Dallas Passed the Bond Package. Now What?

“When will my project be done?” That’s the million dollar question. Actually, $1.25 billion to be exact.
But how do you tackle more than 800 municipal bond projects, let alone prioritize which ones go first? That’s the task that Jenny Nicewander and the City of Dallas’ Office of Bond and Construction Management have in store.
Nicewander sat down with host April Towery to discuss next steps, that massive police training facility, and why these millions of dollars won’t fix your potholes.
Why won’t Dallas fix the potholes? Well, they will, but not from this bucket of money, Nicewander explained. Bond projects should have a 20-year life, so, for example, pothole repairs aren’t eligible for a bond program, but street reconstructions are.
“The bonds that we sell, we pay back over a 20-year period,” Nicewander said. “So we want to make sure that the life of whatever it is that we’re building for those bonds will at least live the life of our payback period.”