Dallas County Voters Reject 2.4-Cent Tax for Homelessness Programs
Unofficial results show Proposition A losing 51.9 percent to 48.1 percent with all 444 precincts reporting, Community Impact reported.
Dallas County voters turned down a 2.4-cent property tax increase that would have paid for programs to reduce homelessness, according to unofficial results.
Community Impact reported 364,685 votes, or 51.9 percent, against Proposition A and 338,375 votes, or 48.1 percent, for it. Its update, posted at 2:42 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 4, said the totals were based on all 444 of the county's precincts reporting. All results are unofficial until they are canvassed.
By our math, the measure lost by 26,310 votes, a gap of 3.8 percentage points.
The count moved through the night. Community Impact reported early voting totals of 285,909 against and 279,083 for, or 50.6 percent to 49.4 percent. At 11:12 p.m., with 174 of 444 precincts in, it reported 312,149 against and 299,070 for. KERA reported at 1:18 a.m., with nearly 92 percent of vote centers reporting, that about 52 percent of voters opposed the measure and 48 percent supported it, and described it as narrowly failing.
Community Impact reported that 791,657 ballots were cast in Dallas County in this election, 52.85 percent of the county's more than 1.49 million registered voters.
What the tax would have done
The proposition asked voters to approve a tax rate 2.4 cents per $100 of value above the county's voter-approval rate. The county's tax rate election page put the money it would raise at $102.9 million, and Community Impact reported that the tax had no end date, though a future commissioners court could wind it down.
KERA reported that the nonprofit Housing Forward and the All Neighbors Coalition pitched the idea, and that if the measure had passed, the county would have been locked into a minimum five-year contract with Housing Forward, which helps allocate money among housing and health care programs.
Old Red, the former Dallas County Courthouse, photographed in 2017. Photo: Martin Alon / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Who stood where
Commissioner Andy Sommerman introduced the proposal, KERA reported. County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins, who KERA said has historically opposed property tax increases, supported it and called it an investment in the county's future. KERA reported in August that commissioners voted 3-2 to put the measure on the ballot, with Commissioners John Wiley Price and Elba Garcia voting no.
KERA also reported that the groups that help homeless people have faced uneven budgets, relying on yearly requests to the city and county and on shrinking private donations. That problem does not go away with this vote.
For more on how the measure was put together, read our Election Day preview.
Our view
Voters were asked to raise their own taxes with no end date, and a majority said no. That is not a vote against the poor. It is a vote for accountability, and for a plan that taxpayers can see working before they are asked to fund it forever.
The need on Dallas County's streets is real. Churches, ministries and neighbors have long carried much of that load, and they will keep at it. County leaders should come back, if they come back at all, with clear goals, a set end date and plain reporting on results. Compassion and good stewardship are not enemies.
