Plano City Council Wants to Cut DART Funding

The city of Plano wants to reduce its contribution to Dallas Area Rapid Transit.

A Plano city official told city council members Monday that the public transportation system is not “optimized” for Plano residents.

Plano joins Dallas, another DART member city that has expressed interest in divert money of the transit authority. The 13 member states that make up DART, including Plano and Dallas, contribute one cent per sales tax dollar to the transit authority. Plano City Council members have a resolution on Monday that the city is in favor of lowering the contribution to three quarters of a cent.

The Plano mayor and council members passed the resolution without comment.

Reducing the sales tax contribution requires approval from the DART board and voters. If the board approves the reduction, elections will be held in the transit authority’s 13 member states. Voters will then decide how to reallocate the quarter cent that was cut from the sales tax contribution to DART. Voters could potentially reallocate that money to the transit authority.

The resolution argues that Plano residents do not benefit enough from DART services to justify the current costs. Andrew Fortune, the director of government relations for the city of Plano, said the city contributes about $115 million annually to DART.

The transit authority’s ridership hasn’t yet returned to pre-pandemic levels. DART had about 69 million riders in fiscal 2019, according to a presentation from the city of Plano. By 2023, DART’s ridership will be about 48.8 million.

“Why are we continuing to spend money at this level if we're not going to maximize and take full advantage of the existing services that we already provide in communities across the system?” Fortune said.

He said cutting Plano's contribution to DART by a quarter of a cent would generate about $30 million in additional annual revenue for Plano.

Plano City Council members have been pushing DART to increase financial transparency and accountability since 2020. A recent KERA research discovered that some DART board members may have used taxpayer dollars to pay for personal travel. The transit authority revised its member travel policy in March.

“The policy was abused,” said Paul Wageman, who represents Plano on the board and is chairman of the finance committee.

The city of Plano sponsored bills in the past two Texas legislative sessions that would have required DART to do so. But neither bill passed. Fortune said DART hired a firm last March to conduct a transit value analysis to answer some of Plano’s questions. But he said Plano still has not received a report.

Plano resident Dan Mustafa said during public comments that DART has already regained a majority of its pre-pandemic ridership. He said that trend will continue.

“Within a few years, the number of travelers will likely exceed pre-pandemic levels,” Mustafa said.

DART has already had to weigh the impact of reduced funding. The Dallas City Council has considered comparable reduction to add money to the city's public safety pension system, which has been plagued by unfunded liabilities.

According to a study, approximately 72% of DART riders come from Dallas. Memo from May from DART's CEO, Nadine Lee.

Lee said in the memo that cutting member cities' contributions by a quarter cent would have a major impact on service and cripple the transit authority's budget.

“Public transportation services would be severely limited in any scenario, as would preventive maintenance and other activities to keep existing vehicles and infrastructure in good condition,” Lee said.

She also said wait times for public transit would increase. The wait time for light rail during rush hour would be 30 minutes — double what it is now, according to the memo. Lee warned that the increase in travel times would disproportionately impact low-income communities and communities of color who lack access to other forms of transportation.

“I cannot stress enough the detrimental effects these types of service reductions would have on the most vulnerable populations who rely on DART to access jobs, health care, education and more,” she said.

FROM MONKEY Pablo Arauz Peña contributed to this report.

Have a tip? Email Caroline Love at clove@kera.org.

Caroline Love is a Report for America corps member for KERA News.

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