Dallas pools could survive cuts as officials review city’s aquatics master plan

Budget cuts may not yet affect Dallas’ nine community pools.

Instead, park officials have suggested reducing hours to three days a week during the summer to reduce operating costs and focus on the broader aquatic master plan to prioritize the future of the pools.

The city is drawing up a budget to make up for a $38 million deficit. Departments were asked to find ways to reduce their budgets by 6%.

When Parks Department Director John Jenkins introduced cuts that would also reduce the city’s contribution to its public-private partnerships like the Dallas Zoo and the Trinity River Audubon Center, some members of the Parks Board, which oversees the department, said the pool closures could negatively impact communities in the southern half of the city, since most of the pools are located south of I-30.

However, all the pools are decades old and difficult to maintain, Jenkins said.

“I can’t think of a single year in the last 10 years where a community pool has stayed open year-round without some of them breaking down,” Jenkins said Monday during a Parks, Trails and Environment committee meeting.

The city adopted a water master plan in 2015 to modernize its facilities.

Jesse Moreno, a council member and former parks board member, said the board at the time said it would re-evaluate the pools. “I think that’s where we are today,” Moreno said, adding that the council needed community input to outline the needs.

Officials will consider whether there is room for a new water park, a new aquatic facility or whether it can partner with nearby universities and the Dallas Independent School District to use existing facilities.

Council members wanted to determine whether the shorter hours would be phased out and whether a future bond investment would be made for the pools. Jenkins said he was seeking private funding to revive the pools.

The department, Jenkins said, had hoped to use bond funds from the recent package to replace all community pools. That was not possible after the final bond allocation of $345 million, the second-highest slice of the pie, but less than the department requested.

Two new pools will receive bond dollars: a new facility to replace the current Jaycee Zaragoza Pool in West Dallas and a new pool at Singing Hills in South Dallas.

“We can continue to invest money and have record bonus packages, but we can also continue to allow our assets to crumble before our eyes,” said Deputy Mayor Pro Tempore Adam Bazaldua.