Dallas Reviews

Most of the aspects of the employee experience are broken or missing here. These are things that you may take for granted at other employers but are a problem at the City of Dallas: – starting the job in the first place is a broken system: it may take months between the day you apply and getting an offer letter – pension is required and requires 13.3% of your paycheck to be taken out and vests only after 5 years, so if you don't stay for a full 5 years then you'll walk with only what you put in and effectively have had a savings account with NO interest – healthcare, dental, vision, and supplemental life insurance are offered, but the coverage is not great – getting essential things like a badge, email address, computer, etc. are difficult and may not happen for as long as weeks after you start – things like a microwave or a cup of coffee may be nonexistent or hard to come – the majority of office spaces are dirty (many aren't serviced by custodians) and don't have any natural light – the bathrooms are dirty, graffitied, and offer little privacy – pay will be lower than industry standard and raises other than small inflation raises are essentially impossible once you start – accomplishing projects frequently takes much longer than planned and may not happen at all – culture is very leadership focused, sorta the opposite of 'open door policy'... you may not be able to access leaders if needed – most employee services, such as HR or IT, don't do much to support employees other than enforcing policies

Health care is ok. Average coverage, neither good nor bad, but a little expensive. Dental and vision are both awful. Dental offers you either a very expensive option or a cheap option that limits you to a few select, low quality dentistries. Vision is similar. Everything at the City is obsessively focused on equity and inclusion. While these are good things to focus on, there is no focus put on excellence or performance. There is no incentive to do well because the presumption is that everything will be equalized anyway, so there's not really a way to move up or earn any sort of additional benefit from doing a good job. The City takes 13% of your paycheck automatically and puts it in the pension system. If you do not end up vesting (5 years) or taking the pension, then you can take your contributions back when you leave, but they will have gained no interest and will be penalized or roll over into a 401k. If you do take the pension, those contributions to the pension will only outperform investing them in a 401k if you're older and have less time for them to grow. Younger employees joining the city do not benefit from this system.