DALLAS — Dallas voters will decide in November on a $600 million general obligation bond package focused on basic infrastructure projects under a proposal outlined Wednesday to the City Council.
The three-part proposal includes $323.8 million for flood and erosion control projects, $221.2 million for street upgrades and $55 million for economic development efforts.
The council is scheduled to adopt a final project list on Aug. 1 and officially call for the Nov. 6 election two weeks later.
City manager Mary Suhm said in January that Dallas could afford up to $550 million of new GO debt without raising the property tax rate. On Wednesday, she said rising property values have increased the capacity to a likely maximum of $600 million.
“It’s not as much fun to do a bond program when you have only 40% of what you worked with before,” she told the council. “But just like the earlier one, there are critical things that have to be done.”
Voters approved $1.35 billion of GO bonds in November 2006. “This is as critical as the last bond program we did,” Suhm said. “It’s just not as well-funded.”
If property values continue to recover, Suhm said, the next bond program going to voters in 2015 or 2016 will probably be larger. “We hope the economy gets better and in another three or four years we can look at another bond program,” she said.
Dallas has $1.8 billion of outstanding GOs rated AA-plus by Standard & Poor’s and Aa1 by Moody’s Investors Service.
The current property tax rate of $0.797 per $100 of assessed value includes $0.2591 for debt service and $0.5379 for operations and general fund expenditures.
Mayor Mike Rawlings assured voters that the bond proceeds are dedicated to basic infrastructure needs.
“Sometimes Dallas gets criticized for not taking care of basics, that we spend money on glittery things, and we don’t do the basics,” Rawlings said. “This is clear proof that that’s not the case.”
“We are going to be asking the citizens to step up and say, 'The basics are important,’ ” he said.
The largest project to be financed with the proceeds is a $218.6 million effort to prevent flooding in an area east of downtown Dallas. Several creeks in the area were paved over in the 1950s, resulting in severe floods during heavy rains.
Another $92 million will go toward tripling the capacity of a pump station along the Trinity River levees near downtown. Suhm said the project will allow development of 50 acres that are now located in a flood plain. Dallas needs to finance about $1 billion worth of drainage and flood control projects over the next several bond programs, Suhm said.
The city will spend $5 million for infrastructure at a south Dallas campus of the University of North Texas.
Street upgrades will include 147 miles of resurfacing or reconstruction, and the addition of 32 miles of bicycle lanes on existing streets.
Dallas uses a $350 million commercial paper program to finance bond projects while they are underway. It issues GO bonds to reimburse the program when the work is completed.
