7 January 23 - 29, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents rolled in special education programs, English language learners and students with learning disabilities receive funding sepa- rate from the basic allotment. But it’s still not enough to offset the costs of these pro- grams, districts say. Dallas ISD spends $72 million more than the state provides, and Fort Worth ISD has identified the special programs as its top concern for this legisla- tive session. Denton ISD spent almost $10 million more than its budget allows on spe- cial education programs alone. ▼ CITY HALL MISMANAGING THE MANAGER CITY MANAGER FINALISTS SHARE VISIONS IN MEET AND GREETS. BY EMMA RUBY I t has been nearly a year since former City Manager T.C. Broadnax announced his resignation from Dallas’ CEO seat, and community members have finally got to meet who his replacement will be. Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, interim city manager for Dallas, William Johnson, an as- sistant city manager for Fort Worth, and Mario Lara, an assistant city manager for Sacramento, are finalists for Dallas’ top job. While Tolbert may be the frontrunner — she’s held the interim role since May — at- tendees at Jan. 11 City Hall meet-and-greet appeared to be impressed by Lara’s experi- ence in tackling homelessness and John- son’s public safety background. Each candidate was given two minutes to make an opening statement at the event before they took up posts at an individual tables. Re- ceiving lines allowed residents the opportu- nity to speak one-on-one with each candidate for two to three minutes, but many attendees noted that they wanted to be able to hear all of the candidates’ answers on a topic rather than a two-minute stump speech. While residents were encouraged to fill out a survey reporting their perceptions of each candidate, the decision of who will over- see Dallas’ day-to-day operations, 13,000 em- ployees and the hiring of our next police and fire chiefs will ultimately come down to the City Council. The full council will interview each candidate on Wednesday in executive session, and Mayor Pro Tem Tennell Atkins, who chairs the city’s Ad Hoc Committee on Administrative Affairs and has overseen the city manager search, said he hopes the coun- cil will signal an intention to offer one candi- date the job by the end of January. In their opening statements, Lara and Johnson each alluded to the “challenges” facing Dallas. Lara signaled he is not one of the several city manager candidates who may have been scared off from the job after voters in No- vember passed City Charter Propositions S and U. Johnson also did not specify which challenges have drawn his attention, but said they require a leadership team focused on accountability and transparency. When the Observer asked what chal- lenges, specifically, Johnson would hope to address if given the job, public safety was top of mind. Johnson said he intends to “im- mediately” launch a national search for Dal- las’ next police chief, and hopes to reshape Dallas’ relationship with the police depart- ment to better accommodate Proposition U, which will earmark city revenue for the po- lice and fire pension while requiring the city to hire around 900 more police officers. (Proposition S opens oens the city to law- suits if someone suspects the charter or state laws aren’t being followed.) As an assistant city manager to the west, Johnson was able to observe political oppo- sition to Prop U and has concluded that Dal- las’ bigger issues are the pension fund’s billion-dollar unfunded liability and officer salaries, which he feels should be higher to attract better talent. “We’ll hire 900 police officers, but we’ll hire the right officers. We’ll hire officers that are going to be boots on the ground in the communities,” Johnson told the Observer. “We need to be focused on diverting crime, focused on our young people. And we need to send a very clear message that if you’re in the city of Dallas and you want to traffic drugs or traffic people or traffic anything else, this is not the place for you.” Tolbert also said launching a national search for Dallas’ next police chief would be a Day 1 goal. She added that it is crucial to find a chief who “understands the heart- beat” of the community and would support Dallas’ violent crime reduction plan and hir- ing initiatives to ensure the police force mir- rors the demographic makeup of the city. Although council members have pointed to the passage of Propositions S and U as a “wake up call” for City Hall and a signal that the electorate is in favor of change, Tolbert said she has been open to change during her interim tenure. “The work is already underway, and I think the beauty is that during my time of being the interim city manager, I’ve ap- proached this job with bold actions,” Tolbert said. “This has not been business as usual, status quo. And it’s really given me an op- portunity to really do a deep dive into some of the challenges that we face.” Tolbert pointed to public safety and in- frastructure funding in Dallas’ nearly $5 bil- lion budget, which initially had a $40 million deficit that Tolbert was able to rec- tify, as evidence that Dallas is welcoming a “customer centric” leadership strategy. Juxtaposing Johnson and Tolbert is Lara, the “external candidate” from Sacra- mento who says his fresh set of eyes could bring the reset Dallas voters signaled a yearning for. In his opening statement, Lara pointed to Sacramento’s 40% reduction in homelessness as one of the initiatives he is “most proud” to have overseen. While Sacramento recently launched their own search for a city manager, Lara told the Observer that Dallas’ is the only job he is interested in pursuing. His family has “always had their eyes” on Dallas, he said. Lara added that his experience with voter-led ballot initiatives leaves him feeling comfortable he will be able to take on Prop- ositions S and U. He said that building a strong relationship with the city attorney’s office and the finance department would be top priorities to ensure he has the proper plan to handle the legalities and financial impact of implementing the propositions.
