The Arlington City Council held a special meeting on August 4, 2026, beginning with an executive session at 12:00 PM followed by an open work session at 2:40 PM. The open session included a detailed presentation of the proposed FY2027 budget, an update on the council priority to enhance mobility, and discussions on election-related policies, candidate filing fees, mayor and council compensation, and other administrative items. No public comments were received. The meeting adjourned at 5:20 PM.
FY2027 Budget Presentation (Item 3.1): City Manager Trey Yelverton presented the proposed budget, highlighting the current tax policy environment. He noted that the city’s tax rate is below the no-new-revenue rate for the first time, due to a significant drop in taxable values driven by the Tarrant County Appraisal District's practices. The proposed budget keeps the tax rate unchanged at $0.6298 per $100 valuation, includes a 3% across-the-board employee raise, a $500 per employee HSA/wellness credit, and restores prior cuts to library collections, animal shelter hours, and the employee picnic. The budget funds police fleet expansion (10 additional vehicles above the normal 30), a senior landscape technician, and street maintenance (an additional $5.4 million in sales tax funds). Reserves are maintained at 20% of expenditures. Council members discussed the possibility of setting the maximum tax rate at the voter-approved rate ($0.6363) or the no-new-revenue rate to provide flexibility, with several expressing preference for the latter. A public hearing on the maximum tax rate will be held the following week. Council also discussed potential impacts of a Major League Baseball work stoppage on sales tax revenue.
Council Priority – Enhance Mobility (Item 3.2): Deputy City Manager Lemuel Randolph reported on the city's mobility initiatives. Key updates included: street condition index showing 644 lane miles in 'red' condition (up from 629), with 35 lane miles slated for repair; the new Traffic Management Center is operational and was used successfully during FIFA World Cup games; several street reconstruction projects are underway (Debbie Lane, Martin Luther King Drive, Mitchell Street completed; Mansfield Webb Road construction began in April). The Safe Streets implementation plan aims for zero traffic deaths by 2050. Regional updates included discussions on DART membership and the possibility of withdrawal by some suburban cities, and a $6.4 million BUILD grant for Union Pacific Railroad grade separation planning at Cooper and Collins streets. The Arlington airport saw a 166% increase in fuel sales during the World Cup (270,000 gallons).
Election Activities at Municipal Polling Places (Item 4.1): Staff proposed uniform campaign sign restrictions at city-owned polling places, designating a 1,500-square-foot area for signs, consistent with current practice at the Bob Duncan Center. Council members generally supported the idea, with discussion on preventing sign stacking and ensuring the 1,500‑square‑foot minimum works at all locations. The city attorney noted that Tarrant County Commissioners Court had withdrawn a proposed reduction in election-day polling locations in Arlington.
Candidate Filing Fees and Petition Requirements (Item 4.2): Mayor Ross proposed increasing the filing fee from $100 to $250 and requiring signatures (100 for district candidates, 250 for citywide candidates, with an option to double signatures in lieu of fee). City staff clarified that state law sets the minimum signature requirement at either 25 or 0.5% of the mayoral vote in the last election, whichever is greater, and cities cannot set a higher number. Council members expressed caution about making it harder to run and agreed to study the issue further, including examining other cities' practices and the actual cost of administering the program before taking action.
Mayor and City Council Compensation (Item 4.3): Mayor Ross initiated discussion on increasing council pay from $200/month and mayor pay from $250/month, noting the last adjustment was in 1980. He proposed placing a charter amendment on the 2028 ballot, with increases taking effect after the current council's terms. Council members expressed varied views: some supported modest increases to broaden candidate diversity and offset costs, while others worried about making the position too attractive for the wrong reasons. No decision was made; the topic will be revisited after the budget process.
Adopt‑A‑Median Program Update (Item 4.4): Code Compliance Director Alex Busken was available for questions. No council questions were raised.
Appointments to Boards and Commissions (Item 4.5): City Secretary Garcia noted 12 appointments on the evening agenda. Mayor Ross announced he was pulling his prior appointment to Planning and Zoning and replacing it with Paul Johnson.
Evening Agenda Items (Item 4.6): Councilmember Gonzalez indicated he would pull Item 7.12 for a separate vote. Councilmembers noted that a 30‑day continuance to September 8 had been requested for Item 7.13 (Viridian/Wilma Street issue).
Council External Committees (Item 4.8): Mayor Ross reported on the U.S. Conference of Mayors Executive Committee, noting national housing challenges and a desire for bipartisan approaches. He also reported on the North Central Texas Council of Governments (COG) Executive Board, where a settlement of the lawsuit between COG and the Regional Transportation Council (RTC) has been reached; a special COG meeting was scheduled for August 5 to details. Councilmember Gonzalez reported on the RTC Transit Vision Subcommittee, which focused on preparing for the 2027 Texas legislative session, including a proposal to connect DART and Denton County Transit Authority lines in Carrollton.
All right, we have a quarter, so we're gonna go ahead and get started. We'll call the afternoon session of the Arlington City Council meeting to order. So right now we're gonna go into an executive closed session. Okay, we're gonna go ahead and call the afternoon session of the city council meeting back to order. We're gonna move on down to 3.1. And ain't nothing we love more than this time of year diving into the budget, Trey. Yes, sir. Uh it's that uh that time of the year, and uh Mary commented about welcoming everybody back, hope everybody had a good break and all that, and um the staff at the same time was um doing a lot of things, working on preparing the budget, um, but also out there doing a lot of really unique and kind of cool things this year, right? So uh it's there's been a lot going on in 2026, and I think we just saw the the kind of the culmination of it all this most um last month or two with FIFA World Cup and just uh just wanted to take a minute to say thank you to everything you guys did to help enable us to go do the things that we needed to. Um Jennifer Wickman and the whole uh leadership team there as far as what all of our staff did police, fire, uh, finance, public works, traffic engineer, everything. It was a ton of work to execute all that stuff on a global stage and to make it all really go smoothly, and I'm very proud um of the team and what they were able to achieve. And uh that's not able to be done but for uh enabling things like what we're talking about today, you know, what's in the budget, what are the tools, what are the authorities that we have to uh help do things on behalf of our residents, our visitors, et cetera. And so that's what we want to talk about today, but I wanted to start with by just giving a huge thank you to you all and to really all of our staff who um have pulled double and triple time uh this this summer in particular on some of the things that were going on, and so um we've done a few things here to hopefully recognize a little bit of that. So what I want to do today is hit a little bit about where we've been recently, also what the current tax policy environment is and kind of where we're proposing to head for 27. Um you all have seen and uh we've um relinked them here for you all in the public, but each one of these little lined things is a past presentation, and you can click on it and pull the data so that I don't have to go through some of the comparisons in particular, but looking at some of our forecast, uh love the benchmarking that we do against all the other cities in the region as it relates to per capita expenditures and tax rates and homestead exemptions and all that, and you'll find as usual we're more than competitive and holding holding things very strong there, but all those are there for you to look at. Um and then of course we met back in the springtime and kind of revalidated what it was our priorities are because we can while we can do anything, we can't do everything. And so what are the things that are the most important? What are the things that are truly the priorities? And we have areas that kind of categorize on that into mobility, the economy, our financial stability, as well as uh our broad community. So as we've worked on this budget, there's been a number of things we're trying to do. This is a lot of work that's constant and ongoing. It's really a 24-7 uh 365 kind of situation. But uh working a lot on making sure that we have uh redundancy and kind of uh different kinds of resiliency in our financial policy so that um we're able to weather some of the storms that are out there for us. We'll talk a little bit more about that. We're doing some managed competition. We always do a lot of outsourcing, uh now we're doing some kind of competing of insourcing and outsourcing, putting things side by side. Right now we're in the uh Meadowbrook Park area looking at the uh the running of the golf center, and uh we'll have something on that later in the year. Kind of see what that looks like. Always looking for interlocal uh partnerships and more innovation to drive costs down. And then the kind of the big question mark out there a lot is AI and what does that mean for efficiency of services and productivity enhancements, and we're learning a lot and we're deploying some things, but also being um consistent with the law and smart and savvy about how we're how we're doing it. Part of that smart and savvy elements really relates to a lot of the best practices that we rely on, no matter you name it, um out there with planning or parks or police and the emergency. If there's an accreditation or some kind of best practice, you don't really have to take our word for it. We're letting others from outside organization come in and look under the hood and kind of tell us some things that we ought to be doing to work on and improve and uh really really proud of of all of those. Now, probably most proud of though is what we did in 2025. Um we all know we had a severe kind of market dislocation in fiscal 25 that led into a lot of work that we did this time last year and even before for fiscal 26. But I wanted to pause to first start by kind of celebrating some of the good work. Um, uh, you know, things like the active. I mean, I was just over there the other day for a retiree uh reception. And I mean, the place was just vibrant. It was just full of people in the whole building in the pool and all the gyms and all the rooms. We got that facility uh open, and as you all know, that carries with it a subsidy to operate uh that facility, million and a half a year to support that, not just to build it, but to support it. But up and done. Reaffirmed our bond ratings, including our triple A rating from SP instituted programs that are gonna help us be more efficient out there, such as uh drone as a first responder program, improving corridors and the clean team as far as uh sign removal and median uh mowing, and then innovations like what I've seen with uh UTA and the PD on their cold case efforts, right? I mean, how cool is that? The code case efforts that the police department have undertaken in the last say 18 months are just off the charts uh outstanding to draw closure and to solve things that people thought long would not be solved. And in fact, the the fact that we were working with some other tools just right across the street trying to help is also really, really helpful. We did all that in 2025 while facing unprecedented financial challenges, and we did it that year, adjusting our budget, minimizing our cash uh flows, and ending in the black uh with no drawdown on reserves and no audit findings. I mean, that's just a really strong team committed to executing financially at the highest levels to keep the machine running, but to do that all financially in that way. Now, we made a lot of changes that year during mid-year, and then in preparation for fiscal 26. Fiscal 26 has really been um almost like clockwork.