{"id":420973,"date":"2026-08-30T10:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T10:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/420973\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T10:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T10:44:11","slug":"opinion-the-city-can-make-budget-cuts-and-avoid-a-rate-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/420973\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: The city can make budget cuts and avoid a rate increase"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/p>\n

The city of San Antonio can address a budget shortfall through cuts, not property tax increases, writes District 7 City Council Member Marina Alderete Gavito.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Handout photo\""While<\/p>\n

“While San Antonio families are living through an affordability crisis, from the gas pump to the grocery store, asking them to absorb a higher property tax bill should be the last option,” writes District 7 City Council Member Marina\u00a0Alderete Gavito.<\/p>\n

Marvin Pfeiffer\/San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n

The city’s budget review and approval is an annual process, but this year it is carrying a much heavier weight: The city faces a projected $158 million deficit by 2028<\/a>, and staff has proposed addressing this shortfall, in part, by a potential tax rate increase. It would be the first in 33 years.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The proposal to raise the city property tax rate has troubled me since it was first discussed in the spring. Now that I and my fellow City Council colleagues have the proposed budget in hand, we know closing this gap means cutting a relatively small percentage of our budget to remove the need for a rate increase on residents.<\/p>\n

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While San Antonio families are living through an affordability crisis, from the gas pump to the grocery store, asking them to absorb a higher property tax bill should be the last option.<\/p>\n

While the city’s $158 million deficit may seem overwhelming, it\u2019s helpful to break it down.<\/p>\n

The city’s budget proposal includes $55.7 million in reductions and fee and fine adjustments in fiscal 2027, and $64.3 million in fiscal year 2028.<\/p>\n

That means we would only need to cut or find an additional 1.6% of the total proposed budget this year and 2% next year through further reductions, fee adjustments, or both to spare residents a tax increase. We can do that<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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This is an issue of affordability, and it\u2019s important that we keep residents\u2019\u00a0pocketbooks protected.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s my proposal for how the city can close the budget deficit first, without impacting resident-facing programs:<\/p>\n

We need to look closer at how we can increase fines, especially ones that discourage behavior we don\u2019t want to see in our community. That means getting innovative and using fines to address long-standing community issues. I\u2019ve specifically proposed looking at fees tied to speeding tickets as well as abandoned or chronically vacant properties.<\/p>\n

My council colleagues and I get complaints about such properties constantly, and with increased fines we can be proactive in addressing this issue.<\/p>\n

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City officials must also take a hard look at administrative overhead: reducing or eliminating conference, travel and food expenses.<\/p>\n

For City Council offices, it means looking internally for reductions we can make, too, so we can better serve our residents\u2019 needs.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear the city of San Antonio must do more to close this gap without asking families to cover it through higher property taxes.<\/p>\n

The forces driving our deficit are not unique to San Antonio. They\u2019re happening nationwide as property values slow, the cost-of-living crisis worsens amid stubborn inflation, and past funding distributed through the American Rescue Act Plan dries up.<\/p>\n

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While the property tax rate hasn\u2019t been increased in 33 years, property taxes have increased as values have risen. That is what residents feel. Property valuations have climbed over those 33 years, and rising valuations mean bigger tax bills, even while the rate hasn\u2019t changed.<\/p>\n

The city’s Office of Management and Budget does real, difficult work sorting through the competing needs of our community to allocate limited dollars. On council, it\u2019s our job to be good stewards of our residents\u2019 tax dollars and to allocate those funds in the most meaningful ways for our community.<\/p>\n

In a moment of much economic stress and uncertainty, we have to be intentional about how and when we raise property taxes. Now is not that time.<\/p>\n

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City Council Member Marina Alderete Gavito represents District 7.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The city of San Antonio can address a budget shortfall through cuts, not property tax increases, writes District…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-420973","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\/420973","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=420973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}