And just when you thought Dallas' streets couldn't get any worse.

The Dallas City Council was told Wednesday that its decision to postpone the bond election until November means 105 miles' worth of bad roads won't be treated as once planned. The reason: The decision to delay a bond package pulls $27 million out of the streets budget approved by the council in September.

And for now, at least, that money will remain missing.

"Where will we reprogram money to fill this gap?" North Dallas council member Lee Kleinman asked at the end of a lengthy briefing concerning Dallas' rotting streets. The council had just been told that around 53 percent of the city's roadways are considered to be rapidly deteriorating.

When he received no answer, he told his colleagues that "everybody needs to go back and scrub their budgets to come up with $27 million to prevent them from degrading. That's the issue at hand, not some maybe-bond program in November."

City staff expected to treat 568 miles worth of fast-deteriorating streets if the bond election had been held in May. But the council was told Wednesday afternoon that number was down to 463 miles.

Two weeks ago, Kleinman was among the majority of council members siding with Mayor Mike Rawlings to push a would-be $800 million bond package from May until November. Rawlings has been calling for the delay for more than a year, insisting the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System crisis and coming trials involving public safety workers' back pay could break the city.

From the briefing given to the Dallas City Council on Wednesday

Council members fought against the delay, citing desperate infrastructure needs and long-held promises that this bond package would go toward repairing essentials. But a majority of the council eventually sided with Rawlings for various reasons. Kleinman, for one, believes the city shouldn't borrow hundreds of millions for deferred maintenance.

But the city's rotting infrastructure has become a major concern -- not just for residents who have to suffer driving over streets missing chunks of concrete, but for ratings agencies who continue to lower the city's bond ratings in the wake of the a looming pension fund disaster still without a fix.

The city's chief financial officer, Elizabeth Reich, told the council she believes it would be "responsible" to put a bond election to voters this year, and that waiting any longer would simply drive up the cost of repairs -- and borrowing.

She noted that in October 2015, when Moody's Investors Service became the first agency to downgrade the city's bond ratings, it "pointed particularly to infrastructure and suggested it's a financial weakness." She said Moody's saw crumbling streets, along with the fast-failing pension system, "as a cause for concern."

From Wednesday's briefing

Philip Kingston, East Dallas and downtown's representative, said he came to City Hall today in his "funeral suit" because "a dear neighbor is on her deathbed." He was referring to Matilda Street, one of countless streets in the city's in need of immediate attention.

"We come from dust and return to dust," Kingston said. "We all have Matildas in our districts."

Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Erik Wilson, a southern Dallas council representative, also wondered how the city would fill the $27-million-sized hole in the budget left by the absence of a bond election.

"Where are we going to get it?" he asked, again without a response. "We're going to have to look under the cushions."

He turned to City Manager A.C. Gonzalez, who, on Feb. 1, will be replaced by T.C. Broadnax, the city's first outside city manager in decades.

"A.C., I know you have $27 million somewhere," Wilson said. "A goodbye present?"

"Done," Gonzalez responded.

Except, no, it's not.