Fort Worth Crime Control Tax: Rate, Uses, and Expiration

The Fort Worth crime control tax is a half-cent (0.5%) sales tax that funds the city’s Crime Control and Prevention District, a special entity voters created in 1995 to pay for policing, crime prevention, and community safety work on top of the regular city budget. It’s built into the 8.25% combined sales tax you pay on most purchases in the city, and the current authorization runs through 2030, when voters will decide again whether to keep it.¹

How the Half-Cent Fits Into Your Receipt

Fort Worth’s 8.25% combined sales tax rate has four pieces:

State of Texas: 6.25%
City of Fort Worth: 1.0%
Crime Control and Prevention District (CCPD): 0.5%
Trinity Metro (city transit): 0.5%

The CCPD’s half-cent is the ceiling allowed under Texas Local Government Code Chapter 363, which lets qualifying districts set the rate at one-eighth, one-fourth, three-eighths, or one-half of one percent. Fort Worth chose the top.²

What Purchases the Tax Applies To

The crime control portion rides on the same base as the regular Texas sales tax. If a purchase is taxable under state law, the full 8.25%, including the CCPD half-cent, applies. If it’s exempt, the half-cent doesn’t apply either.

Basic groceries are exempt from Texas sales tax, so items like bread, milk, eggs, fruits, and vegetables aren’t hit by the crime control tax. The same goes for over-the-counter medicines with a Drug Facts panel and dietary supplements with a Supplement Facts label.³ Prepared food, candy, soft drinks, and alcohol stay taxable, and so do most retail goods and taxable services. A typical grocery run largely avoids the half-cent; a restaurant meal or a trip to a retail store does not.

What the Money Pays For

CCPD revenue funds enhanced enforcement operations, neighborhood crime prevention, officer recruitment and training, department equipment and technology, and community partner programs. In practice, that can mean deploying extra officers to respond to emerging problems, replacing vehicles and gear, or increasing security at schools.¹

A share of the money also moves through a “Partners with a Shared Mission” grant program to 501(c)(3) nonprofits working on issues like afterschool programming, gang intervention, victim services, police-community relations, and reentry support. The CCPD Board of Directors must approve those programs, and the city has to sign off on the final budget before any funds are released.¹

One rule shapes the entire budget. Chapter 363 bars the city from using district money to replace what it already spends on law enforcement from the general fund. CCPD dollars have to sit on top of the baseline, not substitute for it. If Fort Worth cut its regular police budget and backfilled the gap with crime control revenue, that would violate state law.²

The district’s spending has grown with the city. For fiscal year 2026, the CCPD budget exceeds $138 million.

Who Controls the Money

The CCPD is run by an eleven-member Board of Directors made up of the Fort Worth City Council members, with one director per council district. The city restructured the board in 2010 to put sitting council members in those seats, tying district decisions to elected officials.⁴

The annual budget goes through two layers of approval. The board adopts it after a public hearing that any district resident can attend, then sends it to the city council for acceptance or rejection within ten days of adoption.⁵ The Fort Worth Police Department posts the adopted budget and quarterly financial reports on the CCPD section of its website for anyone who wants to track where the money is going.

When the Tax Expires and How Renewal Works

The crime control tax is not permanent. Chapter 363 requires every district to set an expiration date when it’s created, and continuing the tax past that date requires another vote. State law allows renewal periods of 5, 10, 15, or 20 years.²

Fort Worth voters have approved renewal every time it has come up:

2000, 2005, 2009, and 2014: five-year renewals
2020: a ten-year renewal, approved with roughly 64% in favor¹

That 2020 vote is why the current authorization runs through 2030. Expect another renewal question on the ballot as that date approaches. The city council cannot extend the tax on its own; only a majority of voters can keep it in place. If a renewal fails, the district dissolves and the half-cent comes off receipts.²

1
Fort Worth Police Department. Crime Control and Prevention District
2
State of Texas. Texas Local Government Code Chapter 363 – Crime Control and Prevention Districts
3
Texas Comptroller. Grocery and Convenience Stores
4
City of Fort Worth. Crime Control and Prevention District
5
State of Texas. Texas Local Government Code 363.204 – Adoption of Budget