{"id":467342,"date":"2026-10-16T00:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T00:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/467342\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T00:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T00:52:09","slug":"city-leaders-say-budget-shortfall-jumps-from-25m-to-88m-after-not-raising-property-taxes-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/467342\/","title":{"rendered":"City leaders say budget shortfall jumps from $25M to $88M after not raising property taxes in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Houston will not raise property taxes this year, even as city leaders revealed this week that its budget deficit has grown to $88 million, according to Mayor John Whitmire.<\/p>\n

It was originally expected to be at $25 million.<\/p>\n

“The bottom line is we’re not raising taxes,” Mayor John Whitmire said.<\/p>\n

Councilwoman Amy Peck said the larger-than-expected deficit is because the city received less in property taxes than anticipated.<\/p>\n

“There’s been more property tax protests,” said Peck.<\/p>\n

Peck said those numbers tend to be consistent year to year.<\/p>\n

“I think it was a big surprise,” Peck said upon learning of this year’s property-tax revenue.<\/p>\n

Despite the shortfall, Peck said she supports holding the tax rate steady.<\/p>\n

Whitmire said the city plans to close the gap by cutting wasteful spending, becoming more efficient and fighting what he described as corruption.<\/p>\n

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Whitmire did acknowledge there could come a point when the city would have no choice but to raise taxes.<\/p>\n

“We’re not going to raise taxes until we can illustrate we’ve done everything possible,” Whitmire said.<\/p>\n

City Controller Chris Hollins said his office warned that the mayor’s administration has overestimated property tax revenue for the past two years.<\/p>\n

Hollins said the growing deficit will force the city to dip into its reserves.<\/p>\n

“Once again, the administration appears prepared to raid the city’s savings account to cover operating costs,” Hollins said in a statement. “That’s not a sustainable solution.”<\/p>\n

The vote to keep the city’s tax rate the same was unanimous among city council members.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 KTRK-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Houston will not raise property taxes this year, even as city leaders revealed this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[159063,56,58,57],"class_list":["post-467342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-159063","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467342","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=467342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}