{"id":284672,"date":"2026-05-08T17:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T17:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/284672\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T17:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T17:25:09","slug":"fort-worth-proposes-budget-cuts-plan-in-wake-of-projected-49m-shortfall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/284672\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Worth proposes budget cuts plan in wake of projected $49M shortfall"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFort Worth City Council got a glimpse of the budget<\/a> process for fiscal year 2026-27 during a work session<\/a> May 5.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s budgeting department.<\/p>\n

Council will have to pass a balanced budget by August, according to a presentation at the work session.<\/p>\n

The context<\/p>\n

According to previous reporting<\/a>, 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s going to be really difficult conversations we go forward, especially as we talk about public safety and how we fund things,\u201d said Charlie Lauersdorf, District 4 council member.<\/p>\n

City Manager Jesus \u201cJay\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

The presentation shows that with a proposed total of 4% cuts, a $27.4 million gap remains to be closed by August.<\/p>\n

District 9 council member Elizabeth Beck asked Chapa if certain departments could have a larger cut rather than the same cut across the board.<\/p>\n

The three largest cuts from the 1% proposals were:<\/p>\n

Police department: nearly $2.82 millionFire department: just over $2 millionParks and recreation: $498,998With the 3% cut, the top-three departments trimmed, in terms of costs, were:Transportation & public works, just over $3.1 millionPolice department, nearly $1.78 millionParks & recreation, just over $1.6 millionChapa’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.<\/p>\n

The fiscal year runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, 2027, city documents state.<\/p>\n

The details<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

General operations gets $0.45 of the $0.5225, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

What’s happening?<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sooner we get to our citizens about what they’d like to see, the better,\u201d District 5 council member Deborah Peoples said. \u201cWhen we do it in August, people say it’s hard because we’ve already made decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lauersdorf suggested bringing in homeowner associations and their leadership to help get the information about the survey to residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, sometimes [people] get bad information,\u201d he said. \u201cBring 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.\u201d\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fort Worth City Council got a glimpse of the budget process for fiscal year 2026-27 during a work…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[2050,14787,116,4279,118,117,104646],"class_list":["post-284672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-budget","tag-charlie-lauersdorf","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-city-council","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-jesus-chapa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}