SAN ANTONIO \u2013 San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones joined KSAT\u2019s weekly Q&A Tuesday to discuss the city\u2019s looming budget vote and tensions among council members ahead of Thursday\u2019s vote.<\/p>\n
The city continues to face a $158 million deficit over the next two years, and one proposal calls for a property tax increase, the first in decades. Jones said she has not ruled it out but called it a last resort. <\/p>\n
\u201cRaising property taxes is my last resort,\u201d Jones said. \u201cWe have to make significant changes in our budget and how we spend the money that people have entrusted us with.\u201d<\/p>\n
She outlined roughly $9 million in potential savings she has already identified, including $3.4 million by redirecting Ready to Work funds and $2 million from hotel occupancy tax revenue, adding that a combination of reallocations could free up $18 million in two years.<\/p>\n
Jones also said she wants to redirect existing commitments before raising taxes, pointing to a $2 million pledge to help establish a UT School of Public Health and funding to arts organizations as areas worth revisiting. <\/p>\n
She said Medicaid 1115 waiver money could cover about $1 million in health-related spending.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think now is the time to invest in people,\u201d Jones said. \u201cWe have an opportunity to use the Medicaid 1115 waiver money. Let\u2019s use a million dollars on things that help people become and be healthy mothers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two council members, Jalen McKee-Rodriguez and Sukh Kaur, have recently posted videos raising concerns about the working environment at City Hall. <\/p>\n
Jones acknowledged the criticism over comments about decorum, calling it \u201cfair criticism,\u201d but said personal feelings should not get in the way of budget work. <\/p>\n
\u201cI am most focused on making sure this budget serves the most vulnerable,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
The budget vote is scheduled for Thursday.<\/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 KSAT\u2019s weekly Q&A Tuesday to discuss the city\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2050,3084,2112,12132,82,84,83,7392],"class_list":["post-437581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-budget","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\/437581","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=437581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}