Crunching the Numbers: How FWLab Delivers Context for Tough Choices

Fort Worth Lab’s data-driven approach empowers leaders to govern smarter

When I first wrote about FWLab, it was clear it had the potential to transform how the City of Fort Worth approached governance. By fusing data, strategy, and long-range planning, FWLab aimed to provide critical context for difficult decisions by city council members.

I think every local government should be doing similar work, and AI tools are getting better at making this kind of work doable even for smaller agencies. If you missed my original post on FWLab, here it is.

A Policy Wonk's Dream Come True

It was an ambitious vision, and now, nine months later, I had the opportunity to revisit the Lab to see how it’s delivering on that promise.

Spoiler alert: It’s working.

The Big Idea: Data as Context for Decision-Making

The FWLab exists to answer one key question for Fort Worth’s elected leaders and staff: How do we make smarter decisions with limited resources? At the heart of the Lab’s work is its ability to crunch vast amounts of data and translate it into actionable insights. As Chief Transformation Officer (CTO) Christianne Simmons explained, the Lab is designed to provide “a more equitable, cohesive approach” to resource allocation, ensuring that every dollar spent aligns with council priorities.

This approach played out during Fort Worth’s recent budget season, as the city faced unexpected challenges — and FWLab stepped up to the plate. It’s a Good Government Files Truism™ that budgets are the clearest expression of elected officials’ priorities. What’s important is what gets funded. The FWLab played an integral role in delivering information and insights to city leadership to ensure the stated goals of the fiscal year 2025 budget were met.

Credit: City of Fort Worth

How FWLab Delivered During Budget Season

• Early Engagement and Education: In a departure from tradition, FWLab kicked off budget discussions in April rather than August. “We started with the foundations of the budget, like how we got to the target budget, what our prior year commitments were, and what kinds of costs are carrying forward,” Simmons said. This proactive approach not only gave council members — especially newer ones — a stronger grasp of the budget process but also created a “more productive place in the summer” when unexpected revenue shortfalls emerged.

• Adapting to Crisis: Much lower-than-projected property valuations from the Tarrant County Appraisal District forced the city to revisit its carefully crafted proposed budget relatively late in the deliberation process. Simmons quantified the challenge: “We had to go back to the drawing board and cut $6 million, which is difficult to do without touching people or positions.”

You would think finding $6 million to cut out of a $2.79 billion budget would be easy. It’s not, especially for a city like Fort Worth, which has done extensive planning informed by robust citizen engagement and is hyper-focused on delivering services that meet the city council’s well-considered strategic priorities. That’s a big part of why FWLab was created. Indeed, one of the Lab’s data tools, the job vacancy dashboard, proved invaluable.

“It shows vacancies by department, by position, by fund, and even the days vacant,” Simmons said.

By analyzing this data, the Lab identified long-vacant positions that could be eliminated without impacting services. This surgical approach helped close the $6 million gap.

Data as the Bridge Between Plans and Action

The Lab’s tools aren’t just about numbers — they’re about transparency and collaboration. Take the vacancy dashboard, for example. Simmons noted it allowed city executives to ask department directors, “Which of your programs are being affected by these vacancies?” One department, Municipal Court, realized that its long-vacant marshal positions weren’t impacting performance metrics as much as expected.

“Maybe this has just become (their) new staffing threshold,” Simmons said.

Meanwhile, priority-based budgeting (PBB) enabled council members and staff to see how each budget request advanced city goals. While only nine departments participated this year, Simmons noted plans to expand PBB citywide. The ultimate goal is for departments — which typically are in fierce competition for limited budget dollars — to voluntarily throttle their funding requests as they experience success in meeting council goals.

The ideal for Simmons is for the police department, for example, to get to the point where it can say, “We’re adequately resourced in public safety, so this year we’ll focus on community investment or infrastructure.” For those of you in local government, who’ve sat through internal budget meetings, I know that sounds more like a fantasy than an ideal — the cops will always ask for more funding — but the tools the FWLab is developing have the very real potential to do just that.

A big part of that potential lies in the evidence-based process the Lab uses to help departments justify budget requests. Amethyst Sloane, strategy and performance manager for the Lab, described how FWLab worked with departments to ensure data-driven decisions.

“We asked different questions of departments as they put their change requests through,” Sloane said. “‘What does that really mean? What’s your evidence of need?’ We’re looking for the data-driven evidence for this thing — a new contract, a new person, a new software system.”

These questions not only filtered out weaker proposals but also equipped city management with the information needed to evaluate trade-offs — which became critical as the city council wrestled with the late-in-the-game spending cuts. This evidence-based approach is now becoming standard practice, setting the stage for a more transparent and efficient budgeting process in future years.

Collaboration and Transparency in Engagement

FWLab also impacts how Fort Worth engages its residents. By combining multiple public engagement efforts into single meetings, the Lab made it easier for citizens to provide meaningful input. Chief Communications Officer Reyne Telles explained the approach: “Why not take a more holistic look at the entire landscape so that the meetings aren’t one-offs for a handful of people? Instead, they can engage across the board.”

With that approach, residents not only learned about the budget, but they also were able to weigh in on the 2050 Comprehensive Plan, the Moving A Million transportation plan, stormwater plans, and more.