Fort Worth City Council members voted unanimously to approve a roughly $3.3 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year while approving a property tax rate hike to fund the city's operational plans.
The new property tax rate will rise to roughly 70.5 cents per $100 of taxable valuation, up from the previous rate of 67 cents.
While the overall budget passed without opposition, council members were divided on whether the tax increase was necessary. City Manager Jay Chapa defended the decision, warning that without the additional revenue, the council would have been forced to reopen budget negotiations and make significant spending cuts.
The newly adopted rate sits above Fort Worth’s no-new-revenue tax rate—the threshold required to generate the same amount of property tax revenue as the prior year from existing properties—meaning the city will collect significantly more overall property tax revenue in the coming fiscal year.
