “And I challenge our city manager to provide that to us.”
The Dallas City Council voted to decrease the property tax from 73.57 cents to 70.47 cents per $100 validation. Council members decreased the property rate last year to a lesser degree, from 74.58 cents to 73.57 cents per $100 validation.
Mendelsohn explained that the tax decrease is insignificant in offsetting the increasing property values. She noted state law requires an adjusted rate.
“The fact is that any congratulations about a low tax rate in Dallas is fake, as the city has gone to the maximally, legally allowed rate without going to the voters to ask for a greater tax rate,” she said. “The tax rate is limited only because the Texas legislature in Senate Bill 2 limited us on property tax revenue growth.”
The passed budget includes a plan to hire 250 police recruits in the new fiscal year. Under the budget, uniform members of the Dallas Police Department will receive a 7.23% raise.
Equity was a constant theme in the budget and was mentioned 30 times in interim City Manager Kim Tolbert’s proposal. She emphasized its importance at Wednesday’s city council meeting.
“Equity is included in the budget in every department,” Tolbert said.
Tolbert took office this year after City Manager T.C. Broadnax resigned in February, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.