FORT WORTH, Texas — At Fort Worth's first budget meeting of the 2025 budget season, City Manager David Cooke told council members that, for the first time in at least a decade, he is recommending raising the city's tax rate.
Fort Worth City Council members have historically approved lower tax rates year-over-year, as runaway growth in Fort Worth has all but guaranteed increased property tax income, even as the tax rate goes down. This year, that dynamic changed when the Tarrant Appraisal District voted to pause residential appraisals through 2026.
Now, city staff is recommending a half-cent increase to its tax rate, or $0.6773 per $100 assessed value. That number is "essentially" the no-new-revenue rate, Cooke said. That’s the tax rate that would collect the same amount of revenue that the city collected last year.
The impact on the average Fort Worth resident will be a $60 increase in their annual tax bill compared with last year. Last, year the city council lowered its tax rate by 4 cents, although some council members pushed to slash the rate even more.
In April, appraisal districts released preliminary property appraisal numbers for fiscal year 2024. Fort Worth predicted its taxable property values would increase 12% compared with last fiscal year, reaching $125 billion in total taxable value within its city limits.
“A funny thing happened on the way to the final budget and it had to do with our taxable assessed value,” Cooke told councilmembers Tuesday.
Now, with residential appraisals put on ice, Fort Worth expects just 9% growth or $121 billion in total taxable property value.
"That is almost a decrease of $4 billion... a $4 billion drop in net taxable assessed value has an impact on the resulting tax rate," Cooke said.
With the increased tax rate, the city is proposing a $2.79 billion overall budget with a slight increase in revenue of $47.6 million.
The revenue from the tax rate increase will go to the city's street maintenance program. The city plans to spend $9 million to repair aging streets, a compromise after city staff initially proposed creating a new fee to address a $66 million annual funding gap for street maintenance.
It will also pay for the city's new EMS service, new positions in the police department and additional funding for the city's flood mitigation program.
The city is expected to dive into the specifics of the budget, including whether or not to give employees a significant raise, over the next month. Fort Worth City Council is expected to adopt a new tax rate on Sept. 17. So far, council members have not voiced vocal opposition to the proposed rate.