Page 20 - Fort Worth City Budget 2019

Executive Message

• Meet infrastructure and service commitments - 2018 Bond Program
• Employee Pay: Balancing performance pay, benefits, and retirement
• No use of fund balance / reserves for operations
• No property tax rate increase in the General Fund / Reduce the property tax rate if possible
• Funding implementation of the Economic Development Strategic Plan

As staff worked to allocate limited resources, the inclusion or exclusion of various citywide expenditures, revenue
opportunities, individual programs and existing service levels were all evaluated against these strategies.

Throughout the budget development process, staff updated city executive leadership on the performance of the
FY2018 budget. To facilitate this process, the city conducts comprehensive citywide forecasts for months five and
eight of the fiscal year. The forecasts are used to monitor current performance and to assist in development of
the upcoming budget.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

Before highlighting specifics of the FY2019 budget, included below are topics that received significant attention
during the budget development process.

Capital Planning
The City is presenting, in conjunction with the FY2019 Adopted Budget, a 5-Year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP)
which includes the planned capital projects and funding sources for the next five years. The FY2019 Adopted
Budget includes transfers to fund some of the projects in the first year of the CIP.

Structural Budget Changes

During the fiscal year the city identified some departments with insufficient budget due to operational changes
not captured as part of the prior budget process. This includes: funding the Police Department at a 0% vacancy
rate for police officers, adjustments for the Library’s vacancy rate, restoration of funding for positions
inadvertently budgeted in other funds, funding personnel costs associated with deviations from projected costs,
and increased mowing costs.

Advertising
As per Section 140.0045 of the Texas Local Government Code, the City as a whole spent an estimated $81,778 in
advertising costs for notices required by law to be published in a newspaper in FY2018, compared to $81,142
budgeted for FY2019.

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