Sponsor And Welcome

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This episode is brought to you by Kathy Lwall, State Farm Insurance Agent. Visit her website at KathyLwall.com. Welcome to the Bubble

Meet The City Leaders

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Lounge. I'm Martha Jackson and today we're talking about University Parks Proposition A and everything residents need to know about it. Joining me today is Fire Chief Randy Howell, Police Chief Bill Mathis, and City Manager Robbie Corter. Gentlemen, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having us. Good to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Well, if you would, let's just kind of go down the row and introduce yourself, give a little bit of background about yourself and how long you've worked for the city of UP.

SPEAKER_03 0:42

Sure, we'll do. I'm Bill Mathis. I'm the chief of police. I've been with the city for almost 30 years, and I've been chief for almost six. And I started my career as a patrol officer with the city of Dallas. Um, so it's been a great place to be, enjoy working here.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Hey, thank you. Um Robbie Quarter. I've been uh not here as long as Bill, but 22 years, and um I've been the city manager since 2014. I originally started in public works, so that was my background. Uh was working in public works and then later in planning and zoning, and then ultimately the city council asked me to be the manager uh and and I've loved it uh ever since. It's a great community to work for.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Yeah, Randy Howell. I am the fire chief here in University Park, and I started here in 2008. So uh a little over 18 years. But I've been in the fire service here in the North Texas area for over 40 years now, and um have enjoyed every every bit of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Well, a lot of longevity here, and thank you to all of you for everything that you do for us. Well, there's the upcoming vote coming up that affects city taxes and funding for public safety and residential parking, which are always hot topics in our neighborhood. So we are here to talk about everything you all could possibly want to know about this vote, so you know you know what you're voting on. So if we could start off, in case there's anyone out there that does not know what proposition A is, can you explain it?

What Proposition A Changes

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Sure. Uh Martha, I'll go ahead and take this one if that's okay. Um so proposition A is a first of its kind for University Park. We are asking the voters of University Park to exceed what is the state limit on property tax revenue. And that was a bill that was filed and passed in 2019. It was called Senate Bill Two. Um, and that limits a city's property tax revenue year to year to three and a half percent. So this vote is asking the voters of University Park to consider going beyond three and a half percent.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

And why is it uh coming up now?

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Um it's coming up now because uh quite frankly, there's some some changes in the state legislature that we're anticipating in the next session um that are going to increase the thresholds uh for voter approval rates like this. Um one of the things that we always do with our budget when we go through it year to year is at the end of it, we identify things that are upcoming, things that we need to think about for the future. And for the past several years, we've been mentioning, hey, there's some public safety needs that we have, and we might need to consider a voter approval election. So that that's been talked about in previous budgets. Um, and we felt like this was the right time given those changes that might occur uh down in Austin with this session, because the governor's talking about uh requiring a two-thirds majority uh in the future for these types of elections. So uh this might be uh the best time for us to move forward.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Right, right. Well, let's talk about what the what what the vote would be funding if approved.

What The Funding Pays For

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Sure. There's there's four items. Um, and I'm I know Bill and uh and Randy can expand on this a little bit, and they're all they're all public safety related, um, and they they uh are different um uh in terms of their reoccurring versus their one-time cost. But the first thing is four additional uh patrol officers. This is gonna be for our police department um and add to the staffing uh of that particular department to increase the visibility. Uh we've looked at our staffing levels compared to other cities, and we felt like this wasn't a needed request uh for the police department. There's also two additional uh firefighter positions, so that will go uh over to to uh to that department, and that's to get us up to a level of staffing that is comparable to other cities as well. Um, this is something though that will probably have to occur in stages because we we might need to add more firefighters later in the future uh as well. So that that might be something to consider in a future budget. Uh the two other items uh are less uh in dollar value than the staffing requests. Um the first one is an adjustment to the pension system for some of our firefighters, not all of it, and we might get into that later. Um, but it's a it's an equity issue amongst the firefighters uh that we want to address. And then uh finally, we have uh technology for our residential parking districts. There's there's several residential parking districts in town where you have to have a sticker or a hang tag, um, and that's grown over the years, and we'd like to use technology to make us a little bit more efficient.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Well, Chief Mathis, if you wouldn't mind, let's get into it a little bit more in regards to the police department.

Police Staffing And Response Times

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Why do you all feel like we need four additional officers?

SPEAKER_03 5:08

Well, we've always been below the national average. Um nationally, uh there um it's a rate of about 2.4 officers per thousand residents. We're only at 1.75. And so I think we've been able to have some success with that because of our small footprint geographically. It's four square miles, so that helps. Um, but at the same time, things are changing, population is growing, and uh a lot more activity is coming our way. And so uh we would love to see four more. Even with four more, we'd still be below the national average. That would get us up to about 1.9 uh police officers per thousand residents. And again, the national average is about 2.4.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Well, how would these officers be assigned and what differences could residents see in their community?

SPEAKER_03 5:48

So that's still TBD. We don't know exactly, but we've talked about that. One option, if we get four officers, a very simple, clean option would be to add one to each of the four patrol shifts. And that's that would be uh a good idea to in terms of uh more visibility, more coverage, quicker response times. And I do like that. Um, but we also have talked about maybe being a little bit more flexible on that, maybe adding a couple to the night shift because when night shifts out there, they're all by themselves, they have no support. So maybe taking two there and then directing two more to special projects, uh, some concerns in the community, maybe narcotics and alcohol. Uh, could also be problem-oriented policing. Um, a lot of the problems we deal with uh uh cross over shifts. And so uh it's hard to have any one shift take responsibility for it. Also, a lot of the problems cross over departments in the city and uh maybe have someone really focused on on bringing people together to solve problems.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Are there any examples that have happened of uh situations where we could have benefited from from more officers?

SPEAKER_03 6:45

Um so it doesn't take a lot to tie us up. Um, if we have one major incident, everybody's there. And so we do rely on our partners. We have a great working relationship with Holland Park DPS, we have a great working relationship with SMUPD. And so we call on them when we need to, but uh there's always that vulnerability. Um whatever one big crook is maybe it's a major accident, we have that every once in a while, we'll have a fatality accident, and it really uh commits everybody that's on the streets. And so to have an extra body would be very helpful.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Well, if this passes, how soon would you be able to hire new officers?

SPEAKER_03 7:20

So if it passes in November, we will start working on that, but uh funding would not be available to after the first of the year. So it's it's a process, it takes a while in terms of uh background checks before we can bring someone on.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Sure, that makes sense. Well, Chief Howe, let's move on to the fire department.

Fire Staffing And Mutual Aid

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Why do you all feel like you need two more firefighters?

SPEAKER_02 7:40

So we have three shifts in the fire department, and they work on 48 and off 96. And on each one of those shifts, uh, we have 10, and one shift has 11. So what we're wanting to do is uh try to equal those out. Those two additional firefighters would allow us to have 11 uh firefighters across the board on all three shifts. And uh what that would do for us, you know, as opposed to uh what Chief Matthews just mentioned, uh the uh percentages uh and ratios of population versus police officers, we really work, we do consider that, but we really work more on staffing. Our primary objective is to have enough firefighters on a piece of equipment that allows us to perform our duties um quickly. Like, you know, when when a citizen calls for us, they want us to number one to get there quickly, right? They want us to be available, get there quickly. When we get there, they want us to have the equipment, the training, and the manpower to take care of whatever it is that's creating a problem for them. And uh, you know, we take that mission very seriously. And uh in doing so, uh, one of the things we need is additional personnel. And as uh Manager Corter mentioned a few minutes ago, uh, this will get us in stepping in the right direction. Two additional firefighters will round out those shifts, uh, give us 11 across the board. It will allow us to staff our ladder truck more frequently with the three personnel that we feel like are are needed uh in order to be able to accomplish those tasks that I mentioned earlier.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

Well, let's talk about your department in general because you get a lot of calls, you get called for a lot of different reasons. There's a lot of overlap with what your department does.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

Right. Right. Yeah, so you know, we we're an all-hazards department is what we refer to ourselves as. And and that's that's not uncommon in the Metroplex. Uh so the things that we respond to, if it doesn't involve a law enforcement agency issue, then fill in the blank with whatever it is uh that's the problem. We're we're obligated and responsible and expected to accomplish uh you know mitigation of that that particular incident, whatever that situation may be. And uh we are a small department. We are hate we have a single fire station. So we do rely on mutual aid. Um and we uh I'm I'm glad to say we've got great relationship with our partners in the region, which uh contiguous uh obviously with Dallas on three sides and Highland Park on the other. We've got uh current uh and very functional mutual aid and automatic assistance agreements with them. Uh the difference between those two, mutual aid, once we get there, we decide we're overwhelmed with what we need, or it exceeds our resources, then we can call for additional assistance. We also have automatic assistance, for example, on a structure fire, uh, that the agreements are in place that allow us to have Highland Park and uh Dallas respond at the same time. So our dispatchers will dispatch all of our personnel and equipment, uh, Highland Park's equipment and personnel, and also apparatus from apparatus being fire engines and trucks uh from the city of Dallas as well, which gives us a very robust first alarm structure fire response.

Residential Parking Tech And LPR

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Okay, well, as you know, I am on the retail advisory committee. We spend a lot of time talking about parking. The whole city spends a lot of time parking, talking about parking. So let's talk about parking. Um, it's coming up on this vote. And as you mentioned, Robbie, the different residential parking districts. Can you just talk a little bit about that? Because I feel like if you don't live in one of those areas, you might not totally understand what it is.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Sure. Martha, I'm happy to do that. Um, a little fun known uh unknown fact. Um, University Park, uh, the name actually refers to parking and uh it doesn't refer to the parks. Uh we always joke about that as a staff because uh all we do is talk about parking, it seems like um and we're certainly kind of headed toward uh towards that. Um so this is an interesting uh proposition for us related to residential parking districts because uh our streets are so crowded and we are a dense community. In fact, I think we are the densest residential community in Texas if you look at it per capita and per square mile basis. And so we have a lot of cars, and those cars can create issues for us uh over time. What we would like to do is to be more efficient. We'd like to use this technology to help us. And so uh I know the chief's gonna talk a little bit about just the administrative burden that that these particular districts uh put on staff, and hopefully we can redirect resources to other areas if this technology is successful.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Well, Chief Mathis, what what needs to be improved as far as what we have in place now and what what you can see improving?

SPEAKER_03 12:23

The primary concern that I have is the growth of the district as opposed to growth in staff to manage the district. Um it's not kept pace. It started out with about 500 residences, it's now over 2,000. So it's 300% growth in the people who have and need parking stickers with no growth in staff to manage it. And so all of this falls on one person primarily. She has a little bit of help, but it it is truly overwhelming to uh work that entire process of getting someone's application, reviewing it, verifying proof of residency, uh, and then processing the stickers and getting those available to them. So, what we would love to see happen is the technology take over to manage a lot of that for us, where uh the burden would be on the resident. It could be an easy online portal. We've already had some talks about it, where uh you have a username and a password, you log in, you verify your address, and you apply for, pay for if possible, uh if that comes to the paying, and then uh receive your uh approval. The difference would be there would no longer be uh stickers and permits that we get handed out. It's all license plate recognition based. And so once you enter your license plates in there, it is approved to park in the district. So when uh we equip our car with license plate recognition technology as well, it drives through the district and any approved vehicle that's in the system will not be alerted and it will they'll pass by. Uh, any vehicle that's not in the system, they'll get an alert and they can then at that point step out and issue a citation.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

So this is totally separate from Flock, which of course has been a very hot topic.

SPEAKER_03 13:52

Yes. So Flock is a platform that's investigative for criminal justice purposes. And um, so we have uh a little bit of that technology around the city that we use, and it's it's good for real-time uh crime management and also um investigative afterwards. The uh LPR-based technology for the parking, completely different. It's not storing plates, it's just uh doing a read to determine if a license plate is validated in that spot. We've been using it for many years in Snyder Plaza, Miracle Mile, and other overtime parking districts. Um it will uh GPS-based um mark a location of a vehicle, and then if the the vehicle comes back by to read it after over two hours, if it's still there, then they'll know that it's

Tax Impact And Senior Exemption

SPEAKER_03 14:34

in violation, they can issue a citation. So it's just for uh the immediate use that day of the parking officers.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

So, Chief Mathis, just to be clear, this is not funding for flock cameras.

SPEAKER_03 14:44

That's correct.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

All right, got it. Getting your business in front of Park City's families is one thing. Getting them to pay attention is another. That takes time, consistency, and trust. I've spent more than eight years building that relationship through the Bubble Lounge, and today, thousands of local listeners and followers tend to us for recommendations about what's happening in our community. What to put your business in front of them? Visit bubble lounge.net and click work with us. Well, Robbie, I want to hear a little bit more about this, the tax increase and just wanted to see if you could walk us through some examples of what this increase could look like to the typical homeowner.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Sure, happy to. So um the median home value in University Park is about $1.8 million. Um, and this particular request that's going before the voters, if passed, would would go beyond the the tax bill to the city by about $190. So if this passes, you will pay $100 more than you otherwise would have if it doesn't pass.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

So we're really just talking about an average of a little under $200 for the average homeowner to pay. And we in turn would get more police officers, more firefighters, better parking accommodations.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Absolutely. Um and I would add, you know, a better environment for our firefighters as as well, so that they are motivated and and have a good um uh sense of equity in their department. Um and we think that's a reasonable request. Uh our community, if you look at our community that care about public safety, our budget, for example, 50% of our budget is public safety. Um, and that's important because that's at the heart of what we do.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

So what will things look like if this doesn't pass?

SPEAKER_00 16:26

So if this doesn't pass, the way the mechanics of the law work is it would go back to the three and a half percent cap. Um so basically we would have a tax rate uh of about 21 cents instead of 22 cents. Um and of course, the the amount that you would pay in taxes if you own that mythical $1.8 million median household uh cost uh would be you would pay $200 less.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

So I know this question comes up a lot with tax increases, but what about homeowners that are 65 years and older?

SPEAKER_00 16:56

The over 65 uh exemption in University Park is is robust. We we do have a significant uh homestead exemption for seniors. Uh that is in an amount of $785,000. So if you're a senior and you own that mythical median $1.8 million home, you would subtract $785,000 from your taxable value. So it it decreases uh the amount of uh of your property taxes substantially uh in University Park, instead of it costing an additional $200 for seniors, it'll be an additional hundred dollars um because of that homestead exemption.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

Well, guys, why can't these items be covered under the existing budget as it is?

Why The Current Budget Cannot Cover It

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Sure. That's that's a good question. And we've actually been been getting that uh as well. So the limitations we were talking about earlier with uh Senate Bill 2 and the 3.5% cap really pose three problems uh for the city. Um and the the first one is that we're landlocked, meaning our values, our market value uh for property taxes is not increasing at a large rate because we're adding new development. The second reason is, and this is this is sort of difficult to explain if you're not in property tax world day-to-day, but um, we have a lot of exempt property. There's a lot of churches, there's a lot of schools. SMU obviously is an exempt property. So when you look at the market value of the city, about 59% of that uh market value is not taxable because it's an exempt property. You compare that with a city like Highland Park or uh Capel, they're at 79%. Um, so they have a lot more value that they can tax versus University Park. So that's a significant issue. The the third one is you know, we continue to experience a high rate of inflation. I think today the numbers just came out for the CPI and it was 3.7% for September. So we are uh not immune to those inflationary pressures as well. Um at 3.5% uh revenue growth, we get about $980,000 uh per fiscal year. The staffing request alone, just for the police and fire, almost equal that. So you can imagine with inflationary pressure and having um a difficulty with the amount of exempt properties, we we can't fit in those types of staffing requests into our normal budget.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

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Fire Pension Equity Explained

SPEAKER_01 20:05

or visit her website at Kathy Lwall.com and let her know, Martha from the Bubble Lounge, isn't you? Well, I have seen a lot of flyers around town and restaurants and businesses talking about this vote just to help people know what it's about. And one of the key points on there it's talking about is the pension plan. But I feel like there's not enough room on your flyer to really explain what that is, and I want to know more about that.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

Sure, I'm happy to. Uh, the pension plan for our fire department actually has quite a bit of history. Um, and we've put some information on that. It dates back to about uh 2017, but we had prior issues with that as well. And essentially what it boils down to is at the end of the day, there are new hires within our uh fire department that were hired since 2017 that are under a different pension system than than the other members of that department. And those two retirement systems are structured differently, they're not the same. It's it's difficult to compare apples and oranges. But what happens is the old system cost the members of the department a lot more. They have to pay 10% each time that they have a paycheck. The new members only pay 7%. Um, the benefit structure is different as well. So for the old system, the benefit structure is very front-loaded, meaning they get their benefit earlier on. For the new system, those firefighters, if they stay longer, their pension system eventually eclipses and benefits the the old one. And so we have to weigh this within the the department. As you can imagine, they they all live together. It's a it's a very uh delicate issue when you're talking about retirement.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Well, you guys have done a wonderful job explaining about the vote. And I really appreciate all the information, but it just leaves me with one last question. What happens if it doesn't pass?

SPEAKER_00 21:49

So if if this were to fail, um, what would happen is the the tax rate would drop down to the 3.5% cap. So we would go from a request of 22 cents down to 21 cents. Um, you know, again, we talked about that earlier. The the request adds about $200 to your median home home value in University Park. So that essentially means that you'll get that $200 back if this doesn't pass.

SPEAKER_03 22:14

Yeah, one consideration from the police side is we want uh the quickest response times possible. We want the residents as safe as possible, we want the officers as safe as possible. So adding staff on the streets is uh is a big boost for that, and that's the most important thing.

SPEAKER_02 22:28

Yeah, from a fire perspective, I'll say that my primary concern is making sure that I've got the staffing on the trucks that allow us to accomplish the mission of service that uh we're obligated to provide that's expected by our community. And uh and and when you look at regional comparisons, uh we're below that. And so that's a fact that the citizens need to be aware of, and and that validates the uh the request in in my mind for the additional firefighters.

If It Fails And How To Vote

SPEAKER_01 22:57

So when and how can people vote?

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Sure. Um, you know, early voting actually starts on October 19th. Uh so that's coming up really quick. Um and the the location for that is is in town. You can go to University of Break United Methodist Church. Um, and then obviously you'll have voting locations on on Tuesday, November 3rd as well.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

And if anyone should have any more questions, where should they go?

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Uh that's a great question, Mark. Thank you for asking. Uh, our website is uptexas.org/slash budget plus is where you'll find uh a lot of those answers to questions you might have. We are also answering questions that people send to us on that. So it's being updated on a regular basis.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

All right. Well, I will include all the details, the times, and the locations of where to vote so you guys don't have to remember anything. Well, gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been really informative, and I think a lot of people are going to benefit from it.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Thanks for having us. Thank you. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

That's been another episode of the Bubble Lounge. I'm Martha Jackson, and I'll see you next time.