{"id":411878,"date":"2026-08-20T13:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T13:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/411878\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T13:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T13:30:09","slug":"cutting-deep-san-antonio-city-council-fights-over-tax-increase-budget-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/411878\/","title":{"rendered":"Cutting deep: San Antonio City Council fights over tax increase, budget cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN ANTONIO \u2013 Emotions flared Wednesday as the San Antonio City Council considered whether to slash further into the city budget or crank a proposed tax increase higher.<\/p>\n

The city has been working to close a projected $158 million budget deficit over the next two years. City\u2019s staff\u2019s plan to fill in the gap involves a mix of $90 million worth of cuts and funding shifts, a pair of tax hikes<\/a>, and increasing fees<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Not everyone\u2019s on board with the plan, though, and city staff presented a pair of very different alternatives for council members: keep the tax rate flat for the next two years by cutting out another $75 million, or front-loading the tax increases next year.<\/p>\n

The latter, which would more than double the size of the proposed FY 2027 tax increase while staving off less than half of the proposed cuts, got little support.<\/p>\n

More attention and frustration were focused on the cut-heavy plan, which would affect police and fire overtime, library hours, and parks programming among numerous other areas. Altogether, it would cost another 171 positions on top of the 101 already on the chopping block.<\/p>\n

Councilwoman Marina Alderete Gavito (D7), Councilwoman Misty Spears (D9) and Councilman Marc Whyte (D10) retained their anti-tax increase stances<\/a> during the council discussion, though the rest of the council appeared less convinced.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are real cuts, man. These are real things for people\u2019s lives that they rely upon,\u201d said Councilman Ric Galvan (D6).<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really, really exhausted at this like high ground that certain folk are taking where it\u2019s, \u2018I cannot fathom that we would increase property taxes for people,\u2019 like, \u2018I can\u2019t fathom that we would consider this,\u2019\u201d said Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2). <\/p>\n

\u201cThat is ridiculous, because the alternative is that we\u2019re \u2014 you can fathom that we\u2019re going to cut 171 additional people, and that we\u2019re going to cut all of these programs that my constituents rely on. You can fathom that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The current budget proposal calls for raising the tax rate in FY 2027 to 56.288 cents per $100 worth of valuation. That amounts to a 3.9% increase that would cost the average homestead an extra $49 on their tax bill than if the rate stayed the same.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s plan to close the deficit anticipates a second increase for FY 2028.<\/p>\n

Whyte said the council needed to \u201cdo the hard work and make the tough decisions\u201d to cut the budget and framed a tax increase as one cost of many.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a couple bucks here and there on property taxes. It\u2019s another $3 a year on the environmental fee that\u2019s going on the CPS bill, right? It\u2019s SAWS next. Then you\u2019re going to want to raise property taxes to get a bigger bond, right? We\u2019ve already heard that. So it\u2019s not \u2014 it all adds up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While City Manager Erik Walsh said staff tried to stay away from mandated services and council priorities when coming up with the possible additional cuts, Alderete Gavito requested other options that \u201cmostly cut the fat internally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s interesting that y\u2019all put up these line items that really impact residents and start riling us up against each other,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Walsh denied tying to \u201cpit\u201d council members against each other and said \u201cwe are a rather lean organization administratively, and we are not going to be able to solve our issue with administrative cuts, period.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the city appeared ready to move ahead with the original budget proposal as its guide \u2014 at least generally.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that the council is interested in maybe some additional reductions that we\u2019ll work on. They\u2019re looking for different scenarios in terms of the proposed property tax rate,\u201d Walsh said.<\/p>\n

The city is hosting a series of budget halls Aug. 17-25. You can see the list here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Read also:<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 Emotions flared Wednesday as the San Antonio City Council considered whether to slash further into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3084,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-411878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-city-hall","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\/411878","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=411878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}