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Fort Worth City Council got a glimpse of the budget process for fiscal year 2026-27 during a work session May 5.
City staff previously informed council of a projected budget shortfall of $49.3 million due to lower revenue growth compared to expenses, said Christi Lemon, the assistant director of the Fort Worth Lab, the city’s budgeting department.
Council will have to pass a balanced budget by August, according to a presentation at the work session.
The context
According to previous reporting, the total expected revenue is $1.13 billion and the total expected expenses are $1.18 billion. The general fund target budget has grown by 4.74%, or roughly $52 million, since last year, according to a news release.
“There's going to be really difficult conversations we go forward, especially as we talk about public safety and how we fund things,” said Charlie Lauersdorf, District 4 council member.
City Manager Jesus “Jay” Chapa asked department leaders to turn in projected numbers of the possible budget cuts of 1%, then 3%. If both are approved, that would trim $21.9 million off the expected shortfall. The 3% cut excludes civil service pay.
The presentation shows that with a proposed total of 4% cuts, a $27.4 million gap remains to be closed by August.
District 9 council member Elizabeth Beck asked Chapa if certain departments could have a larger cut rather than the same cut across the board.
The three largest cuts from the 1% proposals were:
With the 3% cut, the top-three departments trimmed, in terms of costs, were:
Chapa's recommended budget will be presented to the council in August. Community events will occur during the month of August, with the budget adoption in September, according to a news release.
The fiscal year runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, 2027, city documents state.
The details
Brady Kirk, the Fort Worth Lab finance assistant director, said the property tax revenue the city receives covers public services, such as police and fire.
The city’s property tax is $0.67 per $100 in valuation. He said that of that amount, $0.5225 goes toward the general fund and the remaining $0.1475 goes toward debt service and is not part of the budget.
General operations gets $0.45 of the $0.5225, he said.
“Before we've even fully funded our public safety needs, we've already used up all of the operating property tax revenue in the general fund,” he said.
What's happening?
Chief Transformation Officer Christianne Simmons said the city has looked at what other cities have done in terms of a survey of citizens to gauge general sentiment about the priorities in terms of services and what ones are lower on the list that may have to be sacrificed.
Most years, Simmons said the city holds public engagement events in August and September before the budget is passed. She said a survey could be open through June with the hopes of getting feedback to council before the July break.
“The sooner we get to our citizens about what they'd like to see, the better,” District 5 council member Deborah Peoples said. “When we do it in August, people say it's hard because we've already made decisions.”
Peoples said the city needs to do a better job of getting information to the residents in light of the voting turnout for the May 2 election.
Lauersdorf suggested bringing in homeowner associations and their leadership to help get the information about the survey to residents.
“Unfortunately, sometimes [people] get bad information,” he said. “Bring those key leaders down here, sitting in the conference room and having some of the big brains help explain a lot of this [to] really break it down. ... I'm going to be the dumbest guy in the room 99% of the time. If I can understand it, then certainly our residents are going to understand it.”
