The first of three mandatory furlough days left residents scrambling for city services as workers wondered whether layoffs could follow.
By María Ramos Pacheco and Devyani Chhetri
Dallas Morning News
https://www.dallasnews.com/
Blake Gomez had taken a 30-minute trip Friday to Dallas City Hall from his home in Pleasant Grove to pay his water bill.
Across the road, a mother rattled the doors of the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library while another woman walked away. Both had come downtown to get birth certificates.
Like Gomez, both were turned away into the Texas heat. Notices on the locked doors said Friday was the city’s first mandatory furlough day.
It was part of City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert’s cost-saving plan requiring most city employees to take three days of unpaid leave. The city faces a budget shortfall of about $30 million. Furloughs are expected to save $5 million.
Soaring police and fire overtime costs, lower-than-expected sales tax revenue and rising employee health expenses have contributed to the budget strain. The city also has instituted a hiring freeze and restricted employee travel.
First responders and certain service employees are excluded from the furloughs. Senior staffers are being asked to take an additional two furlough days.
Residents and some public officials questioned the city’s decision, saying the measure was lowering employee morale. In the absence of a recession, many asked whether the city was in a deeper financial hole than it was admitting.
Residents meet locked doors
Dallas resident Rosaland Glover was fuming when she saw the furlough notice on the central library’s door Friday. She had planned to use the public computers to finish a job application. She said she couldn’t believe the city was mandating furloughs during the summer heat when people need a place to cool off.
“It’s just terrible how they want taxpayers to pay for this and that, but we don’t get access to public places,” she said.
Two Dallas police officers were at the library telling people the building was closed.
About four people experiencing homelessness sat in the shade on the library’s front step. A police officer told them they couldn’t go inside and asked them to leave.
Gomez, the Pleasant Grove resident, unhooked his bike near City Hall’s back entrance to head home. His water bill was due Friday, but he had no choice but to try again later.
“I’ll be back Monday,” the 72-year-old said.
But coming back another day may not be easy for everyone.
A Fort Worth resident drove more than an hour and paid $20 for parking to get her husband’s birth certificate. She had been told the central library was the best place in Dallas to get the certificate.
Dallas resident Tracy Craig and her daughter also went to the library to get a birth certificate so Craig’s grandson could be enrolled in school.
Instead, they found the library and its vital statistics office closed.
Uncertainty beyond furloughs
City workers had little warning before their first furlough day, and many are frustrated because they believe they’re being asked to absorb the cost of the city’s budget shortfall, a union representative said.
“It shouldn’t fall on the shoulders of the city workers to plug this budget gap that they had nothing to do with,” said John Mallon, the vice president of Chapter 9487 of the United Steelworkers, which represents Dallas County and city of Dallas workers.
Dallas employees also worry the furloughs could be the first step toward layoffs if the city’s financial outlook worsens, Mallon said.
At least four city employees showed up Friday at Chilangos Tacos on Ross Avenue to receive free lunch from former Dallas City Council member Philip Kingston. He and his wife offered to buy lunch for 100 city workers.
The workers declined to comment on the furloughs due to fear of retaliation.
City Plan Commissioner Melissa Kingston said she’s never seen employee morale as low as it was Friday.
“We’re furloughing our workers without an obvious economic reason to do so,” she said.
Cities and private companies typically furlough employees during recessions.
At least 20 of the country’s 25 most populous cities have budget gaps in the current fiscal year and are resorting to freezes and cuts to close the gaps, according to Pew Charitable Trusts. Yet no other major U.S. cities are taking cost-saving measures like Dallas.
The city last furloughed employees during the pandemic and in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.
The city could lose its “top talent” because of the cost-saving measure, Melissa Kingston said.
More furloughs to come
At 1:23 p.m., a contractor was power washing the pavement near the City Hall front entrance when Melda Koueder saw a security car blocking the doors.
Koueder drove 45 minutes from Richardson to pick up her son’s birth certificate. The hospital where she gave birth happened to fall in Dallas’ jurisdiction.
A security officer told Koueder information about the furlough had been all over the news.
She had checked the website before she left Richardson and didn’t remember seeing an alert about closures.
“This has been an unpleasant experience,” she said.
The city hadn’t updated the operating hours of affected facilities on Google Maps. On Friday morning, the library, City Hall and other locations visited by residents still appeared open.
Recreation centers and some other city facilities will be closed for furloughs Aug. 7. The next closures will be Sept. 4 and Sept. 28.
María Ramos Pacheco is a bilingual reporter who covers neighborhood issues, environmental justice and all things city of Dallas-related for The Dallas Morning News.
Devyani Chhetri covers Dallas City Hall. Before joining the Dallas Morning News, she covered South Carolina politics and presidential primaries. She went to Boston University for graduate school.
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
