Documents obtained by The Dallas Express show that interim City Manager Kim Tolbert has traveled frequently and often at considerable expense to the City of Dallas; however, her excursions rarely focused on voters’ highest priorities, as expressed in surveys.
According to respondents in the 2023 Dallas Community Survey, the five greatest issues facing citizens are homelessness (75%), crime (61%), drugs (60%), infrastructure/streets (55%), and aggressive solicitation and panhandling (45%).
As revealed in the more than 300 pages of travel documents obtained by DX, only a handful of Tolbert’s trips can be strictly construed as relating to these matters. The most relevant trips were two she took in the weeks and months before she ascended to the interim city manager role: one to Los Angeles and another to Atlanta in early 2024.
Both were designated as “city business” and meant to learn about each area’s homeless shelter programs, which included using tiny homes and other facilities to house vagrants. Tolbert was serving as deputy city manager at the time of travel.
The documents do not indicate the outcome of the trips. However, the City reportedly considered a tiny home homeless housing project in 2023. The City of Dallas previously supported a similar project in the mid-2010s, but support waned in 2019 after certain grants expired and were not renewed. However, a supportive voucher program continued, according to The Dallas Morning News.
DX reached out to Tolbert for comment on how the trips influenced City decision-making. She did not respond.
Irrespective of the outcome of these trips, they stand as outliers in her travel, and the few instances that can be strictly construed as addressing the issues citizens indicated are the most important.
Some out-of-town events that Tolbert attended, like the National League of Congressional Cities (NLC) in Washington D.C., mixed meetings relevant to city governance — like those on receiving federal grants — with a “Celebrate Diversity Breakfast” and an “LGBTQ+LO Membership Meeting.”
When Tolbert decided to attend this meeting, she forwent other opportunities, including a conference in New York that focused exclusively on using infrastructure projects to stimulate economic growth.
Other travel, like first-class flights to feminist conferences, is less clear in its relevance to issues like crime or drugs.
On another occasion, Tolbert traveled to the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) in Austin, where her itinerary included an “Equity & Inclusion Leaders Luncheon” and an “Alvies Boot Party,” DX previously reported.
The total cost of the Los Angeles trip to taxpayers was $1,199.94, and the Georgia trip was $992.24. Combined with her other trips, the City spent more than $10,000 on Tolbert’s travel since the beginning of 2023.
During Tolbert’s tenure as interim city manager and deputy city manager, crime has soared, and despite recent reductions in certain types of crime, overall criminal activity remains high. Decaying City-owned properties have become hubs of homelessness, criminal mischief, and suspected drug use. Turnover among City employees remains elevated, and records DX requested regarding Tolbert’s service inexplicably disappeared from the city secretary’s office before less than a handful of documents reappeared without explanation.