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City creates facilities and equipment fee fund, approves $2.05 million interfund loan for city hall and police building renovations
Summary
The committee reviewed a new facilities and equipment fee fund that includes a $2,050,000 interfund loan from the water SDC fund to renovate a nearby building into a new City Hall and to seismic-upgrade and renovate the current building for police operations.
The Dallas budget committee reviewed staff plans to use a newly created facilities and equipment fee fund to finance near-term building projects and longer-term facility upgrades. The fund was created in the current fiscal year and staff reported the first month of fee collections.
City Manager Brian Latta said the council authorized the new fee fund and staff expects roughly $60,000 in current-year fee revenue. The fund also records a $2,050,000 interfund loan from the water system development charge (SDC) fund; that loan will be repaid on a 10-year amortization schedule.
Latta described immediate uses for the transfer: converting the nearby Itemizer building into a new City Hall and renovating the current building to secure it for police operations. He said initial work includes seismic upgrades (roof and second-floor sheathing, wall bracing and removal of a central chimney) that a recent engineering review estimates at less than $2 million for the current building.
Latta said the fee fund will initially support those projects and then be available for future facilities and equipment purchases once loans are repaid. "We started collecting this fee in the May billing cycle," Latta said, noting the fund structure includes operating contingencies and debt service for the interfund loan.
Committee members asked how the city decides when a fund can safely lend (interfund loans). Latta replied the city primarily uses SDC funds for interfund loans because those funds are reserved for expansion projects and staff evaluates 10-year SDC project schedules to ensure repayments will not impair planned SDC projects.
The committee did not take a separate formal vote to authorize the loan during the meeting; it discussed the structure and recorded the loan transfer amount in the amended column for the facilities and equipment fee fund in the packet. Staff will proceed with project design and return with details and any required council actions for construction and financing.
