Okay, council. Good afternoon. I will call us to order. This is a special call meeting to discuss our budget. I'll turn it straight over to J. Choa. >> I'm gonna go to the >> Okay. Good afternoon. It's a pleasure to be here. Um I want to start off by thanking the city council one for appointing me. So, this is my first budget that I get to deliver, but two also for um working with us through the spring and the summer on budget meetings so that we could get an idea of priorities and um have an opportunity to to showcase some of the areas that we had um concerns andor um highlights on. Is the presentation up? So, just to start off, I I just wanted to kick off by also uh thanking Christianne and her staff and all of the count all of my ACMs and department heads for the work that they put into this. I'm going to start off with um themes and strategic priorities in this budget along with the budget highlights. I'll go through the tax rate piece and then I'll be turning it over to Christian to go into the details on the operating and capital budgets. So, as we all are aware, one of the, you know, big themes is dealing with our growth. The increase in the property growth continues. I mean, and population growth continues. And so, balancing that need to to deal with the growth along with the um older areas of town, putting the resources in the correct places is one of the big things that we had to uh deal with as we move forward. the property tax landscape and the changes that are that continue to come both at the local level with TAD and at the state level with various bills that have been passed is also something that we had to make sure as you know um we were projecting a flat budget on existing the existing tax base. So we were looking at potentially being in a deficit. The good news is the TAD report came in higher than we projected and so our deficit um was eliminated and so we um we ended up in a good spot and you'll be getting the highlights from that. Of course, we always f focus on fiscal responsibility. We did go through a process since my uh first year running this. I asked the departments to go through and look at 1% target cuts and strategic reductions if possible. every department came through um with their their own um proposed cuts that led to I think a very tightening a real uh a real positive tightening of the belt for the departments and which allowed us then to to move forward and what you're going to see today. As we discussed this summer, we are going to be uh recommending free fee increases in various areas. Uh and we'll go further into that. We want to make sure that we continue our payo adding to PGO for that maintenance of the existing infrastructure. So that uh growth in that area is very important and we're going to keep doing that. And then we left the the tax rate on the bond side on the debt side uh static so that we could ensure that we continue our our bond capacity as we go forward. So any bond issuances do not impact the tax rate. Finally, we are having increases. Some of these um the council approved previously to the budget, so we had to make sure they're in there. um especially associated with public safety. Uh the increased police, fire and EMS coming to the city. Um we added additional payo to street maintenance and park maintenance. Um we are adding funds to the general fund portion of the housing pri priority repair program. So we do receive federal funds for that program, but we do also have general fund dollars. So, we're recommending an addition of half a million dollars there. Um, and then we one of the key uh neighborhood areas that I wanted to expand is the mobile tool shed program which the pilot has been successful. So, we are expanding that program. And then because of the need for animal shelter resources, the turnover that um occurs there with employees, we're going to add we're adding funds to that area. And then finally uh increase in the investment in employees. Employees I found that our employees are the the the key resource that we can get the most productivity and the the most innovation from and making sure we invest in them is is extremely important. So you'll see some of that as we go through this. So, we typically break out the budget into these areas that are uh city council strategic priorities that were put together in the last um their last retreat. And they're broken out into these areas. Starting with community safety, as I mentioned, we're going to have the full fullyear funding for the EMS program coming from MedStar to the city. We created a new department of emergency management and communications. And then as part of the new uh the redo of the beat program, the beat map for the the police department, we'll be adding neighborhood pat uh patrol officers or police officers. And then we had requests for additional school resource officers. All those are in the budget. On the infrastructure side, I mentioned the prioritizing of street maintenance. We're increasing funds there. Um, as well as recommending moving forward with the study to plan for the the street fee implementation that would go into effect next year. So, this this year they'll do the full study and bring back the council for next year. Um, we are making some changes. As I mentioned the employee investment in our employees, we are uh making some changes and adding a personnel on the capital delivery side in projects capital projects and moving away from using contract uh contracted labor. We found that we could be more be more efficient, less dollars, and we hopefully be able to keep the same folks and be more effective as we deliver those that capital uh going forward. Finally, we do have funding for the expansion of Eagle Mountain Water Treatment Plant and the Mary's Creek Water Reclamation Plant on the on the west side. Community investment. I mentioned the housing priority repair program. There's funds for that. Uh the code compliance mo mobile tool shed program and the animal services piece. Um we are continuing the NIP, the neighborhood improvement program. And then we're adding um we have a partial year of staff for the FAR Northwest Library which will open in the fall of 26. >> Does that neighborhood improvement program include one neighborhood or two neighborhoods? >> Just one. Okay, >> this continues the the current one program. >> So, we cut it last year to meet budget requirements with the expectation that we were going to bring back two this year was my understanding. So, how come that changed? >> I'm I wasn't here, so I'm not I didn't know there was the idea was to have two come back. >> I will say in in I'm not speaking for staff. If staff is present, you know, please come on up to the podium and answer. But I know that part of the challenge was also um the shortage of employees to um to uh sufficiently take care of the NIP. I think if if we were to add a second one, we would have to bring additional staff to so when I was here when we went to two previously the the ability to actually deliver a second one with the existing staff was just not there. So things got drugged up. I can't see Hello. Yes, there was discussion when we um eliminated the second neighborhood that we would bring it back as a decision package, but as it is mentioned, um we would need to have additional staffing in order to successfully spend the money within the three years that are allotted. >> The total package would be about about $5 million more. >> We have that staff. Did have we lost staff? because we were able to do manage the two per year. So have we lost staff since that happened or >> So right now we have about seven projects that we are behind on. >> Um and then the two we are just now starting. Um we are a few months behind on fair haven and semin or seminary and worth heights. The addition of the second is what caused the delay in the delivery of the of the programs and that's why we have seven because there was never enough staff to actually keep them on track where we could finish them within three or four years. >> Is included in this decision package uh additional staff for neighborhood services so that we can keep those projects moving. >> We do not have it for the 20 26th year. We will be looking for 2027 to see um the idea is that on the seven projects that we are behind, we are hoping to close those out so that they won't still be in the queue. Um if we're able to close those out, then we may have additional capacity in 2027, but we should know at the end of this year. >> Thank you. >> It was a catchup year kind of thing. On the economic development side, of course, uh you all are familiar with the small business development program. We have funds to expand the partnership with the the local chambers as well as working with the um with the u with the um groups that that do the actual certification for those those programs. Um we we put in funds to refresh the economic development strategic plan. We're still working off of the original 2017 plan. It was updated in 22, but the economy and and overall development has changed since COVID. And we believe that it's it's changed enough that we need to actually go through and and refresh our economic development strategic plan uh so that we are in line with the goals that we're trying to achieve in the current economy. Of course, we're investing in the Will Rogers Memorial Complex and the convention center expansion. uh that's funded fully funded going forward. Um and then we are also um continuing the economic development initiatives fund as we go forward. Jay, before you go to responsible growth, go back to economic development that small business development plan. I asked last week uh Dana when we looked at the program, are we sure that we have adequately funded that and do we have any wiggle room in the budget line? >> No, we've we've funded for what the the start off process is going to be. If we go through and it starts to grow, then we would come back to city council to add dollars. The responsible growth side, a lot of things could fit in here. Um, but we're we're continuing the funding to to finalize the 2050 comprehensive plan. Uh, we're also added a million dollars to uh funding replace vehicles. We have um a lot of vehicles that are past their their due date and then we need to catch up on that area. Um we also as I mentioned the investment in employees we have the pay plan or the pay study that is ongoing uh that will be partially completed uh toward the end of middle of next year and we wanted to start implementing those hard to fill jobs and recommendations out of that. So we've added some funds to be able to start making pay adjustments to employees were appropriate. And then as we talked about this summer, we're recommending various feed structures uh adjustments uh both for capital planning so we can stay ahead of things and for long-term sustainability of the various uh departments and and work that we do. Excuse me. On the organizational side, we have a a variety of changes. Of course, we are funding the uh EMS operations in the fire department fully this year. uh we had to create the office of a medical director which is uh now up and running. We consolidated uh positions and funding from emergency management side. So you'll see as when Christine goes through the details of 911 call takers for instance being moved from police into this group. Um you move we're moving the long range planning into this city manager's office. The goal here is to have more emphasis on the strategic and broader planning of the city. We're currently um recruiting a city planner to take the role take that role and and that office and it'll be reporting to Dana Bergdaf. where it moves the office of civil rights and to human resources and the small business development program to economic development and some contract compliance positions to finance as part of the uh the small business local program uh purchasing that we put put together council approved last week we're moving the property and and casualty from the risk side to finance to have better synergy with those groups and the uh more of a financial uh transaction piece And then also the partial nuisance team staffing. So code and code compliance split and environmental became its own department. When that happened uh a poor a part of that group stayed with co- compliance. It really should have gone with environmental and the completion of that trans uh that transfer happens in this budget. >> Moving on to property tax. >> Sorry. >> Yeah. Can we go back to the the long range planning team moving to the uh CMO's office? >> Sure. >> Um can you expand a little more on uh why we're making that change and what your hopes are for in that change? >> Sure. I think as part of of the planning group being in the lab, right? It was a the level of the positions basically like an assistant director level. Meanwhile, they're they're one of the goals or one of the the objectives of that department is to coordinate planning across the city of all the various plans in the different departments. And from a structure standpoint, you have directors in the different departments not necessarily always agreeing with an assistant director on how that fits together, making it part of the city manager's office. We also wanted to elevate the idea of as we go forward with the comprehensive plan of having having this emphasis on a strategic wider wider looking piece where all the different department plans get connected by that chief planning officer. So that's the goal. Any other questions? So moving forward with the the property values as I mentioned we did receive good news especially on the TAD side Tan appraisal district the July certified values came in higher than anticipated so last year's overall when you added all the four counties uh values we're right at $122 billion in value um we jumped up to a little bit over $129 billion You can see that the amount that it's split up between existing growth and new construction. I got to say the budget office did a great job of predicting that the new growth percentage increase. I think they're projecting 2.3%. It came in at 2.5 where we uh were off a little bit. We were using last year the way TAD valued things last year and we were projecting almost a flat like a 0.9% increase on the existing and we ended up at 3.4%. So the overall growth uh of the of the values is 5.9% total. So this basically shows the amount from each source or the total uh total dollars that if we left the current tax rate the same be able to collect. Our new council members, I wanted to make sure I put this in there so you you get an idea of how the property tax has changed over the time. Uh you see the where that red line where it says CCPD established that was the highest level of the property tax was 97.5 cents. Uh since then it's been on a downward trajectory and you see in the last 10 years or so it's really uh really moved down as values of uh properties have gone up substantially. So my proposed uh in my proposed budget I'm recommending a reduction of a quarter cent to the tax rate to 67 cents even. Current tax rate is 67.25. And when you break that out between debt and operations and maintenance, the debt service stays static at 14.75. And the operation and maintenance is reduced from 5275 to 5225. I mean, I'm sorry, from 5250 to 5225. And then the capital piece of that PGO stays at a static uh 725. And the operations piece is where we the the 0.25 gets reduced. So it's 45 cents even. >> Any questions on that? >> Questions for Jay at this point? >> Jay, I do have one question. Uh thank you, mayor. Um as we talk about the tax rate, and I know you'll probably get to it uh maybe in the street and infrastructure piece. um with us and I know it's just a quarter cent and I know we there may be some discussion around the no new revenue rate. I want to hear that discussion as well. Uh but with this quarter piece, how do we propose to keep up with our infrastructure growth uh in the million people that we have here in Fort Worth. So, one of my goals by proposing this rate, one of my goals was to have as little impact to the taxpayer as possible since we're proposing several different increases on the fee side, right? by proposing this rate and looking at at the numbers. If you're a especially in Tarant County, if you're a Taran County homeowner that has a home a homestead exemption, you didn't get an increase in your value. And if you pro protested, it went down. And by us reducing the tax rate a little bit, it actually you're going to have a smaller bill from the city of Fort Worth, which will be offset by the rate increases. So my goal was to try to make that as even as possible across the board so that we're not causing damage on both sides, property, tax side, but at the same time meet as much of our of what we're trying to accomplish from infrastructure from the others. That's why we left the payo the same. And you'll see when we go through the details that the street payo is increased by the full 5.9% increase, not by the three and a half% that the other pieces of the payo stayed at. So we're adding dollars there. Um but that's how I was justified the the reduction. And I think to council member Nettle's question too that on the street maintenance piece under infrastructure that's a separate piece you want to implement fiscal year 2027 but moving us toward that goal because as you stated we've got a lot of unfunded um street maintenance we need to take care of. We've kind of punted that conversation several times over. You you missed that part of the what's included is actually funding the study that will take several months to put into place to bring for next year to implement the street the actual street fee or street maintenance. So when you look at the new tax rate and how many dollars it on the property tax side it brings in it brings in about 35 $39.5 million of new revenue. And as we go through this you'll see Christian will go through the details most of that amount is actually taken up by previously approved pro uh programs and projects. And then here I we just wanted to show the growth of values versus the actual t property tax revenue. So the red line shows you the growth in values for the last basically since COVID when we've seen a big jump since the co pandemic was over. The black line shows the appraised taxable value. So the the the amount that we actually uh that we actually put taxes against. And then the lower line, the green line is the revenue. And you'll see that the combination of the city lowering its tax rate and the state having a putting a cap on the amount that we could capture from existing values shows that the the tube lowered lower lower level 9, especially the the actual revenues collected have grown at a slower pace than the values overall. So, I'm going to turn this over to Christian. She's going to go into the details. We do have a three point over $3 billion operating budget this year. It's being recommended. If you throw in capital, it's about 4.5 billion in total uh funding to next year. All right. Hello, Christian Simmons Forth Lab. Guys, I was going to tell you that you're the you you're the first like my favorite part of the day today because I like to present the budget, but then Taylor Swift dropped a new like album announcement, so now you're the second best part of my day. >> Um, I'm sort of serious about that, but also serious. Thank you. Did you stay up till midnight to figure out what was happening? >> You know what? I didn't. I saw it. I saw the little clip of her on the Kelsey's podcast and I was like, >> "Yes." Um, so thank you for I want to thank Jay for allowing me to tag team in the presentation. Um, it's it's it's great practice. And then just a brief point of privilege again to thank staff, all my Fort Worth Lab team here. Wave your hands. Um, yep, there they are. And of course, it takes departmental fiscal coordinators all year long and the fourth lab staff to to really turn all these ideas and proposals into a tangible deliverable for you. So, thank you all for that. Okay. So, you've had um heard some of the headlines and spoilers for the budget. So, now I get to go into the detail. Um and so I'll try to give the right amount, not too much, not too little. Um we do have time reserved with you for budget work sessions. So don't forget that as we're going through if something kind of piques your interest, we can talk about what you might want us to bring back with more detail over the next few weeks. Okay. So with that, we're going to start with total operating budget. So this is all operating budgets, not just general funds. General funds there on top at 1.1 billion, but this is everything. So that's an important distinction. So you'll see total operating funds about $3.1 billion uh for fiscal year 26 recommended budget. um over a third of that operating budget is the general fund. So, we're going to go through that kind of first and foremost as the biggest. Um but you'll just see that our big picture total um the operating funds grew about 10.7% there at the bottom with the growth sort of varying across the different types of funds. Um to compare just for context, especially for the new council members, last year the this number was 7% growth across the operating funds. The big primary difference this year is really the addition of EMS. That's kind of one of the bigger drivers. So, general fund um is as you know the largest fund within the city and it includes the highest revenue total in the overall budget which is property tax and sales tax really as the the dynamic duo there. Um so the revenue total is 1.1 billion and so we balance the proposed expenditures to that projected revenue as is required by state law. So we have to present you with a balanced budget. So total budget recommended at 1.1 billion growing at about 4 and a.5%. I think this is the only view you're going to have in this presentation of general fund expenses by category. We're going to go through them in like department level detail. So just note here that in that bottom section expenses by category that salary and benefits is about 67% of the general fund. So really about twothirds salary and benefits. So, as I mentioned, the two biggest revenue sources in the general fund are property tax and sales tax. Um, those two make up 82% of the general fund. Um, and we've talked a little bit about property tax already today. Um, but you know, this property taxes are levied on real estate and personal property. Um, and the city sits in four different appraisal districts. So, you saw kind of how the values came in. You heard Jay talk about our recommended rate of 767. Wow. 67 per $100 valuation 67. And remember you saw how that rate breaks down into the different portions. So about it's a little more than three quarters 78% of the property tax rate funds these operating expenditures and the other portion goes to debt. So just kind of as a another view of that. Uh and then sales tax second biggest revenue source. Uh the sales tax represented here comes from our 1 cent sales tax and it's projected at 263 million. I was I was realizing the first year I did a budget in the city. I was working for the police department and that was in fiscal year 2016 budget development and the sales tax for the city I think was 138 million. And so you can see kind of that decade of growth in where we're um we're budgeting 263 million which is just really big double digit growth especially over the last couple of years since the pandemic. We are not expecting that double digit growth to continue. We're expecting about 4% growth. um but still a healthy healthy growth. So I mentioned that we sort of set the revenue stage 1.1 billion 48 million in growth and that informs where we go on the expenditure side. Um so one thing to remember about budget development and Jay kind of alluded to this is that the city has a number of prior year commitments and contractual obligations uh that we we have to account for sort of at the beginning of the process. So, in other words, that's kind of like budget growth before any department heads ask for anything additional. Um, and so remember, I showed you that the budget was growing by about 48 million, 4 and a.5%. What I'm showing you now are the primary drivers of some of that growth. So, you'll see first that about 70% of the growth comes from public safety obligations. This includes the addition of EMS. uh for the first time in fiscal year 26 for the full budget. The general fund has to pay $20 million to the new special revenue EMS fund because it's not totally self- sustaining on its own. It's not an enterprise fund. It's special revenue. So, they make up a lot of their cost of service but not quite all of it. So, the general fund is subsidizing that new fund in the amount of $20 million. And then those next two lines are the police and fire contractual pay obligations that are negotiated in the meet and confer and the collective bargaining agreement. So these are contractually obligated. We've negotiated these things. $15 million in pay increases for our civil service employees. So that's 70% of the growth kind of right off the bat. There are also some some workforce items. So um about 12 million there. 9.7 million is pay for performance for uh general employees, so non- civil service. Um that happens as an annual performance management um process and usually averages about to uh 4%. It's it's a range, but um we have a really nice Diana showed a lot of times kind of the bell curve of pay for performance. And so this budget recommends 4% for um general employees. And then Jay mentioned we we do have a bucket there $2.2 million for implementation of the pay study. So you'll remember we're in the middle of a pay study looking at like comprehensively citywide all the job classes and categories and wages and compression and all of that. We know that 2.2 million is likely not enough. We were really forecasting it to be six or eight million phased over the next few years. But as we begin to hear what those recommendations are in the middle of fiscal year 26, we wanted to have a place to begin, you know, implementing maybe it's lowhanging fruit or maybe it's um addressing some some compression or some certain job classes. We don't exactly know what that'll look like yet, but we have this bucket available. Um, and then finally, capital funding, 4.6 million in PIGO. This just represents keeping the PGO investment at seven and a quarter. So, as values grow, this is this is the amount we send over to PIGO for that cash funded capital maintenance. So, if you do quick math here, because I know some of you like to do quick math, you'll see these highlights actually add up to more than 48 million, and that means we did reductions along the way. So I'll remind you about that even though Jay kind of uh she Mr. Mills has a question. >> Oh yes. >> Thank you Christian. When you mention about the pay stud imple uh implementation of the 2.2 million >> um and I know you said the midyear but my um my question is about uh getting each employee I know we was able to do it to the $18. And so I know we talked about um looking at this on a year-by-year basis. Do you know what time frame within the mid year we'll have an update on the uh the pay study? >> I think I'm going to look at Diana, but I think it's April. May. Okay. She's saying May. So kind of mid year then April May we'll start to see some of those early recommendations. >> Did we just start the pay study or is it takes about almost two years to get done? It was funded in this fiscal year and I think it kicked off toward the end of the um maybe like the end of the calendar year. You can give us a reminder. >> It's a year it's a year-long process. Um the pay study encompasses about 4,500 to 5,000 employees and over 550 job titles. So they're all the non-Ivil service uh job titles in the system. It's a year-long process as we look at all of those different categories and professions that exist in the city. And so we're looking at a partial year implementation, which is what that money is set aside to do. It addresses both compression as well as just market competitiveness in the U metro area. >> And then the ultimate goal would be to fully implement whatever those pay study um changes over the next several years, >> multiple years. Okay. >> Yep. >> So this money in here will will supplement what that pay study says for the employee >> starting mid year. >> Starting mid year. >> Yes. Exactly. >> Correct. So you're paying for a study. if that's kind of what you're concerned about. Yeah, that's correct. >> Yeah, we're going straight to employees. >> Yes. Yeah, this is actual money and we would bring it to you via M andC because it's budgeted sort of in a holding spot, non-EP departmental right now. So, we would bring it to you probably do some kind of presentation and say, "Hey, here's, you know, here's what the study says, here's what we're recommending implementation." You would do that via M andC authority. Okay. Okay. Um, so just a quick reminder, uh, Jay mentioned this, so I won't belabor the point, but, um, early in the budget process, you know, back in April when we really got started, uh, we were projecting that lower growth in values. And so, um, those revenue projections in com combination with Jake kind of being new and really challenging departments to take a very surgical approach to budget development as a budget guy, um, which I personally love. Um, that led to us setting lower targets for the departments. So, um, in budget submissions, departments are working to a target budget and they have to submit in line with that goal. And so, we reduced the general fund budget targets by 1% and departments then could best figure out how to meet that, right? So, it wasn't the budget office kind of going in and doing a a blind carve out, but departments could submit that 1%. That 1% equal $7 million in reduction. So, that was kind of right off the bat. Um, and then we asked departments to submit another 3% in reduction packages. public safety had a smaller goal, but most general fund departments did 3%. Um, and so they presented those 3% reductions as part of budget blitz, which happened in June, sort of like a couple of days of presentations. Um, and we did another $5 million in reductions from those 3% submissions. So together about $12 million in general fund reductions. Um, then when our values came in a little higher, we didn't just reinstate all those reductions. We actually kept most of those reductions because they were good, smart kind of strategic looks at at where maybe some money had floated from year to year that you know that needed to be cut and rep prioritized within a department. We did reinstate a few where we'd kind of cut things that were very painful or left a department very thin. I'm thinking of like libraries programming budget and some other things that really are aligned with your priorities. Um but then we were able to do some more impactful recommendations once we had those better values. I will say that um on July 24th, right before the certified values came in, we still had a $9 million budget deficit. So that was after the 12 million. We were still going to have to make up 9 million if the values had come in as predicted. So we kind of had some ideas in our back pocket thinking, okay, what else can we do? Like what what other reductions can we take? What people andor programs will really be in the crosshairs of a difficult year. So, it was a great surprise when our existing growth value came in a bit higher and we didn't have to have that next level of difficult conversation, but we did reinstate a lot of really smart cuts. >> Um, I'll turn to questions. I might just mention for on that particular item, it might be healthy in a future work session to kind of work through that, even pull department heads up and give some examples to councils. They can kind of understand what that process looked like >> and maybe why why you reinstated a cut or why you kept the 1% that was recommended from departments. Did you have a question, Council? Yeah, I think that's a good point. Um, I would love to see that because if we're taking a 1% to 3% cut in each department, I would like to know exactly what did we cut? And some of may be vacancies or jobs or whatever. But some of them may be pos uh things that I may call DJ and say, DJ, what's taking so long on this? He said, well, you actually cut that piece last year. So, I mean, not saying that we don't want to do it, but we want to know what we actually cut. >> I think that's healthy. DJ didn't take any cuts. >> I bet he didn't. >> Sounds just like something DJ would do. >> Yeah, Council Member Beck. >> Okay, next slide. Go ahead. Thank you. >> Okay. Yeah, I think those are I think those are good asks. Uh general fund 1.1 billion. This is just a a little visual to tell you what you already know, which is that police and fire take up about half of the general fund budget. Um transportation, public works, and parks, another kind of third there. and then other departments who we also love even though they're not listed but about another 20 departments taking up that last third. So just a view here of of where our money is. >> Thank you. Did you have a question on that slide, Elizabeth? Okay, go ahead. >> Okay. Uh so now we can take a look at general fund uh expenses by department. These are in descending order. Biggest budget to smallest. Um and this is a budget-to-budget comparison. So current year adopted to next year recommended. There are various swings in this budget that might look a little funny as you see. So, I'm going to try to explain the ones I think you'll ask about. And Jay hit on some of these in his organizational structure changes. That's what most of them are um are due to. So, the first is um emergency management and communications as a newly formed department established by ordinance earlier this year. Um so they're responsible for um emergency management and emergency communications and they were created and funded by consolidating existing positions out of police mostly and a couple from fire. So 175 positions um from police communications into the new emergency management communications department that happened from general fund and CCPD. Um and then seven emergency management positions from fire. So that's kind of where you'll you'll see they're still growing, but like for instance, police would normally grow by much more than 08%, right? Because of their mean confer agreement and that kind of thing. So that's kind of how that shift occurred. The next significant change is not not really an organizational structure thing, but it's just a the way the budget looks thing. um economic development for a long time, I guess a couple years at least since I've been here, um has had its incentive agreements that it kind of owns and negotiates within its budget, but it really inflates their budget because they've they're always listed as like a top five or six department when really the majority of that is is incentive agreements. And so when Jay came back, he asked us to move the incentive agreements piece of their budget to non-EP departmental um so that we're not artificially inflating economic development's budget. It's it's easier for budget management, development, forecasting for that department to really just, you know, see their $9 million in budget rather than almost 50. We talked about this one a bit, the long range planning team moving from the Fort Worth lab to the city manager's office. This is very personal. No, it's it's it's a it's a good um it's a good realignment to elevate the planning function within uh the city, especially I mean you all know that we're at this major sort of growth inflection point. Really need specific eyes on that. Um and so while the Fort Worth lab will still really be involved with um fiscal impact analyses and return on public investment and some of those like fiscal and data heavy functions that that we're doing together with planning right now, that collaboration will continue. the long range planners and all the great things that planners do um will be shifted over to the city manager's office. Um and they'll be reporting to that new chief planning officer. We're excited about that recruitment. That position was created in the current year out of a a reclass of a vacancy. And then another uh restructure that makes the city manager's office look like it's kind of growing when it's really just about um position shifting is homeless strategies. So, this is um already functionally occurring, but this moves all the homeless strategies contracts and the personnel um that's Tara Perez and that that team that you hear from often um from neighborhood services to the city manager's office. Um so, this again is all of their contracts, which is I think it's about $6.5 million and then uh two more people. >> Council Poples, >> what was the thought process on moving that out of neighborhood services to your office? I don't know since it happened before. They just didn't move move it on paper. They moved the people. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Um I think the idea was to kind of like the planning function to put a bigger emphasis on homelessness response since really it it's not just this group, it's multiple departments. And so just, you know, personnel react quicker when the city manager's office calls versus a fellow department. So I think that's part of it. And since they had moved the folks, but I I said, "Well, we need to move the money so that way it all kind of goes together and we have it in the same organization for management purposes." >> Yes, counc. >> So, I think from a number standpoint, you might have answered all of my questions, but I just want to make sure. So the non-dep departmental we see that massive increase is tied to the massive decrease that we see in economic development. Correct. >> Okay. And then have we moved anything else to non-EP departmental? >> There's nothing in non-EP departmental for fiscal year 26 that's new to non-EP departmental except for the EMS subsidy. So there was a small amount in fiscal year 25 that was subsidizing the new fund. So that subsidy grew, but there's nothing coming from departments into non-EP departmental. >> Okay. And then the neighborhood services uh decrease that we see is is it only a function of moving Tara Perez and her um >> all those contracts? Yes. Okay. >> Um I think those are all the questions. >> Got an increase on the priority repair program. Actually >> the reduction is because of the move, but they actually got an overall increase. >> Okay. Gotcha. >> Yes. Yeah. Uh otherwise it would look like 6.5 million but really it's being offset by the 500,000 additional in the priority repair program. Yes. Okay. That's right. >> Which is staying in neighborhood services. >> Correct. Yes. That that one is administered through neighborhood services. >> Okay. Great. Thank you. >> The I think this is my second to last significant change uh is that partial staffing um from code to environmental. So this again, I think Jay talked about this, but kind of another one that should have happened when the departments split code and environmental when we created the new environmental department. Um, these are eight people that are responsible for commercial compliance and illegal camping abatement really aligned with environmental's mission. And so this is a transfer that both departments kind of agreed to do, move those eight people in their functions from code to environmental. And then finally, you'll see the various restructures occurring um from what was diversity and inclusion to HR uh to cover the office of civil rights uh economic development for small business development program and then some purchasing support into finance. So you'll see those shifts that we have talked a few times about. So those are significant general fund changes. I didn't go over every little change, but if if you don't have any more questions, I'm going to move to user fees. But >> any other questions before user fees? Council Beck, >> I have a comment on the general fund before we get to the user fees. Okay. um specific to our neighborhood services department. Uh last week's vote on the elimination of um of our DEI programs really brought into light um the peril that we put ourselves in in the way that we fund our neighborhood services department which is almost exclusively grant funded. Um neighborhoods are at the core of what we do here on city council in this city. And so for us to be um quite literally not putting our money where our mouth is, I think does a disservice. Um so what I'd like to see is um and I appreciate all of the reductions and and uh in smart ways that we've in increased efficiencies and and and looked at that 1%. I I truly do appreciate that, but I want to see what we're doing with our general fund to truly support neighborhood services and fund those programs so that the federal funding that we get um is an addition to not our sole source. So maybe what we do I think that's helpful Casey I don't know where you went um have you been in that role now for a year right at that needs to be a special work session to just work through neighborhood services understand the layered funds where you are Casey in the process of rebuilding that department and answer some of the questions and concerns that council rebeck had I think that would be very healthy >> think I have any questions or concerns I my questions and concerns really aren't for Casey but it's for us as a policy body we seem to continuously not be funding neighborhood services in our budget and that puts us in peril. It puts our neighborhoods in peril. I mean, we I heard Councilwoman Martinez last week talk about how important it was that her communities get those dollars. And so, with the fluctuating federal either requirements or just the funding cuts, we need to make sure that we're doing our part to put it in our budget that we're >> Sure. And I think I'll just push back and say the decision packages that maybe were offered by county neighborhood services through the budget process, if we're not funding those, that's a healthy conversation to have at this body, you know, really leaning on expertise of staff to say, "What did you think you needed to be funding differently? What programs do we need to enhance whether they're federally funded or not? Um, I just don't think you can do that and without having that bigger discussion about neighborhood services programming." So, council member Peoples, did you have a question? I stopped let me move. Councor O'Neals, >> I know I missed the uh earlier discussion about the NIP. I know we moved from two to one and I thought we was going to get back to the two. So, I want to know what the thought pattern of wire and I know it's about employees, but are we not able to bring in additional employees to make that happen? >> And I think Casey can come back up and um repeat what she gave us earlier, but essentially the problem is we're trying to clear a backlog log of projects that were created by creating two neighborhoods at a time. we didn't have enough staff for that. I think she's hopeful that the end of this fiscal year, she'll have been caught up. So, that would be a healthy conversation to have in fiscal year 2027 about bringing back two neighborhoods. But when we do that, you would have to appropriately staff it so you don't end up in the same position we were in. Again, Casey, if I didn't summarize that correctly, please. >> Um, just to recap, so we do have um seven neighborhoods that we are backlog on. And so, when we came into 2025 going to the one neighborhood, we did feel that that would give us an opportunity to catch up. And so we are starting to make progress on those neighborhoods. Um the other thing that we added this year, we also are bringing in some consultants that will help with the TPW and park and recreation projects and we feel like that will help us get more momentum on the neighborhoods. So once we are able to catch up on those seven neighborhoods that are still going, we feel like that will give us more capacity so that if the other um thing I forgot to mention too, at the time we submitted our budget, we were still anticipating a deficit. And so when we talked about it last year, we did say that we would bring back the second neighborhood if funding was available. So when we submitted our budget, we did not anticipate that there would be funding to support a second neighborhood. And so we did not um provide that as a decision package. Going into 2027, we do feel that if we're able to um close out some of the neighborhoods, that'll give us additional capacity or if funding is available um in the council support if we could look at bringing a second neighborhood back. >> Remind me Casey, how many employees you have that really devoted to the neighborhood improvement program? >> So technically two. Um but we also bring in other staff to help with the program as well. Um we are bringing in the consultants so that will be additional staffing and then we do rely on the departments that we work with. So park and recreation code compliance they're also providing their staff as well to help um complete the projects. Our our um support in terms of neighborhood services is serving as a project manager and making sure the projects are moving along and moving forward. Oh, I'll respond because I think I heard two things about if funding is uh available and then also the the lack of being able to keep up with the functions of the job. And so, and I we can we won't get deep into it today because we're talking about budget, but I would like a work session on um what are those functions? Uh and is solely uh within the city of Fort Worth or is it we need to bring in actual u outside workers to come in and is it about the study trying to determine what the neighborhood should look like because I know that goes into the piece. But the second part is I think we actually have the funding to support two neighborhoods. And so that's where I'm concerned on why we're not trying to move forward to do that. >> Um I would say I would be hesitant to do it now until we do knock out some of these other projects. Um the other neighborhoods that are still pending. Um just from a capacity standpoint. Um certainly if council is interested in it, but just from our staff, I would I would like to see some of those cleared out first before we add a second. I will say that we are planning to come to the city council in October to provide a more comprehensive um overview of the neighborhood improvement program. So that is already um on the schedule where we'll be providing an update on all of our current projects and then also doing the announcement for the 2026 project. So as part of that, we did not we don't currently have the staffing piece in the presentation, but we can add that to the presentation. >> Any else on this? Thank you, Casey. So, I guess we'll move now into user fee increases. Christian, thank you. >> Yes, if my clicker will work. There we go. Okay. Uh, just a couple of notes on fees. We won't dive deeply into this today. Uh, fees are reviewed annually alongside the budget process. Um, and then updates are provided to you during the budget process. So, you typically adopt the fee ordinance alongside the budget ordinance at the same time. Um, utility rates are a little different. And I'm not talking about utility rates, but really just fees. Um, and there are a number of different types of fees. There are eight different departments recommending fee changes for fiscal year 26. You see them listed there. There are a number of reasons why um, departments recommend these kinds of changes. Some of it is about market uh, competitiveness or market studies that drive a fee up or down. And it does go both ways sometimes. Uh, sometimes it's about cost recovery where we are allowed to recover cost of fees. It's not all fees that we can recover costs on, but sometimes um addition of services. So, for instance, this year we've adopted all the or you'll adopt all the EMS fees um substantially kind of unchanged from the way they looked at MedStar. So, those are service additions to the city. And then sometimes we're really looking at long-term planning and sustainability when we talk about how a fee is structured. So, um, you know, solid waste is a good example of that for this year that we've talked a little bit about kind of long-term sustainability of that fund and solveny um with regard to not just cost recovery, but also long-term capital planning, landfill closure and replacement, etc. Um, so you have the detail in your recommended book uh about the fees that are that are changing. It's many pages long. Typically, we would pro we'll provide you a summary of those and we usually do that the work session after the recommended budget. Um, but if you would like to get an early jump on that, there are there are tables in your recommended book. I did want to show you just a quick view though of, you know, we talked in June about the like sort of big rock fees and utility rates alto together. And so this is an updated um view of the average taxpayer. When we say average, I want to clarify what that means. At the top line, you'll see taxable home value average. So this is the average that we get. I think this is the the TAD average. So, not maybe not a blend of all the appraisal districts. I can't remember. Probably TAD. Um, and remember this is taxable value. So, not market value. So, you you're likely looking at a homestead exemption as part of this, you know, formula here. So, in fiscal year 25 to 26, you see the taxable home value average from 237 to 235. When you apply the new tax rate that's recommended at 67 cents, you kind of see how it calculates onto the tax bill. That's the city's portion. You know, people other there are other taxing entities, too, but I'm talking about the city's portion. And Jay mentioned that the average taxpayer would pay $20 less a year as a result of that tax rate decrease. Then you can kind of see how our um recommended fees and rates stack up for the same average sort of typical usage resident. Uh and you'll see that those add an additional um let's see 56.88 a year or $4 a month. And so offset with that tax rate, um, we're looking at about $3 a month different when you look at the offset with the tax bill reduction and the resident charges kind of spread among the different fee recommendations. >> I got a comment on on councelor >> sorry I'm sorry I have a lot to talk about this morning. That's what this meeting is about. >> That's okay. But to Jay's point earlier about the um the fee increase, where where will they see these fees increases? Will be on their water bill. I know you just kind of mentioned right there on that taxes, but where else will they see this? >> Yeah, the tax bill for the top, water bill for the bottom section. >> Okay, we have uh reporters here and I'm sure we'll see a report come out about the city is contemplating raising fees. Have we prepared a uh to get out in front that we are lowering your taxes to um uh in place of also raising the fees? >> We we did presentations in July showing that these recommendations were coming forward. So I think there's already been news reports on it. Um and one of again one of my goals on this was to lessen the impact to our rateayers and our citizens. So by having the actual appraisals come in higher than anticipated, providing that small break in the tax rate, it provides an offset for those proposal proposed increase on the fees, >> right? And I think we're doing a good job on offsetting it. I just remember last year this time my 83y old grandfather or papa called me yelling at me about raising the trash fees and so I tried to explain to him. So, I think it's important that we stay out in front of >> we'll be we'll have some public education and information getting out. One of the reasons I wanted to bring it in July and earlier to the council in public so that it was telegraphed out to folks. I mean, at the end of the day, the council makes the final decisions. But I wanted the citizens to to know that those recommendations were coming forward and so it didn't just all show up today and people would be surprised by it. if they were paying attention, they would have known that some of these recommendations would be here. >> Okay, we're going to move on. So, we're moving out of general fund um and into enterprise funds, which some of those fees are enterprise funds anyway, but we're going to move into kind of the next few groupings. And I'll try to kind of buzz through these, but do stop me if you have a question. I wanted to give a like maybe the next layer of detail than I'd usually give just because we have some new council members and it's always good to remind us, you know, since we just do it when you guys just do it once a year, right? Um so enterprise funds, here's the group of those. Um these are funds that they kind of operate more like a business and so uh the city operates five of these. I almost said six. Five of these. Um and the revenue like kind of charges for service or rates pays for the delivery of the services or products. And so each operation is kind of intended to be self um supporting. So the biggest of these is water as you can see. Solid waste is the second. We'll quickly um talk about each. So no real change in municipal parking. Um this is the group out of transportation and public works that manages the parking garages, the surface lots uh that belong to the city and then um lots of metered parking kind of across Fort Worth. Um and they didn't have any major budget changes except for just kind of personnel growth and pay adjustments. Aviation overseas municipal airports. So this is Meechum and Spinx and Perau field. You'll see their growth is very modest. They had some increases and decreases um but but they really are focused on capital improvement. Storm water, another enterprise fund that you hear a lot about. Um and this one is a little different. They are um they again telegraphed this back in June a fee increase of 5% you'll see the additional revenue that that um creates 2.4 4 million and this is continue that phase capital implementation um of the flood mitigation projects. Solid waste another one that we hear about second biggest enterprise fund. So um solid waste is been around since like the 80s I think. Um and in the beginning the fees were increasing every couple of years. At this stage, we haven't actually changed the solid waste fee like as far as residential uh services since I think 2014. And at that time, it's actually a decrease because the recycling market was doing really well. Um, and so the team has done a lot of cost of service modeling that shows expenditures really outpacing revenues in the nearer term. And that's really without considering large capital investment or the landfill closure and replacement. So, at this point, this is a cost of service model, long-term sustainability and fund solveny question. Um, and so this budget uh recommends an increase in rates. It's $3 on the water bill, um, for the average resident. And then, um, the landfill environmental fee is another smaller but sometimes critical revenue stream. Um, and this is 50 cents a ton for granite privilege and non-grant privilege haulers. Um, we've done a couple of fee adjustments to that landfill environmental fee in the last couple years. Um, but the big story here is more about the the residential and commercial rate increase. Uh, and then finally, water and wastewater. So, uh, water is proposing in their fund a 9.3% increase. That does not equate to a 9.3% rate increase. Um, but their budget growth is really driven by capital needs. And then O andM that has to do with things like raw water costs and volume, wastewater outside treatment due to partner rates that increase. Um and then some smaller but still really important increases that have to do with POS regulation which I know you're you're well versed in at this point. But they do have some major capital projects um on the horizon in fiscal year 26. You'll see them there and then continuation of cast iron replacement. And they redesigned their residential tiered rate structure. So you might remember in June um the average um usage you'll see in that tax bill chart that we showed you um the average usage won't see a change in the water portion of their rate. It's just the wastewater portion of the rate. So that was kind of good news out of out of water. Okay, that's enterprise. Um we're going to move to special revenue funds. Biggest here is CCPD. Um and then the grouping for public events which is the culture and tourism funds. So you'll see the growth really varies across the special revenue funds as well. These are part of our governmental fund structure. Um these revenues are are restricted to these purposes. So again, the biggest is CCPD. Um and you hear about this as the CCPD board of directors when you have those hats on. Um but their growth is pretty modest this time. This has to do with some carveout for emergency communications, you might remember. But they are also growing with school resource officers and eight NPOs, which we thought you'd be probably pretty excited about because they did that beat study. There are 12 new beats. Um, and police determined that they need eight additional NPOs to cover those 12 beats based on the way that they're um geographically sort of related. >> Christian, >> yep. >> What uh division are those beats located in? >> I'm looking back there. all over every divi. Every division. Every division. So, >> she hopes so. >> Okay. Council Bla, >> can at some point through the process, could we get a view of the new beat map and >> and how that impacts the budget? Yeah, absolutely. Good suggest. >> Yes. I'm imagining that that will happen at the CCPD budget presentation. We'll make sure that it does. Okay, we're good. EMS. Uh EMS is a new special revenue fund. We established it this year for the last quarter of fiscal year 25. And again, we've talked about the $20 million general fund subsidy. They're also um we have a plan to sort of grow their fund balance since it doesn't exist at the at the level that the city requires it to, but that'll take a number of years. Um but their total budget is 89 million. Public events. This is a whole group of funds that I'll show you, but um these are the culture and tourism funds that are supported primarily by um hotel motel tax and then revenues from the convention center and Will Rogers. Um and the growth here is primarily capital projects to um including repairs to the convention center and Will Rogers. You'll also see later when we look at capital that they're issuing the debt for uh fourth convention center expansion. So their capital plan looks bigger than usual for fiscal year 26. Um, but here's just a quick view of all the funds that sort of roll up in culture and tourism environmental protection. So, this one was this is a fund that's existed since the mid9s. Um, and over time its scope has begun to include litter abatement, illegal campsite cleanup, some of the issues that you certainly hear about in your roles, street sweeping. Um, and this fee hadn't changed from like 1995 to 2023. And so we're on this year three of increasing the fee. Um, back when you heard it in June, it was proposed to go from$150 to $3. We've we've rolled that back a bit. The the fee now is proposed at $225. Um, and you'll see the revenue 5.9 million there. That will help to fund additional Upspire crews in particular. And then finally, we don't like to forget about community tree planting because they are also a special revenue fund. And this is just a vehicle or a piece of equipment they're going to replace which I'm blanking on now. Um but you'll see their their growth is due to that that um that process. Okay, we are getting close to being done. Internal service. Uh here's a group of internal service funds. There are five. These um are they're financing goods and services sort of provided by one department to another. So these are like interdep departmental billing departments. Um and so departments who utilize services from one of these funds get build by that fund. And so the first is capital project service fund. They are getting some new people. These are the people that Jay talked about um where we're kind of increasing our investment in employees and relying less on contract project management or contract engineers. Um and so we feel like over time we'll really see some contractual decreases from reducing that reliance and some increased efficiency. You have fleet and a lot of their growth is due to EMS because we gained the Altameir facility. They're running that 247. Um and they gained a number of positions as well to work on I think it's 89 new ambulances and like 30 other support vehicles that all uh came from EMS. So their growth is primarily related to that as well as the increasing cost of fuel and vehicle maintenance. Then we have a couple of HR related funds. So, group health um this growth is due to claims and stop-loss just in increases in high claims. I think you've had a presentation on that recently. Um and then we do have a new uh split funded position between this uh fund and risk that's offset by reducing contracts. It just um adds some administrative contract support for HR. They have a number of contracts and have kind of been operating without um dedicated support. And then there's risk. Uh the big move here is trans uh transferring the property and casualty division to finance. They'll all remain in the risk fund, but they'll just roll up through finance instead of through HR. Um that's one of the major divisions in risk. And then it maintains health and safety in HR. So just a little bit of an organizational structure change there. And then it you know what it does. Um some of their growth is also related to EMS. They were at about nine or 10% growth and then jumped to 134 with EMS. So, they're adding five additional positions in a lot of different IT contracts, as you can imagine, to support the 247 EMS operation. And that's all most of the the numbers that I know get hard to follow after a while. Um, this is a quick view of position changes. So, this is general fund adding 48, reducing 26 um for a net of 22. and we can sort of talk about what these are if helpful. Um the 15 for instance for library are for the far northwest library that'll open in the beginning of the next fiscal year. So we have to get those people onboarded and trained and and all of that. So of the 22 new 15 of those are are library and this is less than 1% uh position growth because the city the general fund has about 5600 employees. The total city has a little over 8,000 authorized positions in the fiscical year 26 budget. And most of these ads, even though their ads of positions are offset by O andM reductions. So kind of like we talked about with capital project service fund, different fund, but kind of offset. We have a contract we're not going to use. We're going to hire a person because it's more efficient or less expensive or both. And then the position movement for other funds looks crazy again because of because of EMS. I feel like I've said said that a lot. It's like a theme. Um but you'll see fire the additional 598 positions. Uh office of the medical director. That's also EMS related, of course. Um, the CCPD positions are there in police. We talked a little bit about TPW. Water has some new positions as well. Um, and we talked about IT, but so many of these are related to the acquisition and integration of emergency medical services. Um, at the same time that we do operating, we also do a capital plan. And so, departments submit a capital plan. These are my last few slides. Uh, and so you have the the little thin capital book at the back of your recommended book if you want to see any of these details. But big picture, we're continuing the 2022 bond program and planning for 26. Um, we are focusing so much of course on streets and utilities and other critical infrastructure. Um, and then continuing the neighborhood improvement program which has been a hot topic today. Here's a look at the plan. They, uh, the department submit for five years. And so total five-year CIP coming in just under$4 billion dollars. This doesn't include the $840ish million in the 2026 bond. So just imagine that that will be integrated here. Um but for fiscal year 26 about a $ 1.4 billion capital plan. I mentioned public event. So you can see that debt issuance there in their line which is you know a big bump that we that we've been looking forward to there for this year. The rest is pretty typical. And then finally, pay as you go. Um, this is that portion of the tax rate, seven and a quarter cents. And you'll see the payo increases from 83.8 million to 88.4 million. I showed you that growth. Um, in the green is the recommended, and you'll see that um, transportation and public works is getting the lion share of that growth. So, we grew each bucket um, by three and a half% and for the departments and then gave the rest to TPW. Oh, we gave a little bump to parks, too. We did parks at 4%. And then gave the rest to TPW streets. And part of their budget, again, just to re-emphasize, is um funding the remainder of the study to implement the fee structure for street maintenance, which we'd recommend in 27. Okay, so you made it. Fiscal year 25 adopted budget 3.6 billion. Fiscal year 26 recommended budget 4.5 billion. And the next steps are budget work sessions. We have a number of topics that you've talked about today that we've written down and we can take more agenda items now if you'd like and then we'll do budget presentations in the council districts. Um we were going to pop up a meeting schedule but it's just not quite finished yet. Uh CPE told me that they've been sending out those invites today to district directors. So I think you'll see those pop onto your calendar shortly. Um and then we're scheduled to be back together September 16th for the public hearing on the tax rate in the budget. The fee ordinance. Um, we'll do the public hearing. I think it's at 5:30 that day and then we'll roll straight into the council meeting where you vote. And so that's kind of the look forward of the next month. Councilor Hall, you had a question. >> Yes. Um, first, thank you so much for this presentation. Um, I had a question on page 62 about the position movements from the general fund. Um, with the DEI program um, being suspended, um, where are those eight employees going? So you can see there's an increase in economic development, HR, and finance. And those are actually positions moving over and being added. Remaining of the folks are moving into positions that are that are vacant that we're moving around instead of adding a position because we had vacancies that we can move around instead of adding overall. Folks are moving into vacancies that exist. >> Any other questions? council and importantly any other work session items on the budget you want to make sure we include that haven't been mentioned already come back >> um I don't know if we were planning on doing anything specific to parks um but I would like to see a bud the budget recommendation come back um with funding to allow us to um include all city alleyways in our mowing project in our in our mowing program right now we cover about half and they're ours we should be taking care of Ali mowing. Anything else? Yes, council large. >> Thank you, mayor. Um, is if it's possible, can we get something to showing uh where we can get matching dollars or whether it be federal or private public partnerships that we have and how we can stretch those dollars further? Like for example, the YMCA we're looking at the next bond, it's 5 million, but it could actually be 10 million with the matching funds from YMCA. So just to make sure that where we can stretch those dollars we are whether it's text dot cog whatever if if that's possible any other items council okay with that I think work session on the budget is adjourned I didn't miss anything did I Jay we're good >> thank you all right >> thank