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Dallas Mayor Eric L. Johnson issues top priorities for Fiscal Year 2026-27 Dallas budget
DALLAS—Dallas Mayor Eric L. Johnson on Friday issued his top priorities for the Fiscal Year 2026-27 City budget, focusing on potential opportunities to save taxpayer money in a time of budgetary challenges.
Mayor Johnson sent a memo to City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert in which he urged her to deliver a proposed budget that reduces fiscal bloat without cutting core services or raising taxes. The mayor said this can be achieved by right-sizing city operations, taking advantage of opportunities for new non-tax revenue, and reducing the cost of regionalism. In the memo, the mayor provides specific examples of each.
“Throughout my tenure as Mayor, I have maintained that the budget should focus on essential city services,” wrote Mayor Johnson. “I want to outline clearly the priorities that I believe should be reflected in this year’s budget: maintaining public safety, improving government efficiency, maximizing non-tax revenue, and reducing the burden on our taxpayers.”
“At the end of the day, the City’s budget has gotten too big . . . . We are spending people’s hard-earned money, and we should only spend as much of it as is absolutely necessary.
"If we right-size City government, then we can continue to provide essential services efficiently while reducing the burden on taxpayers by lowering our City’s property tax rate as we have done every year I have been in office,” he concluded.
Mayor Johnson’s memo to the City Manager can be read in full here.
The City Manager is expected to present her proposed budget to the City Council on August 11. In the subsequent weeks, the council will discuss, amend, and vote on the budget before it takes effect on October 1, 2026.
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