Dallas Residents Give City an Earful on Barebones 2009-2010 Budget

Dallas residents came to the annual community budget forums ready to battle with city officials over what city services to cut and, even more important, what not to ax in the 2009-2010 budget year.

It was a hot evening, but, luckily, more than 200 residents were favored with air conditioning at Winfrey Point at White Rock Lake that worked well enough to make the budget exercise palatable and not too uncomfortable.

At stake: How to balance a budget with a $38 million deficit.

“Overall, most city departments except fire and police are having 25 to 30 percent [budget] cuts, and 1,000 civilian city employees are to be laid off,” said City Manager Mary Suhm. “We have to live within our means.… We want to be sure, however, that when we contract [cut back services], we also make sure the city can come back.”

To speed up feedback and not get mired in resident soliloquies, descriptions of city services were listed on poster boards, and people were then asked to place green dot stickers next to city services they wanted funded and red dot stickers next to those they wanted carved out.

Among the city services or projects to get the most red dot stickers were the Trinity River Corridor Project, business economic development, court and detention services, and funding for the mayor, city council and city manager’s office.

Folks gave their thumbs up to keeping health services to communities and seniors, and funding for parks and recreation centers, neighborhood libraries, and culture and the arts. A clean, healthy environment and code compliance also were high on people’s “must fund” list.

The sticker prioritizing exercise over, which took place in an oddly chaotically organized manner, city officials had people separated into groups.

With a patient city staffer acting as facilitator for each group, residents put in a plug for their favorite city services.

“Dallas has no beaches, no mountains, no special attractions,” said Laurie Shulman, a nationally known writer of music with a longstanding passion for the arts. “The cultural arts do raise revenues for the city. We need our cultural affairs department. We need our arts.”

Each group had a spokesperson to serve up suggested “keeps” and “cuts.”

Agreement seemed to form around delaying the hiring of 200 additional police officers to increase the size of the Dallas Police Department (officers who leave the force will be replaced), public works projects and installing safety lights at White Rock Lake.

Reducing library hours, cutting garbage pick ups to once a week, axing tax incentives to developers, and cutting city staff across the board, including the city manager’s office, were some ideas offered to close the budget shortfall.

Some residents expressed doubts about whether the city would heed the feedback from those who attended the forum.

“Let’s see if the city will pay attention to our suggestions,” said John Yourse, who ran against incumbent Sheffie Kadane for the District 9 seat on the Dallas city council and lost. He also said he planned to run for city council again.

At the end of the long evening, people were pleased to participate in the exercise of tough-decision making that goes into balancing a budget in a down economy with city revenues going south.

The final Dallas city budget will be approved and adopted in September.

Nevertheless, it’s going to be a tough budget year in Big D.

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