<\/p>\n
San Antonio council members have to weigh in on a tax rate hike and millions in budget cuts.<\/p>\n
Sam Owens\/San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n
City Council members are pushing back on proposed cuts to health funds, library staff and tuition reimbursement for municipal employees\u00a0\u2014 reductions offered by city staff to cut into a huge budget deficit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones and the 10-member council must adopt a budget for fiscal year 2027, which starts Oct. 1, and property tax rate in one month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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City Manager Erik Walsh has proposed more than $41 million in cuts and the first property tax rate hike in three decades to help fill a $158 million hole in the general fund over the next two years.<\/p>\n
Next year\u2019s general fund, which supports basic city services, totals $1.76 billion. The city\u2019s overall proposed budget is $4.4 billion.<\/p>\n
But many council members called on Walsh to restore some of the planned cuts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran opposed cutting 15 staffers from the city\u2019s Metropolitan Health District. Losing the workers would kill a pilot program aimed at reducing maternal mortality and end another group within the health department\u00a0that\u2019s working to improve prenatal care.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The city is looking to cut 101 positions from its payroll, 54 of which are currently filled. Walsh has said he doesn\u2019t anticipate layoffs because his staffers are trying to find new positions for each affected employees. But Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez asked that their jobs be left alone, in part because\u00a0shuffling people around could lead to greater inefficiencies down the road.<\/p>\n
Jones and council members Edward\u00a0Mungia and Teri Castillo want budget writers to keep tuition reimbursement for city employees seeking certificates and college degrees. More than 200 employees currently tap the city program.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mungia and McKee-Rodriguez also worried about cutting more than $2 million for scholarships that are are distributed to hundreds of students across the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Several council members don\u2019t want the city to cut 39 library staffers across the city system, one of the many cuts in reduction in the proposed budget.<\/p>\n
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The budget document says the cut shouldn\u2019t hurt day-to-day services at the library. The circulation of books and other materials has dropped by 40% since 2019, while the circulation of digital books and other works has soared by 161%, according to the spending plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But opponents of the cut said libraries are more than a place to grab a book.\u00a0Castillo said a healthy library system is especially important now because some school districts have cut or reduced their library staffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cLibraries serve as cooling centers, warming centers. It\u2019s where individuals go to make copies and get (Internet) hot spots,\u201d\u00a0Castillo said. \u201cThey\u2019re very important hubs beyond just checking out a book. I just want to ensure there is staff available if constituents have a question about a resource.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones suggested the city find funds to cover the library position by reducing how much it contributes to\u00a0S\u00edclov\u00eda, Fiesta, the San Antonio Botanical Garden and the San Antonio Book Festival.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Fees, tax hikes<\/p>\n
Councilman Marc Whyte has said he won\u2019t support a property tax rate increase, and he\u2019s called for additional budget cuts. Last week, he and council colleagues\u00a0Alderete Gavito and Misty Spears failed in their attempt to shoot down a measure that allows the city to entertain the possibility of a property rate increase.<\/p>\n
Council members will consider raising the property tax rate by two cents, to just over 56 cents per $100 assessed value. Walsh said that could raise the city tax bill for the average homeowner with a homestead exemption by just under $3 each month, or a little more than $35 each year.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, council members will review what the budget would look like if they refuse to raise the tax rate and must cut an additional $29 million from the budget.<\/p>\n
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Walsh has said his current proposal doesn\u2019t include cuts that would have a major affect on city services. But without a rate hike, he\u2019s said the city would likely make deep cuts in Human Services, Parks and Recreation, the library system or health department funds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am adamantly opposed to a property tax increase,\u201d\u00a0Alderete Gavito said. \u201cI know these cuts are hard but we need to do them so we don\u2019t put the financial burden on our residents.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city has also outlined increases or new additions to 100 fees to help bring in more revenue. That will raise the cost to EMS transportation, short-term housing rental permits and trash collection.<\/p>\n
Aldrete Gavito has asked the city also raise how much a person is fined for speeding.<\/p>\n
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Viagran, the councilwoman most open to a tax rate increase, argued that residents will have to pay the price of the deficit either through higher fees or a tax rate hike and called on her colleagues to pitch projects to cut.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThose of you who don\u2019t want a property tax increase\u00a0\u2014 put those multimillion-dollar Public Works projects on the chopping block,\u201d Viagran said. \u201cBecause going $500,000 or $1 million at a time is not going to get this done.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Antonio council members have to weigh in on a tax rate hike and millions in budget cuts.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-410288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410288","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=410288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}