Page 21 - Fort Worth City Budget 2019

Executive Message

GENERAL FUND REVENUES

The economic outlook for Fort Worth is encouraging with property and sales tax revenue, along with fee income,
continuing to grow.

Adopted General Fund Revenue Budget
Percent Dollar
FY2018 FY2019 Change Change
$678,950,315 $731,190,453 7.7% $52,240,138

Property Tax

The city receives a significant portion of its revenues from property taxes assessed on real and personal property.
City staff works with appraisal districts from Tarrant, Denton, Wise, and Parker Counties to prepare property tax
revenue projections. By State law, each appraisal district is responsible for the valuation of all property within its
jurisdiction. The certified property tax rolls received from all four districts in July 2018 showed an increase in the
City’s property tax base. In comparison to the July 2017 certified property tax roll, the July 2018 certified property
tax roll reflected a 10.9 percent growth in adjusted net taxable property value.

When updating the seven-year financial forecast and preparing the budget for City Council consideration, staff
analyzed many of the factors impacting property tax revenue, including anticipated population growth, historical
change in values for residential and commercial properties, current and projected permitting data, the impact of
foreclosures, as well as exemptions and protests. Staff also evaluated the allocation of the levy amount, and
resulting availability of revenue for operations and maintenance (O&M), as compared to the amount available to
repay the city’s debt.

For FY2019, the city’s combined property tax rate was lowered to $0.7850 per $100 of assessed valuation
anticipating a 98.5 percent collection rate. Based on the O&M levy rate of $0.630 per $100 of assessed valuation,
the General Fund portion of the property tax rate is expected to yield approximately $396 million in revenue for
FY2019. The debt service levy rate of $0.155 per $100 of assessed valuation is expected to yield approximately
$97.4 million, which will allow the repayment of all current and proposed debt obligations.

Sales Tax
Sales tax collections are a major revenue component. Economic conditions in FY2018 continued to show strength
with the 12-month rolling average of sales tax collections achieving new record highs throughout much of the
year. This trend is anticipated to continue through FY2019 given that the Dallas-Fort Worth area remains in the
top five largest construction markets for the first half of 2018, according to the Dallas News. There is continued
th
population growth in the City of Fort Worth, which is now the 15 largest city in the United States. Based on the
FY2018 year-end budget projections, sales tax revenue is expected to increase in FY2019 by five and a half percent
and is budgeted at $163,151,802.

Among large Texas cities, Fort Worth continues a positive trend with year-to-date sales tax collections up 6.5%
percent over the same period last year, which puts Fort Worth’s sales tax performance ahead of neighboring
Dallas and Arlington.

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