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The latest scenario, presented by city financial officials to the City Council on how to divvy up the money, proposes setting aside $25 million for IT-related projects. Council members suggested the ransomware attack was a reason to increase the city’s investment in technology outside of the annual budget.
“For anything that could fit the criteria of a bond program, I think our city needs to take a really hard look at having technology be a category in that,” council member Gay Donnell Willis said during a public safety committee meeting last month. “I think that this underscores that need and that our residents would give that a hard look in a positive way.”
Dallas’ Information and Technology Services had an initial request for $135 million in the bond package for IT-related upgrades. There was no allocation for IT in previous proposed scenarios.
The latest list of possible funding allocations for the proposed 2024 bond is preliminary and non-binding. A task force of City Council-selected appointees has been meeting since May to discuss and eventually narrow down a list of infrastructure projects to recommend to the City Council to be paid for with the $1 billion. That list is expected to be finalized in November, presented to the City Council in December and a public hearing on the recommendations is scheduled to be held that same month.
The City Council is tentatively scheduled to vote in late January to approve the bond package and put it on the May 2024 election ballot for voters’ approval.
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