Transportation
BY COLBY FARR CONTRIBUTIONS BY MICHAEL CROUCHLEY
Five DART member cities call for reduced tax contributions
Five North Texas cities served by Dallas Area Rapid Transit are challenging the agency’s sales tax collection rate that’s been in place for more than 40 years. Plano was the first city to pass a resolution in June calling for a reduction of its sales and use tax contribution to DART by a quarter-cent. Since then, Rowlett, Irving, Carrollton and Farmers Branch have passed similar resolutions. Officials have cited a need for greater financial transparency from the transit agency and requested DART work to recruit other cities. Despite action by the cities, only DART’s board of directors can vote to reduce the sales tax contribution. “No one city can unilaterally decide to reduce the sales tax,” DART’s Chief Communications Officer Jeamy Molina said. Richardson City Manager Don Magner said Richardson officials will not call for a reduced contribution to DART. “We share some of the same interests—we want to ensure that the city is receiving service proportional to our contribution,” he said. “We don’t agree that the way to do that is to reduce the contribution.” The setup DART’s largest source of revenue comes from sales tax contributions from its member cities. The agency is forecast to collect $24.9 billion in sales tax revenue over the next 20 years. For comparison, the agency expects to spend $35.1 billion over the next 20 years on a combina- tion of operating expenses and debt service pay- ments, according to its fiscal year 2024-25 budget. A quarter-cent reduction would cut that figure by about $6 billion, Molina said. That would cause reductions in service across the DART system and cause an economic ripple across the area, she said. “We would be looking at service reductions across the entire system,” she said. “We’d be looking at our frequencies going to possibly 30 minutes. So for a train, for a bus route, you have to be sitting outside waiting for possibly 30 minutes, if not more.” DART trains operate on 30-minute frequencies during late-night service hours but operate on 15-minute and 20-minute frequencies during rush hours and weekends. Bus frequencies vary by route. As DART officials have met with member cities, they’ve learned that each city has expressed dif- ferent concerns and priorities that they’re trying to address, Molina said. “We know that there’s a huge burden on all of our cities,” she said. “But this would be such a huge impact to the communities that we service.”
How much each DART member city contributes in sales tax collections
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1 Dallas: $407.8 million
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2 Plano: $109.6 million
3 Irving: $102.2 million
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4 Other cities: $69.6 million (Farmer's Branch, Addison, Rowlett, University Park, Highland Park, Cockrell Hill, Glenn Heights)
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5 Richardson: $56.9 million
6 Carrollton: $48.3 million 7 Garland: $45.2 million
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SOURCE: DALLAS AREA RAPID TRANSIT/COMMUNITY IMPACT
Zooming in Magner said that while Richardson will not be looking to decrease its contribution to DART, it will continue looking for ways to maximize use of the transit service. Magner added that he feels the city has done a good job of utilizing DART in current develop- ments such as CityLine. “The way for us to best partner with DART going forward is to find the highest and best use for Arapaho Station and Northside,” Magner said. Plano’s resolution is a proposed phase-in pro- cess that would reduce the sales tax contribution over time, Plano’s Government Relations Director Andrew Fortune said. The resolution proposes capping DART’s annual sales tax collection at about $870.8 million, the agency’s projected collection total during FY 2023-24, and phasing in a reduction over time, according to the resolution. A quarter-cent reduction would enable the city to redirect about $30 million per year annually to something else, such as infrastructure improve- ments or economic development, Fortune said. “It’s not a reduction—it’s a redirection,” Plano City Manager Mark Israelson said. “It would still require the city going back to the citizens to ask, ‘Where would you like to apply these dollars?’” Each city would have to call its own election for citizens to redirect the 1% sales tax contribu- tion. Voters in each city can elect to redirect the contribution or continue sending the 1% sales tax contribution back to DART. “[The board] would tell the comptroller to reduce our sales tax by whatever percentage they
decide and then the cities themselves would have to go to an election,” Molina said. What’s next? The DART board administration committee met July 8. Multiple committee members expressed a need for the agency to work with its member cities. “We need to work with the cities and with those communities to do what we need to do,” board of directors Chair Gary Slagel said during the meet- ing. “We need to define programs, not reductions.” For the past year, DART officials have met with each member city to develop what they call an area plan, Molina said. Those meetings revolved around how DART can better serve its member cities and how it can be a more valuable asset in each city. Officials are in the process of developing plans for each city that aim to address each city’s issues long-term, she said. A vote by the board to reduce the contribution is not currently being considered, Molina said. “We know how important our service area mem- ber cities are to DART and making sure they’re a part of the process is the only way that we’re going to continue to move forward,” Molina said. "We know that there’s a huge burden on all of our cities, but this would be such a huge impact to the communities that we service." JEAMY MOLINA, DART’S CHIEF COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER
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RICHARDSON EDITION
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