Mayor Eric Johnson outlined his budget priorities on Friday ahead of a critical stretch of weeks in which officials will have to make some hard choices to overcome a significant revenue gap for FY 2026-2027.
In a memo to City Manager Kimberly Tolbert, Johnson argued that Dallas should focus on providing essential services and resist the urge to raise property tax rates despite mounting fiscal pressures.
“At the end of the day, the City’s budget has gotten too big, and while some of this growth has been necessary to efficiently deliver core services, much of it has been growth for the sake of growth or adding new non-core services,” Johnson said. “We are spending people’s hard-earned money, and we should only spend as much of it as is absolutely necessary.”…