Page 30 - City of Fort Worth Budget Book

Executive Message Budget Message

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES
Before highlighting specifics of the FY2025 budget, included below are topics that received significant attention
during the budget development process.

EMS Transition
The Fort Worth City Council voted in May 2024 to transition emergency medical services (EMS) from Medstar,
who had been providing EMS services to the City since 1986, into the City of Fort Worth. The City spent months
studying various models in which EMS services could be optimized for better patient outcomes and services, and
a Council ad hoc committee made the recommendation to Council to absorb EMS into the City’s Fire department
in order to achieve these goals. At the time of the recommended budget, the City is in early stages of
implementation of this transition. The FY25 recommended budget includes one quarter of funding for EMS in
anticipation of a July 1 implementation date.

Meet and Confer
The current Meet and Confer contract between the Fort Worth Police Officers’ Association and the City of Fort
Worth is set to expire on September 30, 2024. The FY25 recommended budget includes the estimated funding for
Year 1 of the new agreement.
Compensation Strategies
The City continually evaluates its compensation structure for market competitiveness. The FY25 recommended
budget includes a proposed increase in the City’s entry wage from $15.45 to $16.07 as a result of these analyses.
It also proposes continuing the City’s Pay for Performance program at 4% for general employees. Finally, the
budget also recommend a comprehensive pay study to evaluate the compensation structure. This will be the first
comprehensive pay study since 2014.

Property Tax
The City of Fort Worth includes properties in four counties: Tarrant, Denton, Parker and Wise. Based on the
certified rolls from those four appraisal districts in July 2024, the FY25 recommended budget proposes a property
tax rate equivalent to the No-New-Revenue tax rate, which represents nearly a half-cent increase from the FY24
property tax rate. This results from lower-than-projected growth at 2% for existing values, though new construction
values stayed consistent with projections at 3.1%.

Capital Planning
The City is presenting, in conjunction with the FY2025 Recommended Budget, a 5-Year Capital Improvement
Program (CIP) which includes the planned capital projects and associated funding sources for the next five years.
The FY2025 Recommended Budget includes transfers to fund some of the projects in the first year of the CIP.
Annually, a review process is performed to identify capital needs before developing the annual operating budget.
This allows management to plan capital and operations long-term, ensuring capital funding is available to support
the increasing needs of our growing city. Capital funding is secured from various sources including, but not limited
to, debt issuance, special revenues, and transfers from operating (pay as you go cash.) Pay as you go capital
includes a long-range projection to guarantee a healthy allocation of funding each year from the operating budget.
This annual capital support, flowing from operating funds, is included in Transfer Out & Other categories in the
appropriate department and fund summary tables in this document.

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