The choice of whether to issue over $1 billion worth of debt — in the form of bond funds — is now in the hands of Dallas voters. After months of contentious debate and campaigns from advocates, residents and elected city officials, the time has come to see what Dallas’ residents’ top priorities are — and if residents will decide to issue any of the bond debt.
Ten propositions are up for decision. The funds, which total $1.25 billion, could be used to pay for street repair and construction projects, upgrades to city facilities — and possibly millions for the city’s parks and recreation centers.
Out of the ten project categories — streets and parks have dominated a bulk of the bond capacity.
The city’s need for improved street infrastructure and funds to fix aging roadway has long been a topic of discussion at city hall. Over $500 million of bond funds could go to these types of projects.
Elected officials are also asking Dallas voters to issue out close to $350 million in bond funds for park improvements, equipment replacement and recreation center projects.
While advocates for projects that didn’t get the same level of funding — like housing, homelessness and cultural facilities — say the bond should have been more spread out, others are worried about the financial impact of issuing $1.25 billion in debt.
“For too long, Dallas has relied on debt to address basic maintenance and improvements like street repair and reconstruction, replacements of playgrounds,” District 12 Council Member Cara Mendelsohn wrote in a recent opinion piece published in The Dallas Morning News.
“These items should be built into our annual budget with an accrual of funds for replacement," she continued. "Since that hasn’t been the management philosophy, we’re stuck funding these very needed items through debt, for now.”
And still other elected officials say while its likely a good idea to start rethinking how some of the city’s growing needs will be funded, the reality is the bond is on the table now.
“But the question is, is there political will and is there a really focused effort to go in that direction by the 15 members of this body?” District 9 Council Member Paula Blackmon told KERA.
“And I think that’s a discussion that we should be having sooner than later, but right now we’ve put out a $1.25 billion bond package that address many of the community’s need and we need to see what folks think about that…the amount, the types of projects and where we’re going to put those investments.”
The projects
A group of funds are set aside to be used to install a water sprinkler and fire alarm system in one of the Dallas Police Department’s patrol facilities — right now it doesn’t seem like those systems are in place, according to the bond project list.
“We cannot comment on the bond package per the City Attorney’s Office,” Jesse Carr, a senior public information officer for the department, told KERA when asked about the patrol facility.
Millions more may be spent upgrading city facilities to make them more accessible. That includes around $2 million set aside to bring several city library facilities into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act — which was passed almost 35 years ago.
But most of the projects listed in the city’s bond package have to do with parks and streets. Blackmon said for her constituents, that tracks.
“For my district [they are] streets and dredging White Rock Lake, specifically,” Blackmon said.
Other District 9 projects include replacing HVAC systems in public safety facilities — but Blackmon said the main priorities are taking care of the streets and starting the lake renovations.
There are over 400 street and transportation projects slated for bond money — and nearly 200 park and recreation projects.
When council members were granted around $75 million in discretionary funds —renamed to “council district specific funds” and jokingly nicknamed a “slush fund” by some inside city hall — nearly all of them decided to use some or all of those funds on parks.
Out of around 80 bond projects currently listed as using “council district specific funds” over 60 are park and recreation related.
But the road to getting to the final allocations was clear.
Last year, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson pushed for the city to be a top parks destination. Johnson even used his state of the city address late last year to advocate for more bond funds for parks — saying the largest allocations should be streets and parks.
“When we’re smart about it, we get more bang for your buck with parks and trails and recreation centers than with anything else we do with your tax dollars,” Johnson said in the address.
Johnson also appointed Arun Agarwal, the current parks and recreation board president, to head the Community Bond Taskforce. Other council members followed suit which ended up in at least six current or former park board members serving on the taskforce.
Ultimately, when the bond capacity was originally set at $1.1 billion, the taskforce almost unanimously recommended using a third of those funds for parks and recreation.
“I’m not here to lobby for any specific project, I’m not here to lobby for any specific subcommittee,” Agarwal said when council was briefed on the taskforce's decision last year.
Randall Bryant, who represented District 8 on the taskforce, did not vote for the allocation at the time.
Bryant said during the meeting that “given the needs of our city and the priorities that [he feels] are most important for our city,” he could not support allocating that much money to parks and trails.
Other city officials have said in the past that the emphasis on parks may not match data they have around what residents really want out of the bond.
"We have a citizen satisfaction survey and 12 of 14 districts had streets as number 1 of their concern. The other two had it as number two in their concerns," District 13 Council Member Gay Donnell Willis said during a January council meeting.
Now the decision is in voters’ hands.
‘Lots of needs’
The bond issuance comes at a time when Dallas officials are also starting to put together their budget forecast and dealing with billions in public safety pension liabilities.
And city officials say what’s at stake is needs versus funds. That goes for the bond as well — not every project category was given hundreds of millions of funds.
That includes funds for housing and homelessness — along with library facilities. The lowest proposition Dallas voters will decide on is for information technology funds. The decision to allocate $5 million to the city’s IT department comes after a ransomware attack crippled city services for weeks — and compromised thousands of city employees personal information.
Starting Monday April 22, voters will begin to cast ballots that will decide how — and if — the city issues out the over billion-dollar debt. The general bond election will take place on May 4.
Blackmon said the question to answer is how the city meets the ever growing needs of Dallas residents.
“Our ratio is coming down, our debt ratio and the issue is that the city has a lot of needs and we’ve got to get those needs addressed if we still want to be a thriving city,” Blackmon told KERA.
Got a tip? Email Nathan Collins at ncollins@kera.org. You can follow Nathan on Twitter @nathannotforyou.
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