Your property taxes and your investment in Dallas, Inc.
The following was adapted from my email newsletter.
Hope you’re well and ready for the start of early voting on Monday.
One thing you might not have been ready for? Your property tax appraisal.
I received mine in the mail over the weekend and started to hear from other people who got theirs as well. The real estate market, despite everything this city has been through economically over the past year, is extremely hot. Sales prices are skyrocketing on top of the significant value increases you have already seen in the last decade. And Dallas already has the highest property tax rate of any major city in the state.
The City of Dallas won’t be the largest part of your property tax bill this year. Your school district will take up the lion’s share of what you owe. But the cost will be significant, and you will probably ask yourself the perennial question: Is it worth it?
Dallas is a great city with incredible potential to continue its growth in the years ahead. The communities, businesses, entrepreneurs, artists, educators, first responders, healthcare providers, and institutions that make up Dallas are wonderful. It’s a city powered by people. It’s a city that consistently responds to the challenges of the day, including a tornado and the winter storms and the pandemic. Just look at the progress being made on COVID-19 vaccinations. You should be proud to live here, and you should feel optimistic about the future.
But you deserve more support from City Hall, and it’s important that you stay engaged and watch your city councilmember like a hawk.
Understanding how the city government works is important. It is structured like a corporation. The mayor serves as the chair of a board of directors (the City Council), but has only one vote of 15 with no veto power. The City Council hires a CEO (the city manager) — and pays him more than the president of the United States and far more than twice the governor’s salary — who runs the city on an indefinite contract. The people of Dallas? You’re the shareholders. And you make an annual investment in this city.
Look at it this way: City Hall is Dallas, Inc. And your investment returns for this corporation haven’t been positive in key areas. Crime is still high, 911 calls are still being put on hold, streets and infrastructure are still degrading, and permits are lagging for businesses, making it more difficult to attract new investments and help grow the city’s tax base.
Last year, with a tight budget held together only by federal CARES Act funds, I proposed taking a different course: cutting the pay of the top earners at City Hall to improve public safety and streets and to provide some tax relief. No layoffs or furloughs were part of the plan. In other words, in an incredibly difficult time, Dallas, Inc. under this plan would have acted like a corporation that was more concerned about its shareholders’ well-being than its executives’ bloated salaries.
The City Council wouldn’t entertain such a plan and put up fierce resistance. They didn’t want to do anything other than business as usual. So here is what you got instead: a reckless and nonsensical 25% cut to the police overtime budget, streets that are underfunded to the tune of $50 million, and a pittance of a tax-rate cut.
You have surely heard this disingenuous refrain: “But the police budget went up overall by about $10 million!” or some such. OK. Go look at the actual line items. Here are some of the major “increases” this fiscal year: the state-mandated Dallas Police and Fire Pension System minimum payment (+$3.5 million); salaries for police officers, including increases that are mandated by the city’s 2019 meet-and-confer agreement (+$11 million); health insurance costs (+$1.7 million); police civilian employee overtime (+$1.4 million); pension payments for civilian employees (+$700,000); and life insurance costs (+$150,000).
You know what didn’t increase in the budget? The number of police officers. The police force is shrinking. The city manager’s budget included a plan for the department to shrink by about 55 officers this fiscal year, and he was also planning on another 55-officer reduction next fiscal year (Seriously. See page 9 of the adopted budget). Those 95 officers in desk jobs that are supposed to be put back out on the streets? They’re still not there yet, more than halfway into the fiscal year. And remember how the city was going to start paying market-rate salaries to attract and retain police officers? Well, that isn’t happening either.
Meanwhile, murders are up again. Aggravated assaults are up by more than 10% so far this year. And the Task Force on Safe Communities programs are only beginning to be implemented.
The police overtime budget is supposed to be a stopgap — the last line of defense for a police department that shed hundreds of officers during the pension crisis in 2016 and 2017. Overtime is not some sort of luxury or a bonus pool. It represents hard work in the name of public safety. That budget is there to help the police department manage around its shortage of officers as violent crime and calls for service have increased. That’s why it matters so much that the City Council slashed that pot of funds. At best, it was a careless decision and ill-considered budgeting that didn’t put public safety first.
That can’t be allowed to happen again this fall. Your efforts will be vital to stopping these games. Remember how you feel when you look at the property taxes you owe to the city this spring. Don’t write it off as the cost of doing business. It’s your investment, and it should be put toward helping to make City Hall as strong as the people of Dallas.
This year, the budget will be aided by the American Rescue Plan. The city will receive about $377 million over the next two years.
On Wednesday, the City Council will be briefed on the federal legislation and its potential impact on Dallas. Managed effectively, the money will present a real opportunity to help the city recover from the pandemic.
But the funds can’t be used to obscure City Hall’s problems and its inability to prioritize what matters most to you. And when that federal money dries up, all that will be left is you and your tax bill and that perennial question about whether it’s worth it to stay here.
Dallas, Inc., can’t be a passive investment right now. It requires active engagement and vigilance from its shareholders. After all, it’s your community and your city on the line.
Your help can go a long way in helping your leaders make your investment in Dallas, Inc., worth your time and your money.
That’s all for today. Stay safe out there, get vaccinated if you haven’t yet, and have a great week.
