It will cost Fort Worth about $226.8 million to run its fire department and nearly $90 million to run its new ambulance services during the next fiscal year, according to city budget drafts.
The fire department runs 45 stations across the city with nearly 1,600 employees, according to the department’s website. It is the city’s second-most-expensive service, trailing far behind the police budget.
The city’s new emergency medical services, or EMS, which runs the city’s ambulance services, launched in July, replacing third-party ambulance provider MedStar. The EMS branch is a part of the fire department but considered its own budget item.
City Council will finalize on Sept. 16 the city’s roughly $3 billion budget for the fiscal year 2026, which starts Oct. 1 and ends Sept. 30, 2026. If adopted, the fire department’s $226.8 million budget would be an increase of 3.4% over its 2025 funding.
The fire department is organized into four major sections:
- Administration, which includes human resources, payroll and management.
- Executive services, which oversees special units such as arson and bomb response, and operations like investigations and commercial building inspection.
- Operations, which employs the vast majority of the department’s staff and oversees daily emergency response activities, water rescues and building inspections.
- Educational and support services, which trains new firefighters as well as oversees health and wellness programs, facility maintenance, equipment services and dispatch and alarm services.
Where the Fort Worth Fire Department’s money goes
The fire department draws from the city’s general fund, which pays for most day-to-day city services. Its biggest expense by far is salaries and benefits, making up about $203.6 million.
Raises accounted for $7.6 million of the increase.
About $23.2 million will fund the department’s day-to-day operations, and another $1.4 million will go toward licenses and permits.
The department shed $344,777 in costs that shifted to the city’s newly created Emergency Management & Communications Department, which took over the city’s 911 call-taking duties. Officials plan to eventually merge the department with the fire and EMS call-taking teams.
Where EMS’s money comes from, goes to
EMS’s $89.2 million budget is a special revenue fund that is expected to be 63% paid for by the branch’s self-generating revenue, which is mostly made from service charges to patients and insurance.
Fort Worth also provides its EMS services to 14 smaller, surrounding cities that will chip in roughly $1.7 million collectively.
That leaves the city’s general fund footing the outstanding bill of about $20.1 million to run the new branch.
Nearly $62 million of the EMS budget is dedicated to the salaries of dispatchers and approximately 300 EMTs.
The branch uses some funds and labor from other departments besides fire. About $6 million of EMS’s budget is from human resources, the city attorney and the Office of the Medical Director, which provides EMS medical direction independent of the fire department.
Drew Shaw is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at drew.shaw@fortworthreport.org or @shawlings601.
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