Dallas elected officials asked voters how much of the $1.25 billion bond package should be approved. And their answer? According to voting returns late Saturday night, the answer was the entire package.
Dallas residents strongly supported all ten propositions in Saturday's election. That's after some projects received opposition from some community members — like the $50 million earmarked for a new police training facility in southern Dallas.
The debt issuance will be spent on projects like fixing streets and roads, maintaining city facilities and developing more housing.
“The people of Dallas have spoken once again tonight, and their answer remains the same,” Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said during an election night celebration. “They’ve once again said yes to public safety, they’ve once again said yes to the basics and they’ve once again said yes to quality neighborhood parks.”
The bond package is a year in the making. Almost immediately, campaigns for specific bond propositions seemed to start. What ended up being the two largest buckets of funds — street maintenance and money for parks and recreation centers — drew the most attention and funds.
But on election day, it seems Dallas voters decided that both propositions worth approving.
[Detailed unofficial results for Dallas County]
While the discussion surrounded the two largest propositions, others around the city advocated for more funds for housing development and cultural arts facilities.
Since last year advocates have said the city’s art facilities have millions of dollars’ worth of maintenance needs. Voters approved over $75 million in bond funds earmarked for those projects, which include upgrades to the Dallas Museum of Art, the AT&T Performing Arts Center and the Dallas Black Dance Theater.
Last year, housing advocates started the processes vying for $200 million in bonds to be used for affordable housing. What ended up on the ballot was $82 million, which Dallas voters approved.
After the election results are finalized, taxpayers and Dallas elected officials will be looking at the final cost of issuing out $1.25 billion in debt will be. According to the ballot language, the total could be well above the advertised price after paying principle and interest on the funds.
“My first thoughts are the people of Dallas want their investments done to their city,” District 9 Council Member Paula Blackmon said during an election night event.
“They want their libraries fixed, they want their streets fixed…and they want to grow into the twenty-first century city we can be.”
An end to the debate
The debate over whether hundreds of millions in bond funds should be earmarked for the city’s parks and recreation system seems to have been decided.
Early voting results indicted that Proposition B, which allocated over $300 million to maintain parks, trails and recreation centers, was well on its way to being approved. It includes hundreds of thousands for new playgrounds and millions more for park expansions and maintenance.
The money would be used by the city’s park department which controls 20,000 acres of parkland. That includes more than 400 parks, seven lakes and thousands of surface acres of water — plus an aquarium, the Dallas Zoo and a waterpark.
The parks proposition appeared to attract a lot of support from the start. But it also was the subject of fierce debate for a year. Last year, the city’s parks staff told the council the department needed around $400 million to maintain upkeep of the system.
Some council members at the time said it would be hard to justify such a large amount of the bond capacity only going to parks. Other officials had a different opinion.
“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 during his state of the city address late last year.
And that opinion was shared by the community-led task force responsible for advising the council on what Dallas residents wanted in the bond package.
The council-appointed Community Bond Task Force almost unanimously voted to approve a recommendation to spend over $300 million on the city’s parks and recreation centers.
That task force was chaired by Arun Agarwal, the city’s current park board president. Several other current or former board members also served on the task force with Agarwal.
That recommendation differed from city staff’s, which prioritized street repair and maintenance of the city’s vast roadway system. The ensuing debate over what should be Dallas’ top priority lasted for months.
Dallas voters settled that debate on Saturday.
Funds for housing
As the bond program was kicking off around this time last year, a new coalition of nonprofits, business and community groups launched a campaign to push the city to include $200 million for affordable housing in the bond package.
What ended up on the ballot were three propositions for housing-related projects totaling about $82 million.
While the final bond package includes much less than that, Ashley Brundage, CEO of Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity, who helped lead the Dallas Housing Coalition, has said that the bond funds will help.
“Housing affordability is impacting every single one of us, so by creating more units, creating more affordability, housing more people that are experiencing homelessness, it helps all of us,” Brundage said. “So I think it's really important to do that, to go out and vote yes.”
While advocates pushed for a larger investment, at least one Dallas council member urged voters not to approve one of the housing propositions.
We have more than a dozen housing development tools at our disposal that don’t require directly taxing our residents,” District 12 Council Member Cara Mendelsohn wrote in an op-ed published by The Dallas Morning News.
On election day, early voting results indicated that Dallas residents were on the way to approving all three propositions related to housing needs across the city.
“We’re thrilled by the initial returns,” Bryan Tony, an organizer with Dallas Housing Coalition, said on election night. “Housing for the first time being on the ballot is a great show of support from our community and we are inspired by it.”
Millions for cultural arts
Early voting results also indicated that Dallas residents were supporting investments into the city’s cultural arts facilities. A total of $75 million will go towards remedying issues with the city’s largest performing arts centers and cultural icons.
That includes funding for the Winspear Opera House. The rooftop HVAC units that need to be replaced at the South Dallas Cultural Center. The electrical upgrades needed at The Latino Cultural Center. The new roof needed at the Bath House Cultural Center.
Arts advocates told KERA last year there are millions in unfunded maintenance needs across the city’s facilities. That’s projected to reach around $133 million this year.
The Oak Cliff Cultural Center would get a new parking lot and upgraded, more accessible bathrooms, according to the bond project’s list.
The South Dallas Cultural Center is slated to get a new HVAC system, a replacement of the gallery flooring and upgrades to it’s black box theater.
Moving forward
Other city projects will also will benefit from bond funding if the early voting trends continue:
- Proposition C: $52 million for flood control and storm drainage infrastructure.
- Proposition D: $43 million to improve current and build new libraries across the city.
- Proposition F: $72 million for public safety facilities — including a new police training facility in southern Dallas.
- Proposition J: $5 million for the city's Information and Technology needs.
The majority of funds, if approved by Dallas voters, will go to street and road improvements to the tune of over $500 million. The second largest group of funds were approved to be earmarked for the city's parks and recreation system — totaling over $340 million.
But that's before principal and interest "based on current market conditions" according to the sample ballot. After those expenses, the estimated repayment amount for approving Proposition A — for streets and transportation improvements — could be over $700 million.
The bond issuance comes as the city faces an upcoming budgeting season and a deadline for a plan on how to remedy billions in unfunded public safety pension liabilities.
On election night, Mayor Johnson said investing in a growing city can't be done without taking on some debt — but it needs to be done in a thoughtful way.
“We cannot get there with annual budget increases from the general fund, that would absolutely require an immediate raising of people’s taxes that would be pretty brutal,” Johnson told KERA.
“So we’ve got to do some debt financing in combination with more careful budgeting annually.”
Reporters Christopher Connelly and Elizabeth Myong contributed to this article.
Got a tip? Email Nathan Collins at ncollins@kera.org. You can follow Nathan on Twitter @nathannotforyou.
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