Sep. 2--Cities here and beyond face years of lean times as the wreckage of the economic downturn lingers at the local level, a survey by the National League of Cities has found.

Nine in every 10 cities surveyed nationwide are struggling financially, with costs outpacing revenues by a wide margin.

In North Texas, those struggles have materialized in the form of budget cuts, tax increases and other measures in communities as small as Sachse and as large as Dallas and Plano.

"We're going to have to find some things in our budget and do some things differently from now on," said Mayor Phil Dyer of Plano, which is contemplating only its second property tax rate increase since 1990.

The findings are the grimmest in the 24 years since the Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group started its yearly budget survey. Nearly 400 communities took part this year, including 44 in Texas.

Even as the national economy displays signs of recovery, city budgets are likely to remain in a malaise for some time.

Property tax rolls, the lifeblood for many local governments, have only recently begun reflecting last year's housing decline. That, coupled with falling sales tax receipts and other revenue, has clouded the budget outlooks of many communities.

Moreover, three-quarters of the cities surveyed said revenue is falling at a time when expenses are rising for everything from health benefits to public safety.

Impact hits

"The real full-force impact of the economic downturn is coming to bear in the cities," said Christopher W. Hoene, an NLC research director and one of the study's authors.

Many North Texas cities took preemptive steps this summer by putting off capital projects, cutting vacant positions and raising fees.

Still, most face their worst financial squeezes in decades, conjuring memories of when the 1980s savings-and-loan collapse helped create crippling deficits in Dallas and other cities.

The region's largest cities, Dallas and Fort Worth, must scale the biggest budget mountains.

A $190 million shortfall in Dallas -- equivalent to about 10 percent of the budget -- has the city poised to lay off hundreds of employees and slash services ranging from recreation centers to after-school programs.

Fort Worth may shut down its seven city pools and order most employees to take up to eight days of unpaid leave. The furloughs would not apply to police and firefighters.

To balance its general fund, the city also could tap a sacrosanct capital reserve that was created with tax revenue from the Barnett Shale gas field.