SAN ANTONIO – 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.
The city has been working to close a projected $158 million budget deficit over the next two years. City’s staff’s plan to fill in the gap involves a mix of $90 million worth of cuts and funding shifts, a pair of tax hikes, and increasing fees.
Not everyone’s 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.
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.
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.
Councilwoman Marina Alderete Gavito (D7), Councilwoman Misty Spears (D9) and Councilman Marc Whyte (D10) retained their anti-tax increase stances during the council discussion, though the rest of the council appeared less convinced.
“These are real cuts, man. These are real things for people’s lives that they rely upon,” said Councilman Ric Galvan (D6).
“I’m really, really exhausted at this like high ground that certain folk are taking where it’s, ‘I cannot fathom that we would increase property taxes for people,’ like, ‘I can’t fathom that we would consider this,’” said Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2).
“That is ridiculous, because the alternative is that we’re — you can fathom that we’re going to cut 171 additional people, and that we’re going to cut all of these programs that my constituents rely on. You can fathom that.”
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.
The city’s plan to close the deficit anticipates a second increase for FY 2028.
Whyte said the council needed to “do the hard work and make the tough decisions” to cut the budget and framed a tax increase as one cost of many.
“It’s a couple bucks here and there on property taxes. It’s another $3 a year on the environmental fee that’s going on the CPS bill, right? It’s SAWS next. Then you’re going to want to raise property taxes to get a bigger bond, right? We’ve already heard that. So it’s not — it all adds up,” he said.
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 “mostly cut the fat internally.”
“I think it’s interesting that y’all put up these line items that really impact residents and start riling us up against each other,” she said.
Walsh denied tying to “pit” council members against each other and said “we are a rather lean organization administratively, and we are not going to be able to solve our issue with administrative cuts, period.”
Ultimately, the city appeared ready to move ahead with the original budget proposal as its guide — at least generally.
“I think that the council is interested in maybe some additional reductions that we’ll work on. They’re looking for different scenarios in terms of the proposed property tax rate,” Walsh said.
The city is hosting a series of budget halls Aug. 17-25. You can see the list here.
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