Dallas residents will pay lower property taxes following the city council's approval early Thursday of a $5.5 billion budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
The new tax rate is a 0.5 cent reduction from the current rate of 70.47 cents per $100 valuation to 69.97 cents.
The budget includes around $1.97 billion for the city's general fund. Council members Cara Mendelsohn, Mayor Eric Johnson, and Mayor Pro Tem Jesse Moreno were the three votes against it.
City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert said the budget balanced resident priorities such as street infrastructure and public safety while reducing the tax rate for the 10th consecutive year.
City staff found ways to optimize city services, consolidate duplicate services and reimagine how the city does business, Bizor Tolbert said.
"And we all know that there is much more work ahead of us in the future," she added.
The budget aligns with Mayor Eric Johnson's push for providing core services to residents while offering property tax relief.
In a memo issued Friday — days before the final budget vote — Johnson challenged city council members to propose ways to cut "nonessential spending."
He took the lead by proposing two such amendments that moved to the final budget, one that would cut funding for the city's state lobbying team and another that would close the Skillman Southwestern Branch Library.
Funding cuts for the lobbying team would reduce spending by $339,000 and eliminate funding for all of next year. Because the amendment did not include when to resume funding, Chief Financial Officer Jack Ireland said the city manager and council would determine when to restore it.
The city's state lobbyists are third-party contractors who advocate for issues important to Dallas at the state level.
But Johnson has previously voiced his dissatisfaction with the city's lobbying team, saying the city is not seeing needed results.
Council Member Cara Mendelsohn agreed during Wednesday's meeting. While hiring lobbyists is one way to advance the city's legislative process, Mendelsohn spoke in favor of council members fostering relationships with state legislators.
"Regardless of...anybody's critique of their effectiveness, the truth is there's more than one way to do this," Mendelsohn said.
City council also approved including an amendment in the final budget that would cut funds for the Skillman Southwestern Branch Library that would reduce spending by around $386,000.
The Skillman Library has been at risk of closure in recent years due to its small size, low performance, and close proximity to the Vickery Park Branch Library, which is just over one mile away.
An amendment by Council Member Paula Blackmon would have reallocated $386,612 from American Rescue Plan Act funding toward the library, allowing it to be open eight hours for three days a week.
But a new amendment proposed by Johnson — and supported by eight other council members — reallocated those ARPA funds for the library to the Park and Recreation department for its aquatics programs in the Southern Sector.
City staff have considered closing at least nine of its community pools due to aging. The recommendation to close the pools was made in the 2015 Aquatic Facilities Master Plan, but — ten years later — none of the nine have been decommissioned.
The $386,612 in ARPA funds will replace Park and Recreation general fund dollars to use for the aquatics program in the city's Southern sector.
But Ireland said the ARPA funds are one time use, meaning funds for Southern sector aquatics programs would not be guaranteed those same funds in following years.
Council Member Jaime Resendez was against the reallocation and said it did nothing to provide long-term, sustainable funding to South Dallas' community pools.
"I think that it pits southern Dallas against northern Dallas, and I think it forces communities into competition with one another when both deserve support," he said.
Dallas' fiscal year starts Oct. 1 and runs through Sept. 30 2026.
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