OPENPUBLICA · PUBLIC MEETING RECORD
Record of Proceedings

Fort Worth City Council Budget Public Hearing for FY 2027 - August 25, 2026

City Council — Tuesday, August 25, 2026
BodyFort Worth, Texas
SessionCity Council
DateTuesday, August 25, 2026
StatusNEW · FILED
Video Record
0:00 / 1:21:32

Transcript — Verbatim
0:06

Good evening.

0:08

We're gonna get started and try to get everybody out of here on time.

0:11

Hi.

0:12

My name is Macy Hill, and I have the honor to represent District 7.

0:16

We appreciate you taking time out of your Wednesday evening to spend it with us and talk about all the fun topics of the budget for 2027 fiscal year.

0:24

I'm gonna turn it over to our city manager, Jay Choppa.

0:27

And I know we have lots of city staff here, so y'all please ask questions along the way.

0:31

We want to make sure we get all of your questions answered and feel like y'all have satisfied, you know, go on through the budget and have satisfied answers before you leave tonight.

0:39

So Jay, thanks.

0:41

Well, good evening.

0:42

Thank you all for being here.

0:44

Um I'm really just gonna turn it over to the person that's really gonna go through the slides, but I did want to mention um, so this is the city manager's proposed budget under state law.

0:54

Ultimately, the city has to adopt a balanced budget.

0:58

And one of the jobs of the city manager and staff is to provide the city council with a proposed budget that they then begin their budget deliberations off of.

1:08

And so you'll see as you go through here some of the impacts that we've had from the TAD valuations going down overall and their new format of of value in every other year, although they skip two years.

1:21

Um I had a conversation, quick conversation at a reception with Ross Perot.

1:26

I thought this would be a kind of a funny and interesting um a note.

1:32

Ross Perot Jr.

1:33

and I saw each other, and he said, and it was with the Wisdom announcement.

1:37

And he said, Man, Fort Worth is blowing and going.

1:40

You guys got stuff going on everywhere.

1:42

Y'all just it must be awesome.

1:44

And I said, Well, we're looking at about a 75 million dollar budget shortfall.

1:48

And his face was like how does that how does that work?

1:53

That's what he told me.

1:54

And I said, I explained, well, it's they're not appraising like they used to.

1:59

And so he he was confused.

2:00

You could tell he was confused and he changed the subject, but um, so you know, getting through this budget process has been difficult.

2:12

And and as a city manager, one of my goals overall was to try to ensure that the services to the citizens weren't impacted completely where uh we thought that would we'd begin having a lot of complaints from the citizens.

2:27

Wanted to make sure that police and fire specifically, but emergency response also stayed up with growth so that we can those are the the large the loudest screams, and of course they're rightly so.

2:40

And then finally, try to ensure that we don't do things that are gonna put our taxpayers way out of whack with everybody, everybody else in the in the region in the area, right?

2:51

Try to keep make sure that Fort Worth can still compete overall.

2:54

So hopefully we did that.

2:56

I'm gonna turn it over to Christianne Simmons.

3:00

She is leads the budget group.

3:02

She's our chief transformation officer.

3:05

And um, she's gonna go through the slides and as was mentioned, ask questions as you go along the way.

3:11

Um so you can jump from fund to fund to fund and uh there's a lot of information here.

3:17

So Christian.

3:19

Thank you.

3:20

All right, good evening, everyone.

3:21

Christie Ansimmons.

3:22

I'm the director of the Fort Worth Lab, which is the city's budget and data and performance group.

3:26

It is my pleasure to be here with you tonight.

3:29

I know you will forgive me if I have to look at my notes since this is our first presentation, and we just did this yesterday.

3:34

So I feel like my brain's a little scrambled.

3:37

But thank you so much for coming out.

3:38

This is sort of a continuation of our budget public engagement because maybe some of you participated in some of our early priority surveys and those kinds of things.

3:46

So we certainly appreciate the engagement at any stage of the process.

3:51

Uh Jay touched on some of these already, but you know, every budget year has sort of themes that emerge.

3:55

Um, and this year, certainly the theme has been this structural imbalance that we're seeing between the activities of our growth, like our big growth in the city, which we're all aware of, and how that growth is not translating to growth in our property tax values, which are our biggest source of revenue in the general fund.

4:12

And so Jay talked a little bit about that.

4:14

Um, if you're very interested in all the drivers about TAD, I will tell you we did a pretty deep dive um with council on August 4th, if you'd like to just really hear all the detail about that.

4:25

But the crux of it is not just the TAD reappraisal plan, which you're probably familiar with by now.

4:30

They adopted that in 2024 and decided we'll only re-appraise residential property every other year.

4:35

So the first year was a freeze.

4:37

This year was the first year with no reappraisal on residential property, and then we'll get reappraised the next year.

4:42

So that's a whole kind of a new thing we've been having to forecast for.

4:46

The other thing that kind of really threw us out of whack when we got our certified values is just the I would call them like historic um unprecedented, staggering uh litigation in the mid year and mid-year value loss.

5:00

So kind of the erosion in values between April and July.

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting
Budget Equity Analysis████████████████████████████████████████40%
Public Safety███████████11%
Water And Wastewater Management███████████11%
Public Engagement█████████9%
Public Works████████8%
Economic Development████████8%
Public Health████4%
Library Services████4%
Environmental Protection███3%
Summary of Proceedings

Fort Worth City Council Budget Public Hearing for FY 2027 - August 25, 2026

The Fort Worth City Council held a public hearing on the City Manager's proposed budget for fiscal year 2027 on August 25, 2026. The presentation highlighted a $94 million gap due to structural imbalance from reduced property tax valuations, leading to a recommended tax rate increase from 67 cents to 70.2 cents per $100 valuation. City staff detailed cuts across departments, with a focus on preserving public safety and minimizing service-level impacts. Several members of the public spoke in support of or against the proposed tax rate increase and specific cuts.

Public Comments & Testimony

  • A speaker (identified as a former council member) supported raising the tax rate to the voter-approved rate plus unused increment, citing concerns about future state mandates and the need to fund services.
  • Melissa Scott, Library Advisory Board member, thanked staff for not deeply cutting library budgets and highlighted the library's growth and partnerships.
  • Carol Peters, West Bedabrick Neighborhood Association, expressed concern about cuts to code compliance and the HOPE team, noting the strain on the 43% of the budget that is flexible.
  • A speaker (Kathy Nies Brown) thanked the presenters and reiterated support for the library.
  • A speaker (Dan) asked about Lake Worth lake marshal budget, noting no changes were proposed.
  • A speaker commented on the 8.5% salary increase for fire department, calling it unreasonable compared to private sector.
  • Another speaker supported increasing the tax rate to address the structural imbalance, while another individual said they were happy to see their taxes go down and suggested a voluntary contribution option.

Discussion Items

  • City Manager Jay Choppa explained the $75 million shortfall and the need to balance the budget, noting the first property tax rate increase since 1995.
  • Chief Transformation Officer Christianne Simmons presented the budget breakdown: $3.32 billion operating budget, general fund growing 4.6%, overall operating funds growing 7.5%. The gap was closed through 1% departmental cuts ($7.8M), 3% additional reductions ($14.5M), deeper reductions, revenue increases (e.g., aviation covering fire costs, development services fee increases), and a 3.2-cent tax rate increase.
  • Key proposed reductions: elimination of the Fire Department's HOPE program (homeless outreach), reduction of the PetSmart Adoption Center at Alliance, 3% reduction in code compliance and neighborhood services priority repair program, phasing of the Neighborhood Improvement Program ($4M to $1M), and 90% reduction in the transfer to the Economic Development Incentives Fund ($5M to $500k).
  • Public safety additions: 76 patrol officers, creation of corporal positions, funding for fire overtime and fleet, and continuation of AI triage assistive technology for 911.
  • Infrastructure: street maintenance fee authorized for FY28, pay-go capital reduced by $2.8M due to static rate and falling values.
  • Enterprise funds: water budget growing 8.7%, stormwater 5% rate increase, solid waste, aviation, parking.
  • Special revenue: CCPD adding school resource officers, EMS growing 16% with $30M general fund subsidy, environmental protection flat, municipal golf self-supporting.
  • Average taxpayer: home value decreased, tax rate increase results in slight tax bill decrease ($16.69), but total resident charges (water, solid waste, etc.) increase by $5.70/month.

Key Outcomes

  • No formal votes were taken at this public hearing; the meeting was informational and for public input.
  • City Council will hold additional budget work sessions and public hearings; adoption is scheduled for September 15, 2026.
  • The proposed tax rate of 70.2 cents per $100 is under consideration; a speaker advocated for raising it to the voter-approved rate of 78 cents.
  • Staff will provide additional information on reductions to code compliance, neighborhood services, and the HOPE program in future work sessions.

Meeting Transcript

Good evening. We're gonna get started and try to get everybody out of here on time. Hi. My name is Macy Hill, and I have the honor to represent District 7. We appreciate you taking time out of your Wednesday evening to spend it with us and talk about all the fun topics of the budget for 2027 fiscal year. I'm gonna turn it over to our city manager, Jay Choppa. And I know we have lots of city staff here, so y'all please ask questions along the way. We want to make sure we get all of your questions answered and feel like y'all have satisfied, you know, go on through the budget and have satisfied answers before you leave tonight. So Jay, thanks. Well, good evening. Thank you all for being here. Um I'm really just gonna turn it over to the person that's really gonna go through the slides, but I did want to mention um, so this is the city manager's proposed budget under state law. Ultimately, the city has to adopt a balanced budget. And one of the jobs of the city manager and staff is to provide the city council with a proposed budget that they then begin their budget deliberations off of. And so you'll see as you go through here some of the impacts that we've had from the TAD valuations going down overall and their new format of of value in every other year, although they skip two years. Um I had a conversation, quick conversation at a reception with Ross Perot. I thought this would be a kind of a funny and interesting um a note. Ross Perot Jr. and I saw each other, and he said, and it was with the Wisdom announcement. And he said, Man, Fort Worth is blowing and going. You guys got stuff going on everywhere. Y'all just it must be awesome. And I said, Well, we're looking at about a 75 million dollar budget shortfall. And his face was like how does that how does that work? That's what he told me. And I said, I explained, well, it's they're not appraising like they used to. And so he he was confused. You could tell he was confused and he changed the subject, but um, so you know, getting through this budget process has been difficult. And and as a city manager, one of my goals overall was to try to ensure that the services to the citizens weren't impacted completely where uh we thought that would we'd begin having a lot of complaints from the citizens. Wanted to make sure that police and fire specifically, but emergency response also stayed up with growth so that we can those are the the large the loudest screams, and of course they're rightly so. And then finally, try to ensure that we don't do things that are gonna put our taxpayers way out of whack with everybody, everybody else in the in the region in the area, right? Try to keep make sure that Fort Worth can still compete overall. So hopefully we did that. I'm gonna turn it over to Christianne Simmons. She is leads the budget group. She's our chief transformation officer. And um, she's gonna go through the slides and as was mentioned, ask questions as you go along the way. Um so you can jump from fund to fund to fund and uh there's a lot of information here. So Christian. Thank you. All right, good evening, everyone. Christie Ansimmons. I'm the director of the Fort Worth Lab, which is the city's budget and data and performance group. It is my pleasure to be here with you tonight. I know you will forgive me if I have to look at my notes since this is our first presentation, and we just did this yesterday. So I feel like my brain's a little scrambled. But thank you so much for coming out. This is sort of a continuation of our budget public engagement because maybe some of you participated in some of our early priority surveys and those kinds of things. So we certainly appreciate the engagement at any stage of the process. Uh Jay touched on some of these already, but you know, every budget year has sort of themes that emerge.

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