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Plano council previews legislative agenda and proposes changes to DART funding model
Summary
City staff presented a draft legislative program and urged council direction on priorities including preserving local control, expanding hotel-tax uses and pursuing changes to DART funding: staff said Plano paid a $65 million subsidy to DART in fiscal 2023 and proposed a capped pledge and a "General Mobility Program."
Andrew Fortune, the city irector of Policy and Government Relations, briefed the Plano City Council on the city nd regional legislative program and sought direction for a formal agenda the council is expected to adopt at a future meeting.
Fortune told the council that the state calendar and local outreach mean an October adoption will shape the city's lobbying priorities next year. "October 28, the adoption of our agenda to the general election... Bill filing November 11 and then we've convened January 14," he said, outlining key milestones and an invitation to participate in Plano Days in Austin.
Why it matters: Fortune said state-level actions could affect local authority and city finances. He identified maintaining "local control" across land use and municipal revenue as primary goals and listed transportation, utilities, education and housing affordability among other priorities.
A focus of the briefing was regional transit funding. Fortune said an Ernst & Young study showed that "Plano provided a $65,000,000 subsidy to the DART system in just 1 year, fiscal year 'twenty 3," and that more than "60% of what Plano paid into the system actually went into other jurisdictions." He said staff view the study as validating council concerns and expressed interest in replicating the methodology over time to understand trends.
On possible legislative fixes, Fortune proposed narrowing the local share of future DART debt by limiting future debt issuances to a three-quarter-cent pledge and creating a General Mobility Program modeled on Houston Metro. Under the proposal, each member city could request up to 25% of its sales-tax contribution annually for eligible local projects; unused portions would be escrowed to accelerate debt repayment, he said.
Council members asked staff to add several items to the draft program, including explicit protection of local land-use authority (council members cited short-term rentals and other land-use issues), expanded allowable uses of hotel-occupancy tax revenues to support tournament fields and event preparation, and efforts to seek amendments to the Public Funds Investment Act to expand permitted city investments.
Fortune agreed to circulate a draft incorporating the council's suggestions and said staff would track bills of interest (council members asked specifically that measures like SB147 be monitored), and would pursue legislative measures addressing North Texas water and energy reliability. He also agreed to provide more frequent briefings during the session to keep the full council informed.
Next steps: Staff will return a draft legislative program for formal adoption and circulate updates to the council during the session.
