{"id":404863,"date":"2026-08-12T21:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T21:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/404863\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T21:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T21:08:13","slug":"fort-worth-proposes-tax-rate-increase-budget-cuts-to-fill-94-million-funding-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/404863\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Worth proposes tax rate increase, budget cuts to fill $94 million funding gap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The city of Fort Worth is proposing a tax rate increase and budget cuts to fill a $94 million gap in the city&#8217;s fiscal year 2027 budget.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In a budget worksession, City Manager Jay Chapa introduced a revised budget with an even bigger funding hole than <a data-ylk=\"slk:previously predicted;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wfaa.com\/article\/news\/local\/really-difficult-conversations-fort-worth-stares-down-nearly-50-million-budget-shortfall\/287-5fb7f6a5-8913-4b53-b929-ac58c9828a4c\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">previously predicted<\/a>. Part of the solution includes a tax rate increase and several cuts to programs and positions across the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Chapa recommended a 3.2-cent increase to the city&#8217;s current property tax rate of $0.6700 per $100 valuation. Despite the increase, falling taxable home values mean the average homeowner will see a decrease in their tax bill, the city says.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">However, due to changes in fees supporting the city&#8217;s infrastructure, the typical resident will end up paying $5.70 more per month for all city services.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The city&#8217;s budget is under pressure due to major changes in the county&#8217;s property tax policies and slowed property value growth, which increased just 1% citywide.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">To close the $94 million gap, Chapa also proposed several cuts to the city&#8217;s budget, including eliminating 54 positions and freezing hiring for 121 positions for six to 12 months.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The city will also reduce pay-for-performance raises for existing employees from 5% to 1.5%.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">However, the public safety portion of the budget will grow, in part by reassigning firefighters from the HOPE homeless outreach team back to firefighting duties.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Further, the budget creates 76 new patrol officer positions.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The final vote on the city budget is currently scheduled for Sept. 15. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The city of Fort Worth is proposing a tax rate increase and budget cuts to fill a $94&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[6244,5800,116,118,117,33258],"class_list":["post-404863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-budget-cuts","tag-city-of-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-tax-rate-increase"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404863","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=404863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}