Dallas Examiner, 9/23/10 - “City council votes to increase taxes”

The battle over the city budget came to a head over the past two weeks as city officials crossed swords over one big question: to tax or not to tax? Rejecting a tax hike would leave the city council with no choice but to cut funding to various programs in order to balance the budget.

The Sep. 15 straw vote on the budget saw the momentum swing away from Mayor Tom Leppert’s vow not to raise taxes to a modest tax increase designed to save essential city services from the budget ax. Then yesterday, in an 8 to 7 vote, the council finally decided on a budget that would raise property taxes by 4.91 cents per $100 of property value.

Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway, who delivered an impassioned speech during the Sep. 15 meeting in which he summoned images of the pot-holed streets that mark South Dallas, sees the shift as a win for the underserved neighborhoods of South Dallas, who tend to be most dependent on well-funded public services.

“I think that the [council members] who represent primarily the southern sector made a determination that raising taxes was the best thing for the folks that we represent,” said Caraway. “Who should be happy are the people who voted us to go down and speak on their behalf.”

That set the stage for yesterday’s final vote on the 2010-2011 budget, as well as more impassioned rhetoric. Caraway was again exultant: “In order to balance the scales, we need one city. Right now the scale of the city is ‘This is North, this is South.’ How long do citizens have to drive on deplorable, raggedy streets? How long does a boarded-up house have to be in a neighborhood where little babies are playing near the house because it’s the only thing in their eyesight?”

One of the more vivid attempts at dramatizing the issue came last month with the “Splash-In” protest held at the City Hall Plaza Fountain. Last year’s budget cuts resulted in a mere seven of 21 municipal pools in Dallas remaining open. In fact, a May budget projection by the city manager would have closed all swimming pools for fiscal year 2010-2011 if taxes were not raised.

Other city services, including recreation centers, fully-staffed libraries, arts programs, community dental care, and other services on which low-income families and neighborhoods heavily depend are also vulnerable.

Although yesterday’s vote broke along the familiar racial and geographic lines, one member of the council, District 3’s Dave Neumann, attempted to buck the trend by proposing a smaller tax increase—2.26 cents for every $100 of property value—that he hoped would make a broader consensus possible.

Neumann defined the problem in an open letter to his constituents: “Last week your City Council took a straw vote to give direction to the City Manager to prepare the final budget. Unfortunately, the lines had already been drawn and my fellow Councilmembers [sic] were on polar opposite sides of the issue and unwilling to reach a compromise. Therefore, my modest proposal was not considered.”

While noting majority support for tax increases to avoid draconian cuts to services, Neumann believes that the current budget proposal’s 6.5 percent tax increase—close to the maximum allowable by law—goes too far. With its smaller tax increase, his proposal would only partially restore funding for street repairs and city park maintenance. In the end, Neumann’s idea failed to gain any momentum among the other members of the council.

Caraway seems less concerned about the perception of a North-South divide. “There was no reason to fear doing the things that needed to be done for the areas we (the minority members of the council) represent, which is the southern sector,” said Caraway after last week’s straw vote. “The only [thing] to fear was a vote that would result in an equal city, not a one-sided city, North vs. South.”


© Dallas Examiner. All rights reserved.