e e e everybody this is our virtual budget meeting I'm David Cook city manager and our agenda for this evening is to talk about the city's fiscal year 2025 budget uh questions are welcome I think you'll have a way of either texting calling or emailing questions in well let's go ahead and start with the present and I'll tell the audience all these slides are on our website but we start talking about the budget describing the city council's strategic priorities and here they are up on the slide Economic Development Community investment Community safety infrastructure and responsible growth from a highlevel standpoint of the budget we use these strategic priorities as a way to also describe what's in the budget so I'll do it at a high level now and then we'll get into some of the numbers the fiscal year 25 budget includes the transition of MedStar to the city of Fort Worth we have set that uh Target date for July 1 2025 and the budget includes funding to facilitate that transition also in the budget is uh a year one funding of a new meet and confir confer contract with the police department we do meet and confer agreements with police every four years the current agreement uh runs out at the end of September so we've been in negotiations with the police department to have a new contract in place for October 1 and the recommended 2025 budget includes uh year one funding for the me confer agreement we also have enhanced police presence in a number of areas including the Stockyards and Magnolia and we'll talk about that when we get into the police budget when we talk about infrastructure the budget includes increased funding for Street Maintenance it also uh includes continued investment in things we've prioritized over the last number of years including street lights pavement markings sidewalks and cast iron pipe in the water department we're also in the process of preparing for the 2026 Bond program so that will be coming in the next few years on the community investment side we have a new community center opening in the Northwest part of the city we also have the reopening of Meadow Brook Golf Course during fiscal year 2025 is currently under renovation we have the continuation of the neighborhood Improvement program and we also have a full-year funding for the high impact pilot to reduce homelessness on the economic development front the budget includes increase funding for our Chambers of Commerce that we contract with that includes the Hispanic chamber of commerce and the Black Chamber of Commerce we also have continued support for the economic development initiatives fund and that last bullet you see on this slide talks about our expansions and Partnerships with higher education partners and that's not just uh TCU expanding and their new um medical school in the hospital District but that's also when you think about it Tarlton down off the Chism Trail Parkway it's Texas A&M and their Urban campus downtown next to the law school and it also includes University of Texas at Arlington and their new west campus in Fort Worth on the responsible grow side we'll continue the investment in our comprehensive plan for 2050 we also have a n number of uh planning initiatives going on uh in transportation and Public Works we call that moving a million and that will continue with the upcoming budget the the budget is built around the council's Strategic priorities and we also get input a number of other ways that can include Capital project meetings that we have throughout the city it could include neighborhood association meetings different boards and commissions that we work with as well as uh we do a banial community survey uh with residents to give us feedback on services and the budget now we'll get into the numbers on the budget the recommended budget for the city of Fort Worth is just under $2.8 billion it's quite a big operation and we'll talk about how we fund those different um parts of the corporation uh we have a general fund that we'll talk mostly about because that's where we spend property tax and sales tax and that's where we talk about most of the services that are on residents mind police fire Parks and Recreation libraries Transportation public works but we also have a number of other funds and we'll talk about special Revenue funds and the large ones there include Crime Control and prevention District we'll talk about Enterprise funds those are separate businesses of the city including the water department Aviation Department all right let's jump into the general fund so on the general fund this slide shows the revenues both for um I guess uh last year the current year we're in and the numbers for next year fiscal year 2025 what I'll highlight here is the largest revenue streams are property tax and sales tax and they make up about 82% of the revenue stream in the general fund just shown a different way when you look at property tax sales tax again 82% of all revenues now when we talk about the property tax revenue that comes into the city it's a function of two parts of a Formula One is taxable assess value and the other part is the property tax rate so we're going to talk about both taxable assessed values and the recommended property tax rate this shows the change in net taxable values for the city of Fort Worth that Top Line where it says fiscal year 2024 that's the value of all property in the city of Fort Worth in the current fiscal year that's just a little bit over $ 115.7 billion dollar uh to remind the audience we work with four appraisal districts ter County clearly being the largest one but we also have property in Denton County Wise County and Parker County so those are our four counties that we get numbers from to talk about a taxable values for the city of Fort Worth the second number on that slide of just a little over 2.6 billion dollar is the change in value of all property in Fort Worth from one year to the next so of all the property that was taxed in fiscal year 2024 the current year that was the increase in value year over-year uh throughout the city of Fort Worth that number went up uh two and a qu% I will share two observations one observation is that's the lowest one of the lowest increases in the last number of years so the the lowest amount of growth in a number of years it was also a number that was U dramatically different than numbers we got from the appraisal districts back in April May and June so that number has been reduced uh dramatically one in the last couple of months but also reflecting slower growth over the last number of years the next number on that slide of just a little over 3 .5 billion is new construction that occurred in the last year that's a pretty strong number and consistent with what we've seen over the last couple of years in total the net taxable value for fiscal year 2025 and the number that we used to make all the property tax revenue projections is just a little under $122 billion this slide just shows some of those numbers over the last few years the red line is total assess value the black line in the middle reflects the net taxable assess value and then the bottom line is property tax revenue so the city council has decided to keep the property tax rate the same that it is in the current year the current tax rate is 6 67 and A4 C and the tax rate that we're using to make all the property tax revenue projections is that same tax rate so there is no change in the property tax rate we are recommending changing how we allocate the tax rate however and we break the tax rate allocation down into a couple different categories the overall tax rate is 67 and a qu order we break that down into onm and ins and the ins really relates to the debt Debt Service amount for the city's budget The Debt Service amount at 14 and 3/4 cents is the same that it is in the current fiscal year so there is no change in the debt portion of the property tax rate from fiscal year 24 to fiscal year 2025 we are recommending how we allocate the onm part of the tax rate and we break that up into operations and capital maintenance the capital maintenance part of that tax rate is going up a quar cent the current rate is 7 cents we're recommending that that goes up to 7 and a quarter and the operations side will be being reduced by a quarter of a cent that allows the amount of money for Capital maintenance to be increased and that entire increase is going to Street Maintenance so there's a big push in the recommended budget to increase the amount of the property tax rate going to Street Maintenance so I mentioned the net taxable value of just under 22 billion we keep the tax rate the same and then you see the total property tax revenue that's allocated to the different parts of the budget on the last number this slide shows the expenditures in the general fund in descending order of size of budget so the uh police departments the number on top there fire department being number two transp ation public works and it shows the numbers for fisc year 24 and the year-over-year change for fiscal year 25 the major drivers of the increase in the uh general fund budget the general fund budget is going up a little over $40 million uh the big part there is for the meet and confer contract with police uh the 7.5 million growth in Pago is the increased uh amount of money for Street Maintenance in the capital maintenance portion of that tax of the tax rate then we have uh pay for performance for employes uh fire collector bargaining agreement the $3.5 million for the transition of MedStar to the city and then we have some police officer positions that were partially funded in the current fiscal year and this is the additional funding for a full year for full year funding expenditures shown just a little differently in a pie chart again police and fire making up more than 50% of the spending in the general fund so let's talk about the highlights in the general fund what the budget achieves we'll start with police and in this slide we're showing not just the general fund uh additions in the budget but what is also going to be funded out of the crime control and prevention District so as you can see on this slide there's more there's a more officers being funded out of the general fund including a sergeant for the SWAT team and a crime analyst and coming out of the Crime Control and prevention District more school resource officers two neighborhood police officers in the North Division and then dedicated Pike bike patrols for Stockyards and the Magnolia District the fire department highlights include the transition of MedStar to the city again that date is July 1 of 2025 we also have a gear replace M program for firefighters Transportation Public Works I mentioned the increase in the tax rate for Street Maintenance uh we'll talk a minute about uh the high priority Capital flood mitigation Improvement projects that'll be part of storm water on the Parks and Recreation uh highlights I mentioned earlier the Northwest Community Center that's a new community center coming online and the reopening of the Meadowbrook Golf course we also continued the sustain Mowing and litter removal uh funding that we had in the current year budget that'll continue into fiscal year 25 on the neighborhood services highlights we continued the neighborhood Improvement program and we also continued the priority home repair program for homeowners and there's also additional Grant funded positions on the neighborhood services side for a code compliance code also includes our animal shelters there's an additional positions for animal shelter Communications uh and we also have the continued support for the boarding home enforcement program and homeless Camp Outreach programs uh there were additional funds in the current year fiscal year 24 those are continued into next year and then on the other highlights for the general fund we started a pilot program to reduce homelessness we call it the high impact pilot program that continues into fiscal year uh 2025 we're also going to continue to focus on our good nature greens space initiative and the other items we show on this slide for the taxpayer we've taken the average increase for a home in tant County uh so we've made that Taran County specific so the value goes up the amount for the homestead exemption also increases since it's a percentage and we show the impact for the average homeowner ER from 24 to 25 now we're going to shift from the general fund and talk about some of our Enterprise funds and our Enterprise funds uh operate on their own we'll call it own business model uh we'll talk about our water and wastewater fund our water department which is a regional Water and Wastewater utility that we serve not only the city of full worth but we serve another 30 some municipalities in our region the recommended budget does include increases in water and sewer rates water rates going up 3.3% and Wastewater going up 2.3% Solid Waste this is the fund um uh people pay a residential collection fee it covers picking up all the garbage recycling bulky items there is no increase in the residential fee for garbage or solid waste we are however recommending increases at the landfill and on that last bullet you see on this slide we are recommending the elimination of the 32 gallon residential cart that's the smallest of the three carts if you have a 32 gallon residential garbage C you're welcome to keep it but we are going to discontinue it for new accounts and we have a storm water utility uh the budget includes a recommended increase on 5% for for our storm water utility fee and that increase will go primarily to fund storm drain pipe Rehabilitation projects now moving to special Revenue funds we'll talk about ccpd which is the crime control and prevention District which is a half-cent sales tax and we'll touch on uh culture and tourism and Environmental Protection first Crime Control and prevention District again a half cent sales tax for Crime Control and prevention I mentioned some of the items that ccpd will fund including school resource officers the additional Staffing for bike Patrols in the Stockyards and Magnolia districts additional neighborhood police officers for the North Division and EMS when it moves uh uh to the city will become a special Revenue fund and the budget includes as I mentioned three and a half million for that transition to the city on the Environmental Protection side uh we increased this fund a couple years ago uh it's about making sure that the city is cleaner and part of that was um uh buying a bunch of street sweepers so we have 12 New Street street sweepers in the fleet we hope people see a lot from those street sweepers in the next uh few weeks and throughout the year so the total operating budget again is just a little bit under $2.8 billion and I'll say uh couple comments about the capital plan we at the same time we talk about an annual operating budget we talk about a rolling five-year Capital Improvement plan uh I'll show the numbers in just second but it's a continuation of bond programs that we've had in the past including the 2018 Bond program the 2022 Bond program we are now in the planning process for the 2026 Bond program uh and it again shows or reflects increased funding for Street m so this is what our Capital plans look like over the next 5 years and it you'll see water general public events which is uh the convention center in the wool Rogers complex we have three general aviation airports that we are responsible for we have a storm water utility and then we have the Environmental Services fund and as you can see from this slide over the next five years that's nearly $4 billion dollar in capital projects over that period of time and clearly the water department Leading The Way with a little over two billion dollars in capital projects over that period of time this slide shows how we distribute the 7 and A4 cents of that Capital maintenance we also call it or refer to it as pay you go it is cash and the amount of money that we use to maintain Capital infrastructure in the general fund the largest amount goes to transportation and public works for again Street Maintenance as well as other Transportation maintenance and you see that entire increase from the quarter C increase goes to Street Maintenance so if you put the operating budget and the capital budget together on the left side of this slide is for the current fiscal year and on the right side are the recommended two 2025 budget so the total budget including operating capital is just a little over $3.6 billion again we build it around the city council's strategic priorities and here's where we are in the budget process so we are doing a number of these budget meetings throughout the city uh we are scheduled to have a public hearing on the budget on September 10th we have a public hearing on the tax rate on September 17th and the adoption of the budget tax rate and all the other things that we need to do as part of the budget scheduled for September 17th and between now and sep September 17th we still have a number of meetings in the community uh this is our virtual meeting tonight uh and then we have a number uh over the next week and a half to finish out the budget process and with that that concludes my presentation we'll be glad to answer any questions that have come through our first question is why are we taking on MedStar why are we taking on MedStar I think U well we get we can get marked answer this too but the quick answer is I think we've looked at EMS systems throughout the United States they're all struggling financially uh and MedStar is in the same situation we think we can bring him into the city improve service levels and and put them on a path of financial sustainability all right our next question if we have a short fall in taxes what programs will we cut well if we end up with a shortfall in taxes and that has happened before it happened during covid um that we will employ a number of different um strategies along the way it won't go immediately to cutting programs and services we'll first look at do we need to put into place a hiring freeze and what we'll try to assess is whether this uh slowdown in revenue is a temporary situation or a long-term Financial impact that if if we determine it's a long-term Financial impact then we would go look at how we would prioritize services for reduction or elimination what is the large increase in the public events budget good question the large increase I think it's in the second fiscal year of about $500 million is the phase two expansion of the convention center the convention center is currently undergoing phase one of the expansion the phase one includes the straightening of Commerce Street uh and phase two is the the the bulk of the expansion of the convention center okay this next question has three parts and um it's about the um Services we provide to the homeless population some of it's asking for specific figures so we might have to get back to the to the person who submitted it but here are the questions how much are you spending to house feed and provide services for the homeless how much is spent on the permanent housing and temporary housing and what exactly is the high impact homeless housing and how much is being spent on that so I think the quickest answer is say we'll have to get back on some of those specific numbers because we are spending money each year on homeless Services we have spent money for permanent support of housing that's a capital expense but we'd have to pull those numbers together of what we spent over the last number of years and I'll say there we've uh we've had additional funding from the federal government so that's enhanced our spending on permanent Supportive Housing and what is the high impact pilot annual cost there do you remember it's a million two and so that program is working with uh MHMR with the county with some other social service agencies and it is directing services at specific individuals to get individual homeless folks Services Andor housing uh in order to uh put them on a path of success and we have a contact information so we'll get those other figures to you whoever answered that asked that question um our next question when do we expect to meet the needs of the City by being fully staffed with Neighborhood Services being a priority well uh I'll I'll answer it this way so we have a number of vacancies in the city we've added a number of positions over the last two fiscal years and so our ability to fill positions is the pace that departments are able to meet uh and so it's up to the Departments again to meet whatever schedule is to fill those positions there is no hiring freeze there's no hiring slowdown going on in the city if departments have vacancies they're they have the ability to fill them we are currently looking at vacant positions though for some reductions and positions have been vacant a long time we are evaluating some of those for either elimination or change this next question I think might have already been answered but um are the dramatic differences in year-to-year projected Capital Improvement also about the convention center or Does it include other stuff so I think if you looked at that Capital slide you'll notice big differences in what's called public events and that would be the convention center and you'll see big differences on the water um from year to year and I think those have to do with large capital projects that include Mary's Creek Water Reclamation facility and it would also include an expansion of the Eagle Mountain Water Plant so there are some large capital projects both on the water side and on the public events uh side is the Fort Worth Police Department and the fire department both fully staffed and funded so they're fully funded but they're not fully staffed um they both have a plan to be fully staffed at a point of time in the future and I I'll have to get those specifics but uh the police department has a plan to be fully stab and they're going to hold the number of classes that would be able to bring that to fruition and the same is true for the fire department uh they have a number of vacancies again but they will be holding classes to uh fill those vacancies and be fully staffed at some point in time in the future and we can we can get those specific dates and we don't have any other questions that's good well thanks to the audience out there uh we have that I'll bring that meeting schedule back up we have these other meetings over the next number of days and uh if you want to attend one of those you're welcome to do so thank you for your attention for