Fort Worth City Council members approved a $1.16 billion general fund budget for 2027, with a city property tax rate increase that still means the owner of an average-valued home will pay slightly less in tax than this year.
The council voted unanimously Tuesday night to approve a $4.35 billion citywide budget, including the general fund, which pays for most basic services. But they tussled over the tax rate — after a spring and summer budget season in which no council members publicly expressed opposition to an increase — and whether the city had done enough to cut expenses before raising the rate.
The council voted 7-4 to set the rate at 70.565 cents per $100 of appraised valuation, up from this year’s 67 cents. But even with the increase, the owner of a home valued at the city’s $232,925 average will see their city tax bill decrease to $1,643.64 from this year’s $1,651.82 because the value of that home dropped in new appraisal rolls that came out this summer.
“We did not do enough to cut wasteful discretionary spending, including travel and discretionary expense for staff and city council members, before asking the residents for more money,” council member Macy Hill said during Tuesday’s discussion. She stressed she voted for the budget in support of its public safety component.
“We must respect family budgets,” Hill said. “Fort Worth families are already struggling with the rising cost of living, and government should not add to the pressure unless every single option has been exhausted.”
Hill’s vote for the 2027 budget and subsequent stand against the tax rate increase prompted questions from several colleagues. Property tax funds about 60% of the general fund.
“Any support for the budget would imply that you support the tax rate,” council member Mia Hall said.
Council member Deborah Peoples said constituents told her they didn’t want to see service cuts and that a number said they’d rather pay more tax.
During one council budget workshop this summer, Hill questioned council travel expenses and offered to give up her budget. But council member Elizabeth Beck pointed out during the debate Tuesday that the council’s discussion during 10-12 meetings leading up to the final vote focused on programs that members didn’t want to cut.
There was no “meaningful” conversation about the kind of spending cuts that could have warded off a tax rate increase, she said, comparing Hill’s remarks to “virtue signaling.”
“There is another word other than virtue signaling,” council member Chris Nettles said. “It’s called gaslighting.”
Mayor Mattie Parker said nobody on the council wants to raise taxes, but she said Fort Worth has to invest in the services necessary to maintain a fast-growing “top 10 city.”
“Be proud of this budget, be proud of the tax rate we’re taking,” said Parker, who complimented the city staff for the work they did in balancing the budget.
Parker and council members Peoples, Hall, Nettles, Beck, Jeanette Martinez and Carlos Flores voted for the tax rate. Council members Michael Crain, Charlie Lauersdorf, Hill and Chris Jamieson voted against it.
Lauersdorf, in response to Beck’s remarks, pointed out he had raised concerns in budget workshops this summer about city spending.
Crain and Jamieson didn’t speak during the debate. During the campaign for his council seat this spring, Jamieson questioned city spending levels.
“Everyone in Fort Worth is feeling the pain of rising costs at the gas pump and the grocery store,” Crain said in a text message to the Report after the meeting. “City Hall has a duty to exhaust every internal efficiency and set stricter budget priorities before asking our residents to pay more.”
The approved general fund is up 5% from 2026. Increases are strongly focused on improving public safety, in line with what the city perceives as residents’ priorities.
“One of the goals we had was to not adversely impact public safety,” Jay Chapa, the city manager, told council members during a summer budget workshop.
The general fund budget includes an array of eliminations and freezes of vacant positions, but none in public safety and emergency. It has a hypothetical 8.5% pay increase “placeholder” for firefighters, depending on the outcome of negotiations with the city’s firefighter union, the Fort Worth Professional Firefighters Association Local 440. It also contains a 6% contractual pay increase for police.
The city will add 76 patrol officers, but those are cadets in training paid for by the city’s sales-tax funded Crime Control and Prevention District and won’t have an impact on the general fund budget until 2028. The budget will include full funding of a 911 pilot program that has helped improve response times via triage.
The budget also creates a new career path in patrol, adding the rank of corporal and allowing for the promotion of 30 officers. Previously, officers who sought promotion had to leave patrol.
“There are some officers who really enjoy patrol … that’s their passion,” Christianne Simmons, director of the city’s FW Lab budget planning unit, told council members this summer.
Elsewhere, the new general fund budget includes an average performance-based pay raise for general employees of 4.5%, which is higher than what was proposed. The increase would be 4% for employees at assistant director level and higher. The raises would go into effect at mid-fiscal year in April 2027.
The general fund budget also includes a $14 million increased contribution to the city’s employee health fund, which has been depleted by escalating claims costs, in particular regarding GLP-1 weight loss medications. All of the city’s funds contribute to the health fund.
As for expenses, employee salary and benefits take up $797.6 million of the general fund budget, increasing by $55.6 million for 2027.
The council’s approval of the budget caps the city’s spring and summer of closing a general fund budget gap first thought to be $49 million. That ballooned to $94 million with additions to expenses and the soft appraisals.
The staff focused cost reductions on the nonpublic safety side of the budget. The budget eliminates 114 vacant positions, freezes 31 for half the fiscal year and 61 for the full year.
The city’s “PayGo” — the program used to pay for certain capital improvement and infrastructure in cash instead of through debt — will see a drop in available funds for 2027. The city left the program’s portion of the property tax rate the same for the new year, but the total amount of money drops by $2.8 million from $86 million because of the lower appraisals.
Over the summer, council members pushed back against some of the proposed cuts, including the lower general employee pay increase, cuts to alleyway mowing and the elimination of the popular PetSmart animal adoption program in the Alliance corridor.
Residents who showed up at budget road shows in the 11 council districts this summer favored restorations of some of the cuts, even if it meant adding to the tax rate.
The staff restored the cuts to the PetSmart program. It also boosted the pay raise, tinkering with the tax rate to generate the necessary money while still leaving the tax hit on the average homeowner less than this year’s.
The council did not restore the proposed alley mowing cut to two annual cycles from four. The city is “working on strategies to achieve a third cycle,” the staff said in response Tuesday to questions from the Fort Worth Report about the final budget.
The new citywide budget includes an array of changes to city fees across nine funds. In a separate vote Tuesday, the council approved changes to more than 1,000 fees. Most are increases, and some are new, but others are being decreased or eliminated, the city said. Most of the fee increases are in “nonmandatory” services funded by the users, the city said.
Development services, for one, is increasing its fees by 5% on average across several hundred fees. The city consulted with its Development Advisory Committee to develop the increases, which the city staff said would result in about a $150 addition in costs for construction of a home.
“Some fees are proposed to rise by more than the average when necessary to support cost recovery for the associated services,” the city said.
The average yearly residential bill for water, stormwater, wastewater, solid waste and environmental services is expected to rise $85.07 in 2027 to $1,371.60, based on usage.
Scott Nishimura is senior editor for local government accountability and a Fort Worth City Hall reporter at the Fort Worth Report. Reach him at scott.nishimura@fortworthreport.org.
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