JPS hospital board OKs $1.54 billion operating budget, despite resistance from newcomers

Tarrant County’s public hospital board voted to keep its tax rate the same for fiscal year 2024 despite opposition from newer board members who wanted to lower the rate.

The board of managers, which governs JPS Health Network, voted 7-3 on Thursday to approve a tax rate of $0.224429 per $100 of assessed value, the same tax rate the hospital district has levied for several years. The board also voted 7-3 to approve a $1.54 billion operating budget for the hospital system.

The vote split between new members of the board and board veterans, who said reducing the tax rate could hamper JPS’s ability to complete its $1.5 billion bond projects on time.

But the board’s vote isn’t the final step: Tarrant County commissioners still have to approve the hospital’s proposed budget and tax rate. And some board members are expecting opposition from some members of the commissioners court, including County Judge Tim O’Hare. The judge campaigned on a pledge to cut residents’ property taxes.

“We can’t successfully propose to the court no reduction,” said board member Blake Woodard, who was appointed by O’Hare. “That will be rejected.”

Tim Davis, who was also appointed to the hospital board by O’Hare, proposed lowering the tax rate to about 18 cents. Woodard countered with a 20-cent tax rate as a bridge between the existing rate and Davis’ suggestion.

Veteran board members said any reduced tax rate would restrict the hospital’s plans to build numerous new buildings and expand services over the next 10 years as part of the hospital’s redesign.

Board chair Dorothy DeBose, who voted to keep the tax rate the same, said a lower tax rate would limit the hospital’s ability to respond in an emergency, such as another pandemic or infrastructure issues. DeBose cited, for example, a 2019 tragedy when a hospital nurse was crushed by a malfunctioning elevator in the hospital. After the accident, officials hired a new company to maintain and modernize the dozens of elevators throughout the hospital’s main campus.

But board members who voted against a flat tax rate said the health network already had a healthy cushion of money for emergencies.

Woodard promised to vote for a tax rate increase next year if a pandemic, recession or any other factor put the health network’s projections in the red. But veteran board members opted to stay the course.

Trent Petty, a longtime board member, gave an impassioned plea about the hospital’s role in the community, and what a reduced tax rate could mean for the health network in the next decade.

“There is a moral imperative here,” he said. “We have to look beyond one year.”

JPS Health Network operates Tarrant County’s only safety-net hospital, and also provides medical services to those incarcerated at the county jail. The hospital and its network of clinics serve a disproportionate amount of residents with public health insurance, such as Medicaid or Medicare, and residents who have no health insurance. By law, hospital emergency rooms are not allowed to turn away people experiencing medical emergencies, regardless of whether the patient has health insurance or another way to pay for care. JPS’s emergency room, one of the busiest in the country, cares for the majority of the county’s uninsured patients. Public hospitals are also tasked with finding ways to provide non-emergency healthcare to patients who don’t have health insurance or are otherwise underserved.

Tarrant County commissioners are expected to vote on the JPS tax rate and budget later this month. The hospital’s fiscal year begins Oct. 1.

This is the first year in recent memory that hospital leaders are anticipating significant opposition to its tax rate. O’Hare, who was sworn into office in January, campaigned aggressively to reduce property taxes for county residents.

Property tax bills have been vexing homeowners in Tarrant County and throughout the state for years, as the state’s rapid growth has caused property values, and thus property taxes, to increase.

For a Fort Worth resident, the hospital district’s portion of the tax bill is relatively small: Both the city of Fort Worth and the Fort Worth school district charge higher tax rates that account for most of the bill.

At the proposed tax rate of about 22 cents per $100, JPS would bring in about $628 million in property taxes, an increase of about 10% from last year, according to projections from hospital staff. That money would make up about 38% of the healthy network’s projected revenues for 2024.