Fort Worth homeowners could see a monthly fee to fix streets added to their water bill

Homeowners could pay as much as 9% more on their monthly water bill if Fort Worth adopts a new fee to help maintain the city’s roads.

The average Fort Worth homeowner pays $98.62 per month for city services like water, sewer, and trash, according to a recently released city report. The city wants to tack on an additional $9.22 per month to fix roads.

Without the fee, the city would struggle to maintain the roughly 8,100 miles of road as the the population grows to a projected 1.2 million residents by 2045.

Fort Worth budgeted $28.3 million for road maintenance in 2023. That’s $66.1 million short of what it needed, according to city data.

Right now, Fort Worth uses property taxes to maintain its streets. The city’s Transportation and Public Works Departments takes up a large portion of the city’s budget after the police and fire departments.

Out of the 10 largest cities in Texas, Fort Worth charges the second lowest when it comes to fees for city services like water, sewer, trash and storm water. There is no street maintenance fee. Its proposed fee would be the second lowest with only Corpus Cristri having a lower street maintenance fee.

The proposed fee, first floated in early March, received push back from some members of the city council over concerns about the effect on low income residents.

Councilmember Jared Williams noted the city has either added or increased fees on things like trash and water usage at the same time its lowered its property tax rate.

Fort Worth added a new fee in 2024 for overloaded trash cans along with rate increases for water and storm water usage.

“When our residents pay taxes they expect that basics services are delivered, and that includes infrastructure like maintaining our streets,” Williams said.

However, city staffers cautioned that replacing crumbling streets will be more expensive for Fort Worth in the long term than making necessary repairs.