SAN ANTONIO – As San Antonio tries to close a nearly $158 million budget gap, council members are wrestling with how to do it, with options including cutting city jobs and raising taxes.
The budget shortfall is expected to hit in the FY 2028 budget, not the upcoming FY 2027, but the city is plotting a two-year path to closing the pending gap. On Thursday, city staff proposed a mix of new or increased fees, cuts, and maxing out the property tax rate.
The city is generally only allowed to set a tax rate for its maintenance and operations that would bring in 3.5% more revenue from existing properties without getting voter approval. However, it can also tap into the unused “increment” from recent years when it didn’t take that full amount.
Using that increment and maxing out the property tax rate would cost the average homestead an additional $81 in city taxes, according to the city, though the 46% of homesteads with a senior or disabled tax freeze would be unaffected.
It would also bring in another $124.8 million over the next two year, according to the city presentation.
The $21.9 million worth of proposed revenue increase over the next two years would come from various sources, like raising the EMS transport fee, a $10 non-resident library card fee, and more cost recovery on Fiesta event expenses.
After accounting for adding to the budget reserves, that would leave the city to find $23.4 million to cut over the course of the next two budgets.
Councilman Marc Whyte (D10), who has been one of the loudest opponents to raising the tax rate, pointed to previous city projections that showed the city would still be facing $155 million deficit in 2031, even if it were to raise the property tax rate.
“So a property tax increase, it’s just a Band-Aid to to get us through the next couple of years. It doesn’t solve the problem,” Whyte said.
With members like Whyte calling for the city to cut its way out of the deficit, city staff also laid out a non-tax increase plan with $137.7 million worth of reductions. Those could include cuts following department reviews of the library, municipal court, police, fire, and human resources; reshuffling costs to other parts of the budget; getting rid of vacant positions; chopping delegate agency funding; hiring and pay freezes; and straight cuts to program level services.
All together, that cut-heavy approach would getting rid of 209 city positions, 132 of which are currently filled, spurring its own concerns from council.
“That’s 132 families wondering what’s next and how they’re going to get their next meal,” Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2) said.
City staff had previously put the projected FY 2028 budget deficit at $130.7 million, but staff that also accounted for some of the new revenue and almost $10.7 million worth of cuts the city had penciled in for FY 2027 during last year’s budget process.
Budget Director Freddy Martinez told reporters most of those potential cuts, worth $21.4 million over two years, were still included in the $137.7 million plan, like a $1 million reduction to the Minor Home Repair program or a $200,000 reduction in the $1.2 million in assistance to the San Antonio Botanical Garden.
Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones said she’d like to see the assistance go down to $0, noting the botanical garden charges a ticket fee. She also hit on another of the previously proposed cuts, reducing help for the San Antonio Book Festival from $150,000 to $100,000, as something the city shouldn’t be funding at all.
“Corporate, philanthropy, foundations, like pick this up. $150K in each year? That’s nothing,” she said. “I’m not saying we don’t need a book festival. I was just there this last time, and it was great. But these are not things that the public needs to be paying for. Military veterans affairs, Greater Chamber. Can you pick that up?”
While Thursday’s presentation did not include specific examples of other cuts, city staff will have have to lay out definite proposals when they present a draft budget in August.
After that, it will be up to the city council to decide which ones they can live with before they pass a final spending plan in September.
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