The Dallas City Council postponed City Attorney Chris Caso’s job review for the second time in five months.
The council made the move on Wednesday in spite of the fact that the City is in the midst of multiple legal battles involving challenges to its attempt to shut down poker clubs, limit the operating hours of strip clubs, and prohibit vagrants from standing on medians.
Council members discussed Caso’s performance during a private executive session before voting to delay his job evaluation until January 25 without specifying why.
Caso was appointed interim city attorney in August 2018 and assumed the position permanently in April 2020.
He is paid $325,000 of taxpayer money annually and is the third-highest-paid city employee, trailing only City Manager T.C. Broadnax and Cheryl Alston, executive director and chief investment officer of the Employees’ Retirement Fund, who make $423,000 and $351,000 per year, respectively.
Caso’s performance was supposed to be reviewed by the city council in August, along with three other officials, but his review was delayed. Meanwhile, Broadnax was given a 3% raise just weeks after being asked to resign and almost getting fired by the city council, as previously reported in The Dallas Express.
Council members have not publicly said why they have repeatedly delayed Caso’s job review.
During a September budget meeting, Caso said elected officials expressed concerns that code violation prosecutions are not resolving fast enough. The city council then approved giving his office more funding to hire four more community prosecutors.
The City Attorney’s Office reportedly wanted to prosecute 160,000 citations last fiscal year, but by September, it was only expected to prosecute 54,348.
A recent audit found that Dallas County Treatment Courts, which belong to the Dallas City Attorney’s Office’s community courts, appear to be poorly managed, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The City Attorney’s Office oversees the drafting of ordinances and resolutions, provides legal counsel to the City, and defends it against litigation.