On June 10, 2026, the Dallas City Council held a special called meeting to discuss financial considerations for public safety facilities, potential relocation of the 911 and Emergency Operations Center (EOC), a phased repair plan for City Hall, and potential relocation of City Hall. The meeting included a detailed presentation from the city manager and chief financial officer, followed by public testimony and a vote on a resolution to authorize a phased City Hall repair strategy (Agenda Item 3). After extended debate and several failed amendments, the council voted 9-6 to deny the repair proposal and instead direct the city manager to continue exploring site disposition options.
Presentation by City Manager Kimberly Tolbert and CFO Jack Ireland:
Council Questions and Debate:
An hour from now, and we'll call to order the special call meeting at 10 03. So we are now in the special call meeting, and I'll turn it over to our city manager to lead us through our briefing agenda for today. Madam City Manager. Thank you, Mr. Bearing. Good morning to the city council. The first item on the agenda for the special call meeting is a presentation on the financial analysis and funding considerations for priority of our public safety facilities, potential relocation of 911 and our emergency operations center, potential repair plans for city hall, and potential relocation. All of these items have previously been briefed and discussed with the city council, either in open session or executive session. And we were asked to return to discuss financial considerations in a much more deeper perspective and be able to bring that back to you. I do want to take an opportunity to make some additional comments. Since 1978, when Dallas City Hall opened, the city has historically underinvested and underfunded maintenance repairs and modern updates in this building. We understand why. The focus has always been on making sure that the priorities of our residents, whether public safety, parks, libraries, and streets, were important. And these priorities united councils to pass budgets and fund fund programs that supported those priorities. Now, 48 years later, in 2026, you face a huge decision because of those priorities. So I want to give you a quick reminder of the process. In May and June of 2025, six months after I was appointed as the interim city manager, I brought to this council a briefing documenting the urgent need to reinvest in our public facilities, including City Hall. In August of 2025, Mayor Johnson directed the Council Finance Committee to examine City Hall's conditions and began exploring financially responsible options. In October 2025, staff engaged outside experts who came and reported on deferred maintenance needs and structural repairs, roof, HVAC electrical and plumbing, and we provided to this city council an estimate between 152 million and 345 million in November of 2025. This council directed the city manager to evaluate the possibility of how we could look at key other city departments and where they operated and whether lease and revine or building office space was essential in December of 2025. They inspected systems and structures so that we could move from the evidence that we were told did not have facts and bring the data to this city council. In February of 2026, those findings were presented first to the finance committee and later to the full city council. The analysis concluded that restoration and repairs to the building, just to bring it up to code, was an estimated 329 million. And that did not include code or ADA repairs. The council asked for more information March 4th of 2026. I then engaged a set of new consultants to come and validate the work, refine the scope, and recommend as council requested a 10-year phased repair plan, even with charter plans and the addition of construction efficiencies. Those consultants have now reported that projected costs are between 532 million and 614 million over the next decade. So today's information is to help you have that deeper understanding of the financials and how you consider this important decision, but it is not because staff has not provided this city council with the information that you have requested. We understand that these decisions affect our residents, our taxpayers, public safety, economic development, and so much more. And we understand that these decisions are hard. And how we plan today for the city for the future. And at this time, I'll turn it over to our chief financial officer, Jack Ireland, to deliver today's briefing. Thank you. Good morning, Mayor and members of the City Council, and thank you, Ms. Tolbert. So beginning the presentation, as Ms. Tolbert mentioned, on slide two, we will talk through public safety facility needs, which has been a question, discuss potential relocation of 911, emergency operations center, potential relocation of City Hall, potential repair program for City Hall, and bringing this information to you at the request of the City Council to bring the financial information to you at one time. So on slide three, as we started working on this, we knew it was important to be mindful of many things, mindful of our taxpayers, mindful of any impact on public safety, on core city services, how we deliver and implement the 2024 bond program, what opportunities we have for economic development and growth of our tax base, impact on our debt and future debt capacity, as well as our impact on our current and future annual operating budgets. And so if we turn to slide four, thinking about our current and uh upcoming annual budgets, just wanted to pull a slide that we shared with you on May the sixth that talked about some of the challenges that we face from a financial perspective for our annual budget. As you know, uh we have limitations on our property tax revenue because of state cap, and the state is also considering expanding that cap. Uh we have sales tax that this year we've seen some contraction and some uh less revenue than we had anticipated. We anticipate that that will continue. As you know, we continue to work on meet and confer agreements to ensure uh with our police and fire uniform employees that we have competitive uh salaries. Uh, our pension contributions, which we've spoken about and which we'll speak about uh as part of this presentation, those costs uh will grow as we uh implement the funding plan that this council and the board approved. We have we know that we have a goal of hiring more police officers. We have to stay competitive with our non-uniform salaries. We've seen this year a rising cost in our employee health benefits. Uh we're here partly because of deferred uh facility maintenance, and even after this facility is addressed, there is deferred maintenance in all of our other hundreds of buildings that the city operates. Uh, we do anticipate elimination or reduction in federal funds, and then there's a lot of uncertainty about the economic condition, uh, whether it's inflation, tariffs, supply chain, and other types of factors. So we realize and know and shared with you on March May the sixth the challenges that we'll be facing.