Fort Worth gives early OK to special police fund with greater focus on community
The Fort Worth City Council gave initial approval to the police department’s $81.4 million sales tax budget, which will alter how officers answer to calls with a greater emphasis on mental health professionals and civilian responders.
Fort Worth Police Chief Ed Kraus earlier this month proposed making significant changes to how the fund, known as the Crime Control and Prevention District, operates. The city takes in a half cent sales tax to boost the police department beyond the more than $267 million it receives from the general fund. In the past the fund has focused largely on enhanced patrols, like SWAT and the special response team, but Kraus, who will retire at the end of the year, pitched moving funds around to make the special sales tax more focused on community-based policing.
Acting as the Crime Control and Prevention District board of directors, the council unanimously approved the budget Tuesday. The City Council will take up the budget again Sept. 15. Mayor Pro Tem Jungus Jordan made a motion to set aside $1 million for an extra cadet class next summer, the only change from the chief’s original proposal.
Voters renewed the special sales tax in May for another decade. The city sets the budget annually.
Kraus said this budget should provide clarity about what is funded through the sales tax and the city’s general fund.
“As we started looking through the budget, there were things that didn’t make sense to us,” Kraus said. “If it doesn’t makes sense to us, how’s it going to make sense to the citizens we serve?”
Next year’s budget increases the pot of money available to Partners with a Shared Mission, a category that includes after-school programs and nonprofit partnerships. Despite growing sales tax revenue, the fund had been left at $250,000 for several years. Now nonprofits that provide social services and work to reduce crime can compete for $2 million.
During previous budget presentations, speakers were critical that the $2 million allocation still accounted for only 10% of the crime tax budget. Enhanced enforcement programs and equipment, despite being cut $1.4 million and $7.4 million, remain the largest line items in the fund.
Anastasia Taylor, CEO of Alliance for Children and Family Solutions, speaking Tuesday, said there needed to be better vetting for nonprofits.
“One of my concerns is the lack of due diligence in evaluating the agencies that previously received funds, or how those being proposed for funding will change their programs in light of the current COVID pandemic,” she said, noting that after-school programs continue to receive funding despite not operating.
With school districts delaying in-person class through most of September, Taylor questioned if there would be any savings to the money allocated to school resource officers.
When schools shut down in the spring, Kraus said, the school officers pivoted to patrolling the area around the schools and the feeding programs.
About $500,000 has already been doled out to nonprofits, and the city will open up a second round of funding later this year. Kraus said Tuesday the city is looking at providing multi-year funding. Ideally the nonprofit would later find alternative funding so it could graduate out of the sales tax fund.
The fiscal 2021 crime tax budget begins to change how officers respond to calls, Kraus told the Star-Telegram earlier this month. Discussions began after a Fort Worth officer killed Atatiana Jefferson in her home in October. The incident made clear that officers should not respond to some calls, and a greater emphasis should be placed on community-based programs, Kraus previously said.
The budget establishes a Community Service Program that relies on trained civilians to respond to non-emergency calls. The pilot team will consist of 10 people who will be trained to handle welfare checks, take incident reports and respond to minor accidents, among other things. About $808,000 has been set aside for the program.
Kraus proposed shifting funding for SWAT, the Criminal Tracking Unit and the Special Response Team to the city’s general fund and moving the Crisis Intervention Team to the sales tax fund. That team, a group of specially trained officers that responds alongside mental health professionals, works one shift, five days a week with eight members. Kraus wants to increase the program to two teams of 10 to cover two shifts seven days a week with a little more than $2.2 million.
Two bicycle patrol teams, one for downtown and one for the West 7th area, will also be funded through the sales tax, totaling about $4.5 million.
The department will create a Mental Health Advisory Committee to guide how officers respond to calls involving psychological distress. The hope is a nonprofit group will help evaluate calls and direct people to the proper resources without having to dispatch an officer. A partnership with the county will result in a mental health diversion program that will be finalized by the end of the year, Kraus said.
The police department works with MHMR Tarrant but Kraus said he is exploring an additional partnership with the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
This story was originally published August 25, 2020 at 5:25 PM.
