City Manager Jay Chapa went over the budget during an April 29 meeting and another work session will be held May 13 at Fort Worth City Hall.
The target general fund budget is $1.09 billion, an increase of $40.2 million, or 3.81%, from the FY 2024-25 budget to cover existing services, according to the presentation.
The general fund receives money from property taxes and other sources and provides public safety, public works and general government operations, according to the city website.
Zooming in
Chief Transformation Officer Christianne Simmons said the city is using priority-based budgeting instead of traditional budgeting, using data-driven decisions. To meet the target budget, departments were asked to trim 1% of their budget and also submit a budget with 3% trimmed to meet growing costs with slow revenue growth, Chapa said.
According to city documents, the 1% reduction is to generate $7.6 million in savings. Simmons said the cuts would come from 22 different city departments.
The proposed budgets were due in the city manager's office May 9. City staff will look at the proposals and work on the budget in June and July, according to Chapa. He said the certified values and tax rates will be looked at in July. According to previous reporting, the tax rate of $0.6725 per $100 valuation was approved last year, the same as FY 2023-24.
His official budget has to be presented to council in August ahead of the fiscal year, which runs Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, 2026. The target overall budget is $2.8 billion, almost the same as this fiscal year, Chapa said.
“There are bills within the Texas legislature that could impact other parts of the budget, but there's a lot of things that are under consideration,” Chapa said. “We don't think that every single one of these is going to be passed, but we don't think either that none of them are going to pass.”
A closer look
The budget issues facing the city have to do with the freeze on residential property tax approved by the Tarrant Appraisal District in 2024. He said certified values are expected by July 25, but city staff is preparing for a reduction in property taxes for the upcoming fiscal year.
Assistant Finance Director Grady Kirk said recent trends is taxpayers paying later in the year, just before the deadline, or taking advantage of the split payment option offered by TAD. He said that the city collected between 96% and 99% of taxes by February.
The city saw $1.93 billion in value decline in fiscal year 2024-25 due to late-filed protests, appraisal review board decisions and late-granted exemptions. For fiscal year 2025-26, the city had a conservative estimate of $9.3 million under budget for current property tax collection, assuming the March to September loss will be similar to what happened in 2024.
Kirk said the city could see $1.1 billion to $1.9 billion in property tax value loss by year-end on the tax freeze, which would generate $5 million less in property tax collection for the general fund.
One factor is a state bill that would raise the homestead exemption to $140,000. The city of Fort Worth's current exemption is $60,000 for 65 65-year-old or older or disabled person.
