Regular readers of this site know that we are fierce critics of Dallas City Hall.

There have been many reasons for us to constantly raise concerns: politics we believe inhibits city ​​success, wiring failures that bolted up city ​​permit department, a ever-increasing costs for the stateand ongoing decline in resident satisfaction with everything from their sense of security to a belief that the city is heading in the wrong direction.

So let’s take a moment here to say that there is good reason for renewed hope in the way City Hall runs its business. It came in the form of Interim City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert’s proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

What we saw in both an executive summary and in an interview with Tolbert and her top staff was a disciplined budget focused on the right priorities for a city leading a growing region.

Here are the highlights that stood out as indicators that Tolbert is properly aligning his budget with residents’ desire for Dallas to be safer and cleaner and for City Hall to better manage its spending:

• A tax cut of 3.1 cents to 70.47 cents per $100 in valuation that would save the average homeowner more than $94 a year.
• A consolidation of several city departments and a meaningful reduction in the number of non-public safety services.
• A serious commitment to meet actuarial obligations in the city’s police and fire pension fund.
• An increase in public safety starting salaries to attract more recruits to our police force.
• A proposed $3 monthly “clean sweep” utility bill fee to address residents’ concerns about homeless encampments and persistent clutter around intersections and in public spaces.

Those are just a few bullets out of a complex total proposed budget of $5 billion, with $1.9 billion of that devoted to the general fund budget that pays for day-to-day operations.

Tolbert said she felt she had a clear direction of where residents wanted her to go with this budget, and that was to focus on public safety and quality of life issues.

The general fund budget will grow by $65.1 million under Tolbert’s proposal. But let’s give that figure some valuable context.

Under former City Manager TC Broadnax, the general fund grew at a rate of more than $100 million each cycle. With each new budget came an unnecessary expansion of the city’s reach, and with the new job grew the bureaucracy even as residents complained about services getting worse. We supported Broadnax’s last budget, however reluctantly and with all kinds of warnings.

We’re more excited about the direction Tolbert is taking the city. The growth she has brought to the general fund is focused on new public safety services, primarily within the police department. She backs it up with the proposed salary increase that we believe could make Dallas more competitive in recruiting.

At the same time, she proposes to cut back on services outside of public safety. Her budget includes an additional $78.6 million in public safety spending. This means there is a net decrease of $13.5 million in all other general fund expenditures. That comes in part from targeting “ghost jobs,” positions that eat up the budget but go unfilled. But it also comes from reducing the number of employees, a fiscally necessary move.

We also heard Tolbert describe a subtle but important shift in attitudes toward homelessness. Like many cities, Dallas has followed a very light enforcement regime when it comes to encampments, loitering, panhandling, outdoor drug use, and other acts often (and sometimes unfairly) associated with homelessness. The city has instead adopted a humane “housing first” philosophy. However, it has proven ineffective in addressing the massive growth of encampments and visible homelessness that has become a major problem for residents. Leaving people to live in desperate circumstances until an apartment is available is unintentionally cruel in itself.

Tolbert described an approach that recognizes, in her words, that the city’s progress in getting people housed is “not enough.” Greater intervention is needed, she said. We’re eager to see what plans she has to back it up.

Meanwhile, her proposed $3 monthly fee to address unsanitary conditions that have taken root across the city sounds like something residents would be happy to pay. The explosion of homelessness has created challenges that cities did not budget for. Underpasses, medians, vacant lots and other spaces have become debris fields that make life in Dallas less pleasant. Spending money on keeping the city cleaner would make Dallas more livable and lead to a greater sense of safety. We support that.

That’s not the only charge that needs attention here. In addition to the tax rate, you can expect to pay City Hall more for every service from water to garbage collection. We want to whine about these costs. Their annual increase is as certain as the rising sun.

But we also have to admit a few things. Dallas is the largest municipal water waste in the state. Why? The pipes are old and broken. Fixing them is hugely expensive. Garbage collection has become more expensive, especially as more frequent and stronger storms create huge bulk waste costs that the city has not had to bear historically.

Is Tolbert’s budget perfect? It isn’t. There are many areas we could tinker with, and we’ll have more to say before it’s all said and done.

But the direction here is good and, more importantly, different than what her predecessors offered. This is a budget that feels like it reflects what people in this city consistently say they want.

That means Tolbert has been listening. And that is a big step forward.

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