JPS Health Network leaders are scrambling to readjust the hospital district’s 2025 budget after Tarrant County commissioners approved a lower tax rate than previously proposed. 

The 2025 fiscal year budget was based on a proposed tax rate of $0.1875, but the newly approved rate is lower, at $0.1825. 

Tarrant County commissioners voted 4-1 to officially set the new tax rate, which comes nearly a month after commissioners presented the hospital district with the original rate for 2025. Precinct 2 Commissioner Alisa Simmons was the sole vote against the new rate. 

Dr. Karen Duncan, CEO and president of JPS Health Network, was in attendance at the meeting. She declined to comment on the commissioners’ decision but said she did not know the tax rate would be lowered ahead of the meeting.

Tarrant County commissioners can approve a tax rate without requiring it to pass through the JPS board of managers, which oversees the hospital district. This is the second consecutive year the court voted to lower the rate.

During the 2024 fiscal year, JPS operated at a rate of $0.1945. As Tarrant County’s taxpayer-supported hospital district, JPS provides a variety of healthcare services to the public.

Commissioners also voted unanimously to approve a JPS operating revenue budget of $1.72 billion, which included the tax revenue from the originally proposed rate of $0.1875. 

A JPS spokesperson said in a statement that while the new tax rate was “unexpected,” the hospital district’s administrative and finance teams are working to adjust and present an updated budget to the board of managers in response to the new tax rate.

“JPS will continue to keep our focus on delivering high-quality healthcare services to the residents of Tarrant County,” the spokesperson said. 

Duncan previously presented the hospital district’s budget, with a tax rate of $0.1875 in mind, to commissioners on Sept. 4. That tax rate was projected to bring about $523 million in tax revenue for the hospital district. 

County Judge Tim O’Hare said the new rate will bring about $14 million less in tax revenue.

Before voting on the tax rate, Simmons — whose precinct consists of Arlington, Grand Prairie and Mansfield — expressed concerns about how the decreased tax rate could affect the hospital district’s operational capabilities. 

“In an environment where JPS still has unfulfilled promises to bond voters … I can’t vote to approve the further hit to JPS revenue that this revenue rate would induce,” she said. 

Simmons was referring to the hospital system’s master facility plan, which is supported by an $800 million bond package voters approved in 2018. The plan details new facilities, including a medical home, psychiatric emergency center, medical outpatient building, pavilion expansion and a new hospital.

Hospital leaders estimate the bond projects will total over $2.1 billion — a 40% jump from their 2022 estimate of $1.5 billion. Consultants for JPS attributed the increase to higher labor costs, price of materials and inflation affecting the entire healthcare industry. 

Because of financial changes and reprioritization, JPS has removed three medical homes that were included in the original proposal from its master facility plan. The only medical home currently in the plan is set to open in southwest Fort Worth later this year.

Tarrant County resident Jeralynn Jackee Cox spoke out against JPS’ new tax rate, believing it makes it difficult for residents — primarily in Arlington — to receive new healthcare services. 

“Arlington deserves to get a (medical) home care center, and it seems to me that all the money is sliding over to southwest and the new development area, and the rest of us who are here pay for it,” she said at the Sept. 17 meeting. “They’re taking quite the heavy hit.”

How we got here

Last month, Commissioners Roy Charles Brooks and Simmons, both Democrats, voted against the proposed $0.1875 rate, stating it was not fiscally responsible to cut JPS’ tax rate before receiving an official presentation from the hospital district on its 2025 budget. 

County Judge Tim O’Hare and Precinct 4 Commissioner Manny Ramirez, both Republicans, previously said they had both spoken with Duncan about the impact a reduced tax rate would have on bond projects. Duncan assured them she was comfortable with the rate, O’Hare and Ramirez said. 

During an Aug. 22 board meeting, JPS board manager Ralph Waldo Emerson Jr. shared concerns about the 2025 tax rate, including his belief the hospital district was “being punished.” 

Board chair Roger Fisher said some members of the board might share similar “frustrations” in regards to the tax rate, but he believes it’s a process “that we need to continue to refine throughout the year.”

Tim Davis was the only board member who expressed a lack of concern over the tax rate and said JPS has over $150 million in surplus to continue to operate at full capacity. 

“I don’t think all members of the board share that sentiment,” he said in response to Emerson and Fisher. 

Board member Trent Petty previously applauded staff members for compiling the proposed 2025 budget amid changes in leadership, finances and “policy direction” in recent years. 

“(Staff) were asked to put together a budget that met our services, that don’t reduce our services to our patients and make sure that we’ve thought through what we know today and what the bond program is going to require to finish,” Petty said. 

David Moreno is the health reporter for the Fort Worth Report. His position is supported by a grant from Texas Health Resources. Contact him at david.moreno@fortworthreport.org or @davidmreports.

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