Dallas voters will have a $443 million bond proposition to consider in November to pay for a new police academy and other public safety facilities.
The City Council significantly scaled back the original $1 billion proposal Wednesday, nixing a risky plan to issue pension bonds to close a $3.7 billion gap in the police and fire pension system. They also rejected calling a bond election to fund fleet maintenance facilities upgrades.
Wednesday’s 11-4 vote could give the long-promised academy project money it doesn’t have. A smaller bond proposal keeps projects tied to the 2024 bond on schedule. City officials had said previously that a larger bond package was going to delay 5% of the planned projects over the next couple of years.
The city, which secured $50 million for the academy in the 2024 bond, has about half of the estimated $227 million it needs to build the training center at the University of North Texas at Dallas. A separate complex for driving and firearms training is projected to cost $170 million.
Voter approval of the bond proposition would also give the city funds to refurbish a downtown fire station and relocate the 911 emergency center out of City Hall, which preservationists argue allows the city to take another step to abandon the I.M. Pei-designed building.
Council members Adam Bazaldua, Paula Blackmon, Cara Mendelsohn and Paul Ridley voted against sending the proposition to voters.
Mayor Eric Johnson refereed a debate that went on for more than three hours, often clarifying rules or asking council members to not veer into tangential questions. At one point when Bazaldua decided to withdraw one of his amendments, Johnson called Bazaldua “congressman” and brought levity to an intense debate.
“They are masters of wasting time,” the mayor said as laughter bubbled around. “Great job, congressman.”
Some council members suggested the police academy be placed in a separate bond proposition from the other public safety facilities, while others tried to add making repairs to City Hall to the proposal.
In the end, the council did agree that voters shouldn’t be asked to approve $500 million in pension obligation bonds. They voted 11-4 to reject the proposition after hearing from the city’s former chief financial officer last week.
Elizabeth Reich — who oversaw the city’s finances from 2016 to 2022 and helped pull the police and fire pension system out of crisis — told council members that taking on more debt to close the pension’s shortfall was a bad idea.
Council member Chad West, who chairs the finance committee, didn’t want to put too much on the ballot. Residents, he said, could evaluate modern policing and emergency needs without having to weigh unrelated financial or facility items.
“Adding in pension obligation bonds or fleet maintenance expands the total ask,” he said. “It complicates the message, and it invites opposition that has nothing to do with the public safety facilities themselves.”
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This article originally published at Dallas City Council sends $443 million bond proposition to voters.