A Dallas City Council member is calling for changes to the Charter of the City of Dallas involving term and increased transparency around the City budget.
Council Member Cara Mendelsohn (District 12) posted on social media a list of amendments to the charter she recommended to the Charter Review Commission, with the first being that the city manager should be required to submit a draft of the budget to the council that is “inclusive of the full annual cost of the pensions using the most recent Actuarial Determined Contribution calculations.”
“Responsible governance and fiscal management demands we pay the full cost of employee benefits in the year it is offered. (Dallas currently has $4.2 billion in unfunded pension liabilities),” wrote Mendelsohn.
This recommendation comes following concerns voiced by Mayor Pro Tem Tennell Atkins (District 8) about unfunded liabilities and the plan City officials must present to state pension regulators in 2025 that shows how they will fix the budget in a “period of less than 30 years,” as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The second amendment proposed by Mendelsohn is the introduction of term limits for council members. She wrote that they should be unable to regain a seat on the council after simply “sitting out one term.”
Mendelsohn noted that there are roughly 1.3 million residents in Dallas, many of whom “are qualified and interested in serving their community.”
Her recommendation stands in contrast to previous statements made by Council Member Adam Bazaldua (District 7), who said he would support increasing term lengths for members of the Dallas City Council. He previously claimed his constituents “consistently voiced” the notion that term limits should be lengthened.
The third recommendation by Mendelsohn is that “[b]ond committees should be commissions subject to background checks and the Texas Open Meetings Act.”
“The 2024 bond committee was set up as a task force, not a commission, and staff argued that it was not subject to TOMA when discussions, decisions, and recommendations [were] being made about $1+ billion in debt,” explained Mendelsohn.
The TOMA “requires meetings of governmental bodies to be open to the public, except for expressly authorized closed sessions, and to be preceded by public notice of the time, place, and subject matter of the meeting,” according to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
By subjecting the bond committee to TOMA, it would, in effect, become more transparent.
As reported by DX, there has been some conflict between officials, notably Mayor Eric Johnson and City Manager T.C. Broadnax, over whether the City should base its bond allocations on recommendations from staff or a council-appointed task force.
Finally, Mendelsohn suggested that the positions of mayor pro tem and deputy mayor pro tem be appointed by the mayor. Currently, these positions are determined by the 14 council members.
She specified that this change should occur following the next mayoral election, arguing that the change would “encourage collaboration and stronger support of the single position elected by the full city.”
This recommendation comes just months after current Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson announced that he joined the Republican Party after being a member of the Democrat Party for many years, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
While explaining his reasoning behind his switch, Johnson cited Democratic policies that he claimed have increased crime and homelessness across many U.S. cities.