Dallas hired from within for its top non-elected job, naming Kimberly Bizor Tolbert as city manager, after she made strides in areas that affect real estate and development.
Tolbert merged the Planning and Urban Design department with the Development Services Department in June, creating the Planning and Development Department after the city’s bad streak of zoning and permitting errors and delays in recent years.
By October, the department had closed half of its backlog of 9,800 inactive permits and cut the time it took to get a commercial construction permit to 122 days from 300 in 2021.
City officials also credited her with the largest property tax rate cut in Dallas’ modern history, a part of the city’s almost $5 billion budget for fiscal year 2024-2025 approved last fall, at 70.47 cents per $100 valuation, a decrease of 3.10 cents. The savings works out to about $62 per year on a $200,000 home.
Tolbert, a Dallas native, started as deputy city manager in 2017 before she took over as interim city manager last year, hot off an almost nine-year stint in various executive roles for the North Texas Tollway Authority.
She started working for Dallas back in the ’90s, when she was assistant city manager to then-manager Ted Benavides from 1998 to 2004. She then managed fiscal affairs as assistant director of finance and administration for the city’s Aviation Department before starting at the toll authority in 2008. She holds a master’s degree in public administration from the University of North Texas.
City council approved the hire in a 9-2 vote Wednesday, and her salary was set at $450,000 a year, topping her predecessor’s salary and making her the third-highest-paid city manager in Texas.
Mayor Eric Johnson was among those who voted in Tolbert’s favor, with council members Cara Mendelsohn and Paul Ridley dissenting. She beat two other candidates for the position: William Johnson, Fort Worth assistant city manager, and Mario Lara, Sacramento assistant city manager.
Tolbert, the first Black woman to serve as Dallas’ chief executive, served as interim city manager after T.C. Broadnax stepped down to become Austin’s city manager in May. She was widely seen as the front-runner in the nearly year-long search for Broadnax’s replacement.
Randall Bryant of the Dallas Black Chamber of Commerce said the city had seen its “best days” under Tolbert.
CEO and co-founder of investment banking firm Churchill Capital Jim Neal credited Tolbert with last year’s deal that brought the National Women’s Soccer League team he founded, Dallas Trinity FC, to the Cotton Bowl.
Tolbert managed to sidestep the dramatics of city politics wrought by the search, including city council infighting and concerns over transparency in the city’s selection process. Discussions moved to executive sessions without explanation and semi-finalist interviews were hosted online the day before Christmas Eve.
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