{"id":214916,"date":"2025-09-10T07:25:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T07:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/214916\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T07:25:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T07:25:08","slug":"mission-creep-at-dallas-city-hall-must-stop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/214916\/","title":{"rendered":"Mission creep at Dallas City Hall must stop"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are deep into budget season<\/a> at Dallas City Hall, and you know what that means. Special interests are lining up<\/a> to protect and expand every dollar that gets spent on their projects.<\/p>\n

So it seems like a good time to get a quick reset on how Dallas stacks up when it comes to cost to taxpayers. Houston\u2019s tax rate is 51.9 cents per $100 in valuation. Austin\u2019s is 57.4 cents. San Antonio\u2019s is 54.15. Fort Worth\u2019s is 67.25.<\/p>\n

And Dallas? Dallas\u2019 current tax rate is 70.47 cents. We won\u2019t even get into the rates of suburbs the city competes with.<\/p>\n

So please, council members, resist the urge to add costs back into City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert\u2019s proposed budget. <\/a><\/p>\n

Opinion<\/p>\n

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Sadly, we aren\u2019t confident that is going to happen. The council already looks like it will buckle under, once again,<\/a> on the closure of the Skillman Southwestern Branch Library. The story of this branch is an anecdote of why it is so hard to cut costs at City Hall, and why taxpayers continue to get saddled with ever-higher costs. <\/p>\n

The branch is underutilized and doesn\u2019t conform with a necessary consolidation strategy that reflects the reality of how libraries are used today. But it\u2019s been all but impossible to close because council members won\u2019t do it. Instead the branch will limp along another year on reduced hours. Next year, we are promised. <\/p>\n

The council needs to recognize that special constituencies are not the voice of most Dallasites. People who choose to live in our city are paying a premium for the privilege. Tolbert has weighted her budget to add funds for public safety<\/a> while reducing head count in other areas. That\u2019s what most Dallasites want right now.<\/p>\n

We were disappointed that more council members did not focus proposed budget amendments on savings. Council member Bill Roth, from North Dallas, did recommend $13 million in savings. He framed it in a politically unpalatable way by singling out programs that might run afoul of the Trump administration. <\/p>\n

But Roth\u2019s effort is the right one, combing the budget for costs that serve very small constituencies at the expense of all taxpayers. His proposal didn\u2019t make it to the budget amendment process. It\u2019s too bad since the discussion could have been fruitful. Whatever one thinks of some of the programs he highlighted, he is likely right that they could draw federal scrutiny. <\/p>\n

Instead, if one looks at the council amendments listed on last week\u2019s meeting agenda, the words \u201cadd\u201d and \u201cincrease\u201d most commonly precede \u201cfunding.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mission creep has been the standard of business at City Hall for generations. The costs of that creep are creating burdens that make Dallas less competitive. <\/p>\n

It needs to stop. It will take a willingness to say enough is enough to get us there. <\/p>\n

We welcome your thoughts in a letter to the editor. See the guidelines and <\/b>submit your letter here<\/b><\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n

If you have problems with the form, you can submit via email at <\/b>letters@dallasnews.com<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We are deep into budget season at Dallas City Hall, and you know what that means. Special interests…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":214917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,3232,1596,14840,14841,6083,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-214916","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-budget","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-dallas-city-council","12":"tag-dallas-city-hall","13":"tag-editorials","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-tx","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115178814055255216","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}