SAN ANTONIO – It’s possible the silence itself is the answer.
Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones’ office refused to respond to questions about whether anyone answered her call for the private and philanthropic sectors to help fund an assortment of city contracts as the Aug. 21 deadline passed.
With San Antonio facing a projected $158 million budget gap over the next two years, Jones said she sent an “open letter” on July 24 to “business, foundation, and philanthropic leaders” asking if any would commit to three years of funding for any of the 15 outside agency contracts she listed.
The list, which represents fewer than half of the outside agency contracts in the FY 2026 budget, included funding for the San Antonio Botanical Garden, LiftFund, Síclovía, and the MLK Commission.
KSAT has not confirmed to whom specifically Jones sent the letter, though she also posted it on her social media. In it, she asked anyone interested in helping fund any of the “worthwhile efforts” to email her chief of staff, Andrew Fuentes, by Aug. 21.
KSAT left multiple voicemails and text messages throughout Friday for Fuentes requesting an update. Although another mayoral staffer also referred KSAT’s questions to Fuentes, he never responded.
And while the mayor posted a video on her social media Friday evening discussing some of the latest budget updates, she made no mention of her previous request or whether anyone answered.
City Manager Erik Walsh also told KSAT as he left city hall on Friday evening that he had not heard anything.
University of Texas at San Antonio Political Science Professor Jon Taylor called Jones’ request for outside funding help “relatively unique.”
“I do not recall a mayor — and I’ll be blunt by saying it — going hat in hand to the community, particularly community leaders and particularly corporations and saying, ‘hey, can you help fund part of our city services?’” he said.
Taylor said he wouldn’t call it a “stunt,” though, and believes the mayor is trying to avoid a tax increase in the upcoming budget.
“Politicians are wont to try to find creative ways to either save money or to save services or save anything from a park to whatever,” he said. " People may call that ‘stunts,’ or people may say it’s just creative thinking. Maybe she’s engaged in a form of creative thinking in what is essentially a desperate situation."
Though the city is discussing a combination of cuts, tax hikes, and fee increases, the contracts on Jones’ list largely don’t appear in danger of being cut. Most of them were poised to receive the same, or at least partial, funding within the FY 2027 budget proposed by staff last week.
Notable exceptions were a $150,000 employment program for military spouses, veterans, and transitioning service members that Walsh said hadn’t had much activity, as well as $2.2 million worth of scholarship funding for the San Antonio Education Partnership.
Although the city cut $200,000 from its contribution to the San Antonio Botanical Garden, it would still receive $1 million.
A $40,000 contract for the Diez y Seis de Septiembre Commission also did not appear to be listed in next year’s proposed budget.
Jones has pointed to the scholarship funding as a possible target for another budget maneuver she has been promoting: diverting money from the Ready to Work job training program.
The mayor has suggested using voter-approved sales tax dollars earmarked for Ready to Work to instead fund a small number of permissible programs, which could knock a few million dollars free for other priorities.
The city could use the money to save the San Antonio Education Partnership scholarship money from the chopping block, she says.
“I would argue it should not only backfill it, it should double it,” she told KSAT in a live interview Tuesday. “In this affordability crisis, that $250, $500 scholarship could be the difference between a young person going, pursuing studies, and not pursuing studies. So I think we double down on those things.”
The city council is scheduled to pass a final budget on Sep. 17.
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