Fort Worth City Council looks at property tax rate hike, cutting services with almost $77 million budget deficit

Fort Worth city leaders are facing a much larger budget deficit than expected – nearly $77 million – after receiving updated numbers this week.

The Tarrant Appraisal District delivered the news at Tuesday's City Council meeting, revealing the shortfall for the next budget year is $27 million higher than projections made in June.

"This is going to be a hard budget cycle. We knew this going into this budget cycle that would be different, going from $50 million to about $77 million in the deficit," Fort Worth District 8 Councilman Chris Nettles said.

Fort Worth LAB Assistant Director Brady Kirk said the gap stems from property values coming in significantly lower than anticipated.

"People are just protesting more both as individuals and also backed by agents that are supporting those protests," Kirk said.

"It is everybody's right to challenge the property tax – that's their property – but when you do that, it also can affect your city budgets or the money that comes into the City of Fort Worth," Nettles said.

Properties in Tarrant County were last reappraised in 2024 and will not be reappraised again until next year. Dallas County reappraises homes annually.

Nettles said city leaders will consider raising the property tax rate – currently 67 cents per $100 valuation – and cutting services.

"We have lowered our tax rate for the last 4 or 5 years consecutively, and eventually that will come up for discussion of what we do for the next year, and our city manager will probably be working to figure out what cuts that we can make," Nettles said.

The City Council is scheduled to review the proposed budget and tax rate at a work session on Aug. 11.