Mayor-Elect Betsy Price Gets Crash Course In All Things Fort Worth

FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) – There are many twists and turns in the corridors of the Fort Worth City Hall. Mayor-elect Betsy Price wants to know how to traverse them before her first day at the job.

A week before being sworn in, Price is in the middle of a crash course about all things City Hall.

She, the interim city manager and staffers huddle in the conference room adjacent to the now vacant mayor's office on the third floor of city hall. They pore over thick binders prepared by city staff from various departments in the previous weeks.

It is a manual containing everything from details on the city's zoning issues to how to run the computers in the council chambers.

"I think the key to the city is in that book," Price said, laughing. "Everything you wanted to know about the city of Fort Worth is in there, I think! The city is like a huge corporation: 7,000 employees, a billion dollar budget. And corporations that size and governments that size have a lot of moving pieces."

Price began preparing for her first day as mayor just two days after the runoff election on June 18.

"Monday, we started back down here at City Hall, meeting people and finding out where everything was," Price said of the Monday following the election.

Price has already made trimming the city's $30 million budget shortfall her priority.

"We're looking at where we can save taxpayer dollars," Price said. "We were looking at a program just now that the city is doing that's not making money, it's losing money. And I said, 'go back and get me the figures on why we're running something that doesn't seem to be an essential service and is costing taxpayer dollars.'"

Price previously served as Tarrant County's tax assessor and collector, where she said she learned it's best to manage while out of the office and meeting employees.

And it's a strategy she's employing a week before she's sworn in as mayor.