This roundup of news around the city of Dallas includes the city's new budget for next year, two lawsuits, and an awesome subversive campaign to challenge a dumb Texas law. A famous book about Dallas is free for the taking during September, and last but not least, you can sing karaoke with Kelly Clarkson this weekend.

Here's what's happening around Dallas this week:

Dallas city budget
City Manager T.C. Broadnax released his proposed biennial budget for FY 2022-23 and FY 2023-24 in August. The Year 2022-23 total operating and capital budget totals $4.51 billion compared to 2021's budget of $4.35 billion.

Property taxes account for roughly 56.3 percent of the General Fund Revenue. In the past year, Dallas property values have grown by 15.1 percent, an increase that means the property tax rate can be reduced by 2.75¢, from 77.33¢ per $100 valuation to 74.58¢. This is expected to save homeowners an average of $70.60.

The city produced a trio of "Budget 101" animated videos in English and Spanish that explain the budget in its simplest form, including Budgeting Basics, Where Does The Money Come From, and Where Does The Money Go?. They can be found on YouTube.

Free book
Dallas publisher Deep Vellum has published 30,000 copies of The Accommodation, a book first published in 1986 about race relations in Dallas, and is making them free. They're available at a variety of locations throughout the month of September, listed here.

Dallas Pension Fund
The Dallas Police & Fire Pension System has asked a Texas state court for a new trial in its $1.2 billion lawsuit accusing The Townsend Group of failing to warn it about risks of investing in undeveloped land. The jury found the Dallas pension to be 75 percent at fault for its own financial woes. The pension fund claims that the jury was tainted by Townsend's suggestion that the suit was invented by lawyers.

Texas cringe, part 1
SB 797 is a recently adopted Texas law requiring that public schools display a poster bearing the motto "In God We Trust." The posters must include the state and U.S. flags. So a Southlake area resident, Sravan Krishna, submitted four deliciously colorful signs of the motto to the Carroll school district, including one with a rainbow background, and another with "In God We Trust" written in Arabic. but the school board rejected them, saying it had enough signs. "Why is more God not good? I think it's kind of un-American to reject posters of our national motto," Krishna said. There's an ongoing campaign to submit "In God We Trust" signs in various languages, including Vulcan, to school districts in Texas. Fundraising efforts to pay for the signs have raised nearly $50,000.

Texas cringe, part 2
Gov. Greg Abbott has started sending charter buses of migrants from Texas to Chicago, joining Washington D.C. and New York City as drop-off points. Abbott first announced his idiotic plan in April and the state has since sent between 8,000 to 9,000 migrants out of state. The Chicago Tribune called them political pawns that were being trafficked by Abbott, and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot described Abbott as a "man without any morals" whose loading them onto buses without any regard for what would happen to them was "inhumane."

But on the flipside, immigration rights experts say that Abbott's program is inadvertently a generous publicly funded service to help immigrants. "Abbott is one of the only state actors that is giving immigrants a free benefit, a free ride," says Abel Nuñez, executive director of the Central American Resource Center. "You're actually creating a free program that if a Democrat would have said it, he would have gone against it."

Media lawsuit
Monty Bennett, owner of a publication called Dallas Express, lost his appeal in a lawsuit he filed against another publication called the Dallas Weekly and writer Steven Monacelli that accused them of committing libel with a story they published in 2021 called Formerly Black Owned Dallas Express Resurrected As Right Wing Propaganda Site.

Emergency seminar
24HourDallas invites members of the public, service & hospitality industry professionals, security, and entertainment area workers to an Active Shooter Response and Stop-the-Bleed Training at It’ll Do Club on Tuesday September 6 from 4-6 pm. Dallas Police Department and Methodist Dallas Medical Center will equip participants with the knowledge to develop emergency action plans, recognize life-threatening bleeding, and how to act quickly to protect patrons and employees alike.

Kelly Clarkson Kellyoke
The Kelly Clarkson Show hits Dallas this weekend with its "Kellyoke Search" tour bus, inviting fans to sing a virtual duet with the vivacious star. The bus will be at Klyde Warren Park on Saturday September 3, from 11 am-6 pm. Dallas is one of only four cities on this tour, along with New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and some of the performances may appear on The Kelly Clarkson Show.