Are Dallas city employees the biggest losers in the proposed budget?

For months, City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert has warned Dallas that a rocky budget season was on the brink. 

Here we stand now, on the edge, and it is rocky indeed. On Friday evening, the city of Dallas released the first draft of what is set to be the biggest budget in this city’s history. Some 760 pages outline the $5.66 billion-with-a-B plan for Dallas, and the draft will be briefed at the City Council on Tuesday. Representatives will then have a month to hem and haw over the nickels and dimes before finalizing the funding plan that goes into effect on Oct. 1. 

Even as city leaders have warned that there is no more money to be found in the couch cushions, elected officials have told Tolbert that service cuts felt by residents won’t be met lightly. Don’t take our libraries or our aquatic centers; keep our roads smooth(ish) and our parks clean(ish), Ms. Tolbert. Oh, and don’t forget about that little mandate voters passed last year that requires you to hire hundreds more police officers and increase department funding. Thank you. 

Something had to give somewhere. A cursory look at the draft suggests that city employees may be caught in the crossfire. 

In the same budget that Tolbert lauds for its (fractional) property tax rate cut (the 11th in a row for the frugal Dallasites keeping track), nearly 300 jobs are set to be eliminated across various city departments. 

Perhaps the most drastic is the one we reported on last Friday: 72 positions across the Dallas Public Libraries. The proposal suggests that adult learning programming, which includes GED instruction and citizenship classes, can be handled by external partners, which accounts for eight jobs. Another 59 positions will be slashed due to plans to “streamline operating hours at neighborhood branch libraries,” and Arcadia Park Branch Library is specifically named as a location where restructuring will affect 10 jobs in the next two years.

There is still a month in which the Dallas City Council could step in and save those positions — after all, the horseshoe has proven highly favorable for libraries — but the money would have to come from somewhere else. And nearly every other department is already getting whittled down. 

The city’s code compliance and 311/communications teams are set to lose around a dozen employees each. Dallas Animal Services’ team that interfaces with homeless residents is slashed. The Drivers of Opportunity program, an offshoot of the city’s DEI initiative that addresses gaps in housing, health, education and environment, will be eliminated alongside the Federal Civil Rights Compliance, Welcoming Dallas, Homelessness Strategies and Age Friendly/Senior Services programs. Twenty-seven layoffs will result from that decision. 

The Emergency Management and Crisis Response, Office of Environmental Quality and Sustainability, and Municipal Courts and Detention Services departments are other programs likely to see positions eliminated by Oct. 1. 

As city employees are likely shaken by the bevy of “reduction in force” notices set to go out, they’re also sure to feel the layoffs in another way, too. Three little words, “leverage existing staff,” suggest exactly who will be picking up the slack left by 300 empty desks. 

Several of the eliminated positions have remained empty for months, the proposed budget notes. That means city employees have already been picking up responsibilities to account for unfilled roles. And how does Dallas thank them? 

On page 43 of the budget is the note that starting in 2027, the city will no longer offer employees a copay healthcare plan. Instead, employees will have to choose between utilizing a Health Savings Account or a primary care physician plan. This sucks. Full stop. 

Copay plans are predictable. They are perhaps the only easy-to-understand part of a national healthcare system that makes absolutely no sense. They are, as city leaders have noted, also expensive. This past year, rising costs associated with employee health insurance were pointed to as one of the main stressors on the budget. Chief Financial Officer Jack Ireland suggested that the rise of GLP-1s, like Ozempic or Wegovy, was specifically to blame. 

That is likely why the medications are expressly called out in the budget draft, as the city plans to no longer cover prescriptions issued “solely for weight loss.” 

The council will have its chance to weigh in on the budget Tuesday, and Dallas residents can speak to their vision at town hall meetings over the next month. In an unlisted video posted to the city’s YouTube channel last Friday, Tolbert also announced that she’ll be hosting a series of employee-focused town hall meetings starting today.

We’re sure they’ll have some things to say.