SAN ANTONIO \u2013 San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones joined the 6 O\u2019Clock News on Tuesday to discuss the city\u2019s fiscal challenges as it approaches a $158 million budget gap.<\/p>\n
If the city eliminated every library, all general fund spending on public health and funds to Animal Care Services, San Antonio would still be $21 million short of the budget deficit, Jones said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo when we\u2019re thinking about the scale of this challenge, that is how deep some of these cuts may have to be,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n
Jones suggested raising property taxes for the first time in decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we haven\u2019t raised property taxes in 30 years, we\u2019re not only looking at raising property taxes once, but potentially twice,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n
The San Antonio Botanical Garden was one organization potentially on the budget chopping block. Although Jones stated the garden is a great resource, she cited the organization charging people for tickets as a reason for the city to potentially cut funds.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease introduce me to the person that says, \u2018Please give the San Antonio Botanical Garden a million dollars and raise my property taxes,\u2019\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n
Jones criticized the Spurs and its annual $2.5 million to the city, part of a Project Marvel deal, and said she wants to push for more money from the billion-dollar basketball organization.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what\u2019s important is that we are asking for more,\u201d Jones said. \u201cYou know how much it costs to do a speed bump? $16,000.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones noted 2.5 million divided by 16,000 would equal 156 speed bumps. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo 15 speed bumps in your council district for 30 years,\u201d Jones said. \u201cI would argue revenue sharing. When they eat, we eat, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones said the city budget, including cutting funds, must be approved by late August or early September. The term sheet is expected to be finalized by the end of the year.<\/p>\n
Watch the full interview in the video player above.<\/p>\n
Read also:<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones joined the 6 O\u2019Clock News on Tuesday to discuss…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3084,2112,12132,82,84,83,7392],"class_list":["post-356694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-city-hall","tag-gina-ortiz-jones","tag-ksat-qa","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-saq"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}