Editor’s note: Early voting for Fort Worth’s May 2 election opens April 20 and runs through April 28. In the lead-up, the Report is breaking down each bond proposition and charter amendment on the ballot. Find the other articles here as they are published.
On May 2, Fort Worth voters will be asked to consider raising pay for the mayor and city council members — the third time in 10 years.
What’s changed?
“It’s really hard to tell where that race is going to be,” former Mayor Betsy Price said in an interview. “I get real mixed vibes about whether it’s going to pass.”
Proposition G, one of several on the May 2 ballot, asks voters to consider effectively doubling the mayor’s and council members’ annual salaries — the mayor’s from $29,000 to $60,000 and council members’ from $25,000 to $50,000. The raises would go into effect in October.
In 2016, when the proposed mayor’s and council members’ raises were to $60,000 and $45,000, respectively, the proposition failed by about a 2-1 vote, with about two-thirds of voters opposed to increasing the salaries.
In 2022, voters narrowly rejected a charter amendment that called for increasing the mayor’s salary to half the average pay of city department directors and council members’ to half the average salary of assistant department directors.
Price said a lack of “cohesive messaging” may have helped lead to the failure of the 2016 proposal. She feels that many voters rejected the 2022 proposal, which allowed for variable annual increases, because they felt that removed control from the voters. “This time, it’s not tied” to that.
Other larger factors may play a role in how this year’s proposal fares, including how voters feel about uncertainty in the economy and current affairs in general, she said.
The mayor and council pay proposal is the “biggest” among the proposed charter amendments and the one that will most signal how voters feel about their mayor and council, she said. “I don’t think the other propositions reflect much” in that vein, she said.
Voter turnout will also be important, she said. Beyond the charter amendments, Fort Worth’s $845 million bond program is on the May 2 ballot, asking voters to consider funding streets, parks, libraries, affordable housing, police and fire facilities and animal shelter. Also on May 2, voters in north Fort Worth’s District 10 will choose a new City Council member.
“People don’t always understand charter elections,” Price said. “They just vote no. I think the chances of it passing depend on who votes. If you turn out a really low percentage of voters, it’s probably going to fail.”
Fort Worth seeks to streamline budget vote process
Proposition J, before Fort Worth voters in the May 2 city charter election, would allow City Council members to approve the city’s annual budget at the same meeting as their public hearing on the document. Constituents can speak to the council during the public hearing.
Council members currently must adopt the budget at a subsequent meeting. Last October, the council approved this fiscal year’s budget in a meeting directly after the public hearing.
Proposition J’s language: “Shall Section 2 of Chapter X of the Fort Worth City Charter be amended to allow for the budget to be adopted at the same meeting as a budget hearing as allowed under state law?”
The arguments for and against higher pay for the mayor and council members remain the same today as they were 10 years ago.
Fort Worth, one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities, pays its mayor and council members less than comparable cities, Fort Worth Report research has shown. Proponents of higher pay argue that low compensation keeps prospective candidates who have traditional fulltime jobs from seeking the office and, as a result, the City Council doesn’t fully represent the population.
“Nobody’s going to get rich on that, and it will affect the ability of people to serve on the council,” former Mayor Kenneth Barr, who served in the office from 1996 to 2003, said of the raise that’s being proposed.
“If you look at the last 25, 30, 40, years, people that could serve on the council either were retired, financially independent, or had a spouse that was supporting,” he said in an interview.
Proponents and opponents of higher pay wrangle over Fort Worth’s strong city manager form of government. Supporters say the community expects high participation from their council members and opponents argue that council members should focus on policy and leave the details to the city staff, including paid staffers in council offices.
“I jokingly say, all the time, deciding to run for city council is the worst business decision I ever made,” said Barr, who was paid $75 per week — if he attended meetings.
Even though Fort Worth has a strong city manager form of government, “people that live here have come to expect a lot of involvement, a lot of engagement, from their council members and from their mayor,” said Barr, who added he’ll vote for the charter amendment to increase pay.
“And if we’re going to have capable, qualified people to serve as council members and as mayor, they need a reasonable amount of compensation,” he said.
The vote could come down to one simple factor, former council members and others who have followed the issue say.
“Whether it’s reasonable or not, the question of council pay can be a function of how popular the current elected officials” are in the moment when voters pull the lever, said former Assistant City Manager Fernando Costa, who served on a city task force that examined the pay issue several years ago ahead of one of the votes.
Scott Nishimura is senior editor for local governmental accountability and a Fort Worth City Hall reporter at the Fort Worth Report. Reach him at scott.nishimura@fortworthreport.org.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://fortworthreport.org/2026/04/19/fort-worth-voters-take-another-swipe-may-2-at-whether-to-raise-pay-for-the-mayor-and-city-council-members/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://fortworthreport.org”>Fort Worth Report</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/cropped-favicon.png?resize=150%2C150&quality=80&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>
<img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https://fortworthreport.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=489850&ga4=2820184429″ style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://fortworthreport.org/2026/04/19/fort-worth-voters-take-another-swipe-may-2-at-whether-to-raise-pay-for-the-mayor-and-city-council-members/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”//cdn.parsely.com/keys/fortworthreport.org/p.js”></script>