Fort Worth 2027 Proposed Budget Presentation & Public Hearing – August 25, 2026
Fort Worth 2027 Proposed Budget Presentation & Public Hearing
On Saturday, August 25, 2026, the City of Fort Worth held a community meeting to present the proposed fiscal year 2027 operating and capital budget. City Manager Jay Chapa and Director of the Fort Worth Lab Christianne Simmons led the presentation, focusing on the budget gap caused by Tarrant Appraisal District’s (TAD) reappraisal practices, proposed service reductions, and a recommended tax rate increase. The meeting included extensive public comments and questions.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Multiple residents expressed frustration with TAD’s appraisal methods, noting that Fort Worth’s residential property values have not kept pace with growth, while commercial values lag. One speaker questioned the fairness of new-home valuations compared to older homes in dilapidated neighborhoods. Another asked why the city does not shift more of the tax burden to commercial properties.
- A resident requested better communication from the Police Department about commander assignments after a vacancy was not promptly filled. Councilwoman Martinez acknowledged the issue and committed to improvement.
- Several speakers urged full funding for the Mobile Tool Shed program, warning that delays in equipment access increase penalties for residents facing code violations.
- Support was expressed for restoring the Alliance PetSmart adoption center and avoiding library staffing cuts. One speaker highlighted libraries as essential cooling centers during extreme heat.
- A resident praised code compliance and Councilwoman Martinez’s office for helping clean up their neighborhood, but noted high turnover among code officers.
- Questions were raised about funding for after-school programs at community centers and maintenance of new parks like Sequel Vasquez Park (opening spring).
- Another speaker asked about the growing number of homeless encampments and whether environmental services funding is sufficient for cleanup.
Discussion Items
- Budget Gap and Revenue Shortfall: Simmons explained that Fort Worth faces a structural budget shortfall due to TAD’s decision to reappraise residential properties every other year and a historic number of successful property tax protests. Certified values fell 2.7% from the prior year, creating a $94 million gap at its peak. The city closed the gap through department cuts, reduced general employee pay increases (from 4% to 1.5%), and a proposed tax rate increase.
- Tax Rate Proposal: Originally proposed at 70.2 cents per $100 valuation (up from 67 cents), the rate was adjusted to 70.56 cents after council restored several programs. Even with the increase, the city portion of the average home tax bill decreases by about $8 due to lower assessed values.
- Restorations (Council Feedback): After council input, the following items were restored to the budget: retention of the Alliance PetSmart adoption center; restoration of vacant positions in Code (neighborhood inspectors), Parks (recreation assistants, maintenance workers), Library (staffing), Development Services (customer service), and Transportation; and an increase in general employee pay-for-performance raises from 1.5% to 3% (budget impact of ~$4 million).
- Public Safety Spending: The budget includes 76 new patrol officers and 30 new corporal positions to create a promotional path within patrol. Fire department funding covers contractual raises, overtime alignment, and fleet maintenance. The HOPE (homeless outreach) program is being shifted from fire to EMS mobile integrated health, saving backfill overtime costs.
- Infrastructure and Fees: Street maintenance remains funded through the pavement management fee (authorized but not yet implemented). An environmental fee increase from $2.25 to $2.50 per month will support litter abatement and encampment cleanup. Water and stormwater rates are also increasing.
- Neighborhood Improvement Program: The FY27 budget funds only $1 million of the usual $4 million per neighborhood, reflecting that first-year planning costs are lower. The program continues, with spending ramping up in year two. One speaker expressed concern about the history center library reopening and water intrusion issues.
Key Outcomes
- The proposed FY27 operating budget is $3.32 billion, capital budget adds $1.03 billion, total $4.35 billion.
- Recommended tax rate: 70.56 cents per $100 valuation (an increase of 3.56 cents).
- Public hearing on the budget before the full City Council is scheduled for September 1, 2026.
- Final adoption of the budget, tax rate, and fee ordinance is scheduled for September 15, 2026.
- Council members indicated their tentative support for the restored items and the revised tax rate, though final decisions await further deliberation.
Meeting Transcript
Well, good afternoon. Thank you for coming out on a Saturday afternoon. So I'm Jay Chapa City Manager, and we're gonna cover the proposed 2027 fiscal budget. There's a little change from the last presentation. And Christy Ann, I'm gonna introduce Christian here in a minute. She's gonna go through the presentation. But last week on the 11th, you know, under state law, the city's not like the feds where we can do deficit budgeting. We have to have a balanced budget. So last week on the 11th, uh staff, myself proposed a balanced budget to the city council across all funds. And specifically the general fund was the one we're we're having issues with, uh primarily due to property tax valuations or property values and the and the shortfall on the top uh property tax side. So if you if you think about the city, we're we're basically a conglomerate where we have multiple different businesses all within one organization. And so when you think about a shortfall on the general fund, the general fund makes up about a third of the city's operating budget. Overall operating budget is about 3.3 billion dollars. The general funds about 1.1 billion dollars. The problem is you can't take money from those other funds to help a fund that's short because the dollars have to stay within those operating funds. So like the water department, the water utility, water revenues that come in on from ratepayers, has to stay within that business. Same thing with aviation, same thing with golf, those kind of things. So when we we talk about that shortfall, and Christiane will go through it, we're really talking about the general fund where the shortfall was. Um the the change that you're gonna see here is we've been once we presented the budget to the city council, they start providing feedback on the things they like and the things that they don't like, right? And so in order to balance the general fund budget, you'll see we had a series of reductions in different areas of our operations to try to close that gap. And the council has voiced um to us that they wanted they didn't like some of the cuts that were in there and some of the reductions of services. And so as we've been working with them yesterday, we proposed some restore, you know, restoration of some of the of some of those items, and they all pretty much said they were in favor of them. So we're gonna go the budget has a little bit changed that shows what's being restored as we go through this this presentation. And as you go along, feel free to raise your hand, we'll get you a mic, because this is being uh streamed online and it's gonna be recorded and put on the city's website. So if you have a question, raise your hand, we'll we'll give you a mic. Um and I'm gonna introduce Christianne Simmons. She is the director of strategic um strategy. I'm I'm going blank. It's a Saturday. Anyway, she's over budget and data analytics and performance for the city. The budget, she runs a group that puts all this together, puts all the numbers together, and has been working on this for the last several months. So with no no further ado, here's Christine. I also don't know what I'm the director of. Who knows? Uh thank you, Jay. So I Christianne Simmons, yes, hello. Uh director of the Fort Worth Lab is the department. Um and like Jay mentioned, we do budget data analytics and performance for the city, lots of strategic initiatives. And I see a couple of my my budget meeting friends here. So you're gonna get to see like the changes in real time, which is kind of fun. Uh so thank you for coming on a Saturday afternoon. Mostly it's just hot outside, so it's nice to be inside. Um, but we really appreciate your engagement in the process. Some of you may have participated in bond meetings earlier this year, and maybe you did budget priorities survey, um, all of those different engagement points uh that the city provides. We love to see your participation and answer your questions along the way. All right, so um just starting up at high level here, uh, you know, I've done a couple different budgets with the city now, and everyone kind of has its story or its themes that emerge. Uh and this year, a lot of the theme is around the city's growth, not translating to growth in property tax values and revenue. So we're in a little bit of a tricky situation with the Terran appraisal district. Some of you are aware of that situation. So Tad is we sit in four appraisal districts in the city of Fort Worth, but TAD is our largest.
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