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DALLAS - Dallas City Council approves budget for FY 2023-24.
This budget focuses on Responsible, Equitable, Accountable, and Legitimate (R.E.A.L.) Engagement and totals $4.6 billion including the General Fund, Enterprise Funds, Debt Service, Capital, Grants, Trust, and Other Funds1. The City remains focused on delivering core programs and services while also finding innovative ways to provide those things with greater efficiency, higher effectiveness, and increased transparency.
Property Tax Relief
This budget will decrease the property tax rate for the eighth year in a row by 1.01¢, from 74.58¢ per $100 valuation to 73.57¢. Additionally, the property tax exemption for residents who are over 65 or disabled increased from $115,500 to $139,400.
Strategic Priorities
The City’s budget is aligned to 8 Strategic Priorities areas:
· Economic Development:
· Environment & Sustainability
· Government Performance & Financial Management
· Housing & Homelessness Solutions
· Public Safety
· Quality of Life, Arts, & Culture
· Transportation & Infrastructure
· Workforce, Education & Equity
The General Fund budget is the main operating fund of the City and totals $1.8 billion. Property tax revenue provides the largest source of funding available to the City to pay for police, fire protection, code compliance, library, parks, and many other services. Property tax revenue accounts for 57.0 percent of General Fund revenue.
Public Safety is the highest priority as evidence in funding and survey responses from residents. This budget includes funding to:
· Invest in the brave individuals that keep Dallas safe by providing market-based compensation
· Hire 250 police officers
· Retain more tenured police officers with a retention incentive
· Invest in technology to deliver effective and innovative police response
· Right size the fire department staffing model by adding 100 fire fighters
· Increase overtime for both police and fire to improve response time
Other investments in strategic priority areas include:
· Invest $151.7 million in funding for public works projects including improvement and maintenance of 792 lane miles, sidewalk projects, bridge maintenance, and updating paving model to support quality modes of transportation
· Invest $3.0 million in the sidewalk cost-share program for residents (city-share $1 million and residents share $2.0 million)
· Launch a Community Development Team to advance community-oriented real estate projects with catalytic potential
· Invest $400,000 to augment planning and zoning staff to address high demand for new development workload and oversight
· Invest $124.9 million through 18 Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts and allocate $6.0 million to the Infrastructure Investment Fund
· Invest $100,000 for an Urban Agriculture Infrastructure grant program
· Compensate employees fairly through continued implementation of the annual merit program and increasing the minimum wage to $18.50 per hour
· Support senior residents and invest $1.7 million in the Minor Home Repair Program
· Invest $3.1 million and expand library hours and staffing levels at 15 additional locations to six (6) days per week so residents can enhance their lives through education, workforce development, and senior and early literacy programs
· Create a short-term rental registration program and inspection team to ensure compliance and oversight to rental properties by investing $1.4 million
· Invest $9.5 million to strengthen park maintenance, fund inflationary cost increases, invest in park infrastructure, support park security presence, and enhance parks and trails lighting, and install security cameras and Emergency Blue Light towers
· Provide additional funding of $100,000 for additional Green Job Skills program curriculum
We appreciate resident engagement in public hearings, town hall meetings, the community survey, and the budget priorities survey. The budget for Fiscal Year 2023-24 begins on October 1 and runs through next September 30.
1 The total of $4.6 billion reflects the City Manager’s recommended budget as amended by the City Council. Additionally, Internal Service Funds and the Employee Retirement Fund are included in the budget ordinance for approval resulting in a total of $4.9 billion. The Internal Service Funds and Employee Retirement Fund are not part of the budget document summaries but must be appropriated for separate expenditure through the budget ordinance. Internal Service Funds are excluded from the budget document summaries to avoid double counting the revenue and expense.
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