{"id":230839,"date":"2025-09-16T07:50:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T07:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/230839\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T07:50:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T07:50:12","slug":"heres-how-much-fort-worths-fire-department-new-ems-will-cost-the-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/230839\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s how much Fort Worth&#8217;s fire department, new EMS will cost the city"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fortworthtexas.gov\/files\/assets\/public\/v\/2\/the-fwlab\/documents\/budget-analysis\/fy2026-budget\/recommended-budget\/fy2026-recommended-book.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">city budget drafts<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The fire department runs 45 stations across the city with nearly 1,600 employees, according to the department\u2019s website. It is the city\u2019s second-most-expensive service, trailing far behind the police budget.<\/p>\n<p>The city\u2019s new emergency medical services, or EMS, which runs the city\u2019s ambulance services, <a href=\"https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2025\/07\/01\/fort-worth-launches-ems-within-fire-department-meets-july-1-deadline\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">launched in July<\/a>, replacing third-party ambulance provider MedStar. The EMS branch is a part of the fire department but considered its own budget item.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>City Council will finalize on Sept. 16 the city\u2019s roughly $3 billion budget for the fiscal year 2026, which starts Oct. 1 and ends Sept. 30, 2026. If adopted, the fire department\u2019s $226.8 million budget would be an increase of 3.4% over its 2025 funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The fire department is organized into four major sections:\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Administration, which includes human resources, payroll and management.<\/li>\n<li>Executive services, which oversees special units such as arson and bomb response, and operations like investigations and commercial building inspection.<\/li>\n<li>Operations, which employs the vast majority of the department\u2019s staff and oversees daily emergency response activities, water rescues and building inspections.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Where the Fort Worth Fire Department\u2019s money goes<\/p>\n<p>The fire department draws from the city\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>Raises accounted for $7.6 million of the increase.<\/p>\n<p>About $23.2 million will fund the department\u2019s day-to-day operations, and another $1.4 million will go toward licenses and permits.<\/p>\n<p>The department shed $344,777 in costs that shifted to the city\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2025\/09\/09\/citys-new-911-emergency-prep-to-cost-20-7m-under-fort-worths-proposed-budget\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">newly created Emergency Management &amp; Communications Department<\/a>, which took over the city\u2019s 911 call-taking duties. Officials plan to eventually merge the department with the fire and EMS call-taking teams.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Where EMS\u2019s money comes from, goes to<\/p>\n<p>EMS\u2019s $89.2 million budget is a special revenue fund that is expected to be 63% paid for by the branch\u2019s self-generating revenue, which is mostly made from service charges to patients and insurance.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Fort Worth also provides its EMS services to 14 smaller, surrounding cities that will chip in roughly $1.7 million collectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That leaves the city\u2019s general fund footing the outstanding bill of about $20.1 million to run the new branch.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly $62 million of the EMS budget is dedicated to the salaries of dispatchers and approximately 300 EMTs.<\/p>\n<p>The branch uses some funds and labor from other departments besides fire. About $6 million of EMS\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>Drew Shaw is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at <a href=\"https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2025\/09\/15\/heres-how-much-fort-worths-fire-department-new-ems-will-cost-the-city\/mailto:drew.shaw@fortworthreport.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">drew.shaw@fortworthreport.org<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/shawlings601\">@shawlings601<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy <a href=\"https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/about\/fort-worth-report-editorial-independence-policy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n<p>Fort Worth Report is <a href=\"https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2024\/08\/25\/fort-worth-report-achieves-global-trust-certification-heres-what-it-means-for-our-community\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative<\/a> for adhering to standards for ethical journalism.<\/p>\n<p>Republish This Story<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"license\" rel=\"noreferrer license noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"88\" height=\"31\" alt=\"Creative Commons License\" style=\"border-width:0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1750614464_36_cc-by-nd-4.0.png\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Republishing is free for noncommercial entities. Commercial entities are prohibited without a licensing agreement. Contact us for details. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It will cost Fort Worth about $226.8 million to run its fire department and nearly $90 million to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":230840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,7371,117288,12612,10173,7372,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-230839","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fort-worth","10":"tag-fort-worth-2026-budget","11":"tag-fort-worth-city-council","12":"tag-fort-worth-fire-department","13":"tag-fortworth","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-tx","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115212886319715748","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}