Merry shopping

Shoppers in this Dallas-Fort Worth city have the fattest holiday budgets, study says

Shoppers in Flower Mound are spending the most.

Photo courtesy of Holiday Shopping Card

If a new study from personal finance website WalletHub is an accurate gauge, Santa will be stuffing a lot of stockings in Flower Mound this holiday season.

The study pegs Flower Mound as the No. 1 city in the U.S. for the fattest holiday shopping budgets — $2,761 per person, an amount sure to be the envy of any elf. That’s nearly 175 percent above the projected U.S. average, $1,007, for per-person spending this holiday season.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Flower Mound sat among the top 2 percent of U.S. cities for the rise in credit card debt from the first quarter of 2018 to the second quarter of 2018, according to a separate WalletHub study. Between the two periods, the average credit card debt for a Flower Mound household grew by $676, winding up at $22,456.

For the holiday shopping study, WalletHub looked at several key metrics, such as income and savings-to-expense ratio, to estimate the upper-limit holiday spending tab for consumers in 570 U.S. cities.

Flower Mound is one of six Texas cities appearing in the top 20 for holiday shopping budgets. Two more in DFW made the cut: Allen, $2,244 (No. 8); and Plano, $2,006 (No. 13).

Also on WalletHub’s list (and presumably Santa’s) are:

The Woodlands, $2,444 (No. 5)
Sugar Land, $2,321 (No. 7)
Pearland, $2,238 (No. 9)

WalletHub analyst Jill Gonzalez tells CultureMap that Flower Mound and The Woodlands are the holiday-budget havens of Texas thanks to their high household incomes and low debt-to-income ratios.

For Flower Mound, the median annual household income is $133,521, and the debt-to-income ratio is 33.8 percent. For The Woodlands, the median annual household income is $117,180 and the debt-to-income ratio is 34.4 percent.

wallethub shopping rankings holidays

Politics News

Dallas narrows down field for new city manager to 4 candidates

Photo by R K on Unsplash

This is an Dallasite's sign to launch that small business they've been dreaming of.

After six months without a city manager, the city of Dallas has narrowed down the field of replacements to four semifinalists including one serving as current interim city manager, plus candidates from Fort Worth, Michigan, and Georgia.

Dallas has been without a city manager since May, when previous city manager T.C. Broadnax left to take a job with the city of Austin. Since that time, Broadnax's former chief of staff Kimberly Bizor Tolbert has served as interim city manager.

The city retained Baker Tilly, a consulting firm, to recruit and compile candidates. (Baker Tilly famously erred in the brochure it created for the position by featuring a photo of the Houston skyline instead of Dallas; they've since replaced it with Dallas.)

A spokesperson for Baker Tilly did not respond to inquiries but according to D Magazine, an email listing the candidates has been sent to the Dallas City Council.

The semifinalists include:

Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, Dallas’ current interim city manager
William Johnson, an assistant city manager in Fort Worth
Mark Washington, the city manager of Grand Rapids, Michigan
Zachary Williams, a county chief operating officer in Georgia

All have more than 25 years' of public administration experience and have worked in similar capacities in their respective cities.

Before working in Fort Worth, Johnson was Baltimore’s transportation director and Atlanta’s deputy chief operating officer and public works commissioner.

Washington worked in Fort Worth and Austin before becoming Grand Rapids’ city manager.

Williams has mostly worked in Georgia at the county level, including serving as county manager in Fulton County and chief operating officer in DeKalb County.

Tolbert began working for the city in 1998, first as the city manager’s assistant and later in the aviation department. Broadnax hired her as his chief of staff in 2017.

Unlike the Mayor and the Dallas City Council, the city manager position in Dallas is not elected but is instead appointed by the city council, and is tasked with executing policies, overseeing the annual budget, and managing staff at city hall.

The council’s Ad Hoc Committee will choose finalists, introduce them to the public, and make an offer in early 2025.

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