A Sneak Peek at All the Things and People Dallas Just Might Do Without Next Fiscal Year

By Robert Wilonsky Mon., May 18 2009 at 12:00 PM

Categories: News

But two months ago, Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm told Unfair Park she was "looking for quarters in the couch" in order to cover the estimated $100-million budget deficit. Won't be nearly enough. She and the Dallas City Council will go over the ugly why's and what-to-do's Wednesday, during yet another budget workshop that will consume much of the council's scheduled briefing. Get a head start here, with the entire 159-page sneak peek at what Dallas is likely to do without in the coming fiscal year.

Pages 9 though 12 -- which detail the decline in revenues from sales tax, the landfill, interest, the sale of city surplus goods, you name it -- contain all the reasons the city's in a deep hole. Page 16 offers a few solutions worth about $90 million, but even those are flimsy guesstimates -- chief among them, raising parking fines and the cost of parking meters, neither of which get the go-head without council approval.

Which brings us to Page 18, where it says the city needs to either raise or reduce $99.5 million pronto in order to continue:

Public safety efforts including the addition of 200 new officers
Economic development, including TIF increment payments
Reserve funding
Investment in infrastructure
Planned increase in the over 65/disabled property tax exemption

Which is why mammoth changes are likely.
Chief among them are "347 potential employee layoffs" at Dallas City Hall, and the elimination of 637 full-time employees (Page 20). There's also the elimination of basic street repairs (Page 34 and 35), substantially reducing library hours both at the branches and downtown (Page 36), reducing rec centers' hours (Page 40), closing 19 Dallas Zoo exhibits (Page 41), eliminating Substance Abuse Treatment Contracts and HIV/AIDS Prevention and Education (Page 44), cutting money from the City Auditor's budget (Page 48), eliminating positions in neighborhood planning and preservation (Page 132).

For starters.

And, in case you needed reminding, these reductions and eliminations will, according to the briefing documents, lead to:

Elimination of certain services
Slower delivery of services
Increased potential for errors
Limitations on the flexibility of the organization

You don't say.

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Plus, the levees aren't being maintained properly according to the Corps report and the piers on the new bridge are sunk in sand and may need $1B worth of concrete retaining walls to permanently solve the problem...with leaders like these there soon won't BE any followers.
Speaking of city services, just try to recycle paint. Honestly, could it possibly be LESS convenient? Their hours are basically 9-5 T,W,TH and 2 Saturdays a month--except when there's a holiday,and then they're closed. If you don't believe me (my husband didn't) Google "paint recycling Dallas". Anyone who has a job really has to be motivated to recycle their paint. You've got to plan months in advance and hope there isn't a holiday that month, or there goes one of your 2 possible Saturdays. Such is government. For the people and by the people--as long as they work for the govt. I need to get a job there. I can't imagine cutbacks could affect this service to make it any worse.
Sounds like we need a few more of them convention center hotels so we can really increase the tax base...
Mr. Wilonsky- Thank you for the update.
Church Lady, the $100-mil deficit is still after the proposed cuts worth $90 million, among them postponing the November 2009 bond sale until May 2010, making the proposed "below the line" cuts referred to in the item above and throughout the briefing document, making City Hall employees take four vacation days without pay, and upping the amount collected by the municipal courts.
Thank you Mr. Wilonsky- Your attention to detail is worthy of respect! Please elaborate on the cuts you mentioned. Is there still a 100 million dollar deficit after the cuts. -Verse 3 Church Lady Why are they/city hall still moving dirt/now it's mud on the convention center hotel site? Isn't that costing us (the taxpayers money?) Where is the 50 million dollars (for the purchase of the land) in the budget deficit,has it been paid,how and from what source will the money come from? 50 million dollars is services,jobs and public safety. Who is going to buy bonds from a city with a 100 million dollar deficit that they (the city council has not even publicly addressed,)I am speaking of elected persons, not Ms. Shum (she is not elected) Why no word from any elected city person that we have this huge deficit? Please correct me if I am in error and I missed that in the media.
Suhm is worth at most about 25% of what she's paid. Start there with the cuts; and if she leaves, good riddance. That would be one less fat arrogant dunce on the payroll. There's something grossly wrong about a city which prioritizes a tollroad to nowhere and a hotel for convention visitors over the things which make the place more livable for its taxpaying citizens: police, fire, roads, parks, code enforcement.
Based on my last experience at the Dallas City Hall, and with some exceptions, they need to shut the whole place down. Some of the laziest bunch of people I have ever seen.
This is why all that succession talk is nothing more than hot air. Cities nationwide, more than less, will need Federal bailout money to keep basic services going. I for one would rather guard our the own borders of our own less affected state .. even what stayed in Vegas is no longer there.
How about they start by making sure the city manager and her assistants are included in "the elimination of 637 full-time employees."