City staff warns of $21.5 million budget gap after appraisal protests, ARPA wind‑down and senior tax freeze

Trey Elvington, city staff and the meeting’s budget presenter, told the Arlington City Council on Monday that the city now projects a $21.5 million budget gap for fiscal 2026 driven largely by a wave of property tax protests, the scheduled end of ARPA dollars and an expanding senior tax freeze.

Elvington said the city’s revenue picture has improved compared with earlier decades because of venues such as AT&T Stadium and the convention center, but recent appraisal changes and heavy protest activity have “pulled the rug out” of the stable history used to prepare budgets. “We’ve updated this to show it’s larger,” Elvington said of the hole the city must close, adding later, “we will essentially be complete with ARPA funding in 2026.”

Why it matters: the gap forces the city to consider a mix of revenue steps, financial restructurings and program reductions to match lower projected revenues without abrupt layoffs. Council members repeatedly pressed staff for options to avoid furloughs and layoffs, and said they preferred using attrition and slower hiring to mitigate impacts.

Key facts and context

- Appraisal and protest activity: Elvington attributed most of the shortfall to a surge of successful protests in commercial and multifamily accounts. He said the city lost about $1 billion of taxable value in the last year, equivalent to roughly $7 million in property tax revenue.…