Faced with recession, Fort Worth hopes to maintain services with $2 billion budget
The nearly $2 billion Fort Worth operating budget for 2021 allows the city to continue programs to improve city services while preparing the city for slimmer budgets in years to come, City Manager David Cooke said, arguing the city should spend now rather than risk falling behind if the recession eats into revenue.
The proposed $1.77 billion budget grew by $8.3 million from last year, because of increased property valuations. Cooke is proposing the same 74.75 cents property tax rate and no increases to most user fees. The owner of a home valued at $250,000 with a homestead exemption would pay $1,495 in city property taxes. He is proposing hikes to solid waste fees and more than 100 positions may be eliminated from city offices.
There will be several opportunities for the public to weigh in on the budget before the council’s Sept. 22 vote.
Cooke told the Star-Telegram ahead of a presentation to the City Council that his hope is to maintain city services while still paying for several new endeavors, including the Golden Triangle Library, which opens Aug. 18, and a far north Fort Worth animal shelter. Based on trends seen during the Great Recession that started in 2007, Cooke projects the city’s tax base may shrink by 4% of over the next two years.
“Most people would still agree we’re not spending enough on the maintenance of the infrastructure that we’ve already built,” Cooke said. “It is so hard to get back. Once you get away from best practices you’ve got to wait for the next upturn just to get back to where you should have been in the first place.”
Councilman Cary Moon, during Tuesday’s work session, said he was frustrated the 2021 budget didn’t include another cut to the property tax rate. For the last four years the city’s budget has relied on a smaller tax rate based on growth to the tax base. Moon noted that for some residents home values would increase, so they would be paying more in taxes.
Moon said the city needed to do more to find efficiencies in the way it does business before he would support the tax rate.
“The expectation was that we would not have a tax increase and that a tax cut would be great, so I want to restate that goal,” he said. “The tax rate staying the same does not meet that goal.”
Loss of positions
To trim the budget Cooke is recommending eliminating more than 100 positions, of which he said about a dozen are occupied. About 70 are city employees transferring to the Botanic Research Institute of Texas under the new operating agreement for the botanic garden, so the net reduction is closer to 50.
Since April the city has froze hiring for roughly 300 positions, which will continue through 2021.
The police department will lose nine positions, including some helicopter maintenance staff, while increasing the number of neighborhood patrol officers by 10. The department will also fund 13 officer positions through the U.S. Department of Justice’s COPS grant.
Both the library and the parks and recreation departments will lose about a dozen positions each.
Those employees whose positions are being cut may have the opportunity to transfer to other vacancies or retire early.
Councilwoman Kelly Allen Gray voiced concern over whether the city would push employees to retire earlier than they want to in order to cut the budget. Cooke said there has been no conversations about retirement incentives related to the budget, but part of the pension plan does encourage early retirement.
Changes to city departments
City departments will have 1.5% more revenue than last year, but how that money is divided varies greatly.
At first it appears several departments are taking major cuts while others are growing significantly, but Cooke said those changes represent shifts in resources across departments. For instance the Diversity and Inclusion department appears to get a nearly 82% increase next year, but much of that comes from moving economic development employees who focus on diversity issues into the new department.
The city’s newly created police monitor department is growing.
Kim Neal has lead the small office since March that includes Denise Rodriguez, the deputy police monitor, and an office assistant. Cooke plans to move two positions from the city manager’s office, both data analysts, to Neal’s department.
Retiring Fort Worth Police Chief Ed Kraus has proposed significant changes to how the city spends the police department’s special sales tax, which voters approved for another decade in May. That budget is expected to bring in $83.8 million in 2021, a 4.6% drop from what was expected in 2020.
Kraus wants to shift funding for SWAT and Special Response Team officers from the sales tax fund to the general fund while expanding and moving the crisis intervention team’s funding to the sales tax. His proposal increases funding for community nonprofits focused on crime prevention by 55% to 65% while cutting the budget for enhanced enforcement and equipment. The sales-tax funded budget for training is also being increased by 27%, largely to broaden crisis and mental health training.
More details about the city’s plan for the police sales tax and other diversity funding will be available during a special council work session scheduled for 12:30 p.m. Friday.
During discussion, Councilman Jungus Jordan told city staff he wanted Friday’s briefing to be clear that changes to how the police department spends money did not amount to “defunding the police.”
Increased garbage fees
The city’s solid waste budget is upside down.
Nearly all the revenue comes from residential customers with commercial customers making up just 1%, and the fund has a deficit between $3 million and $5 million, Cooke said.
To help shift the burden away from homes, Cooke is proposing a $5 surcharge for non-residential waste at the landfill, which would bring in about $2.5 million. In fiscal year 2019, 76% of what the landfill took was non-residential waste, up from 36% in 2009, Code Compliance Director Brandon Bennett said in an email.
Currently commercial waste haulers pay a flat 5% to the city based on their revenue. Cooke wants to double that fee to 10% to shore up the fund. The increase would bring in a little more than $2.6 million.
Public meetings
Several more public meetings regarding the budget are planned, including Friday’s work session specific to the police department.
The council has budget workshops slated for Aug. 20 and 21 and Sept. 3 and 4, but times have not been chosen.
Virtual town halls will focus on council districts, with District 9’s town hall at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 17, District 8’s at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 19, District 5’s at 10 a.m. on an undetermined date, District 6’s Aug. 29 at undetermined time and District 3’s at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 8.
Two public hearings are scheduled for the council’s regular 7 p.m. meetings on Sept. 1 and 15, the residents can speak to the budget during public comment at any meeting.
The council is expected to approve the budget at Sept. 22, scheduled for 10 a.m.
This story was originally published August 11, 2020 at 5:38 PM.
