Houston City Council Budget Workshop: Municipal Courts FY27 Presentation - May 14, 2026
Houston City Council Budget Workshop: Municipal Courts FY27 Presentation - May 14, 2026
On May 14, 2026, the Houston City Council held a budget workshop to review the Municipal Courts Department's proposed FY27 budget. Presiding Judge Nellie Trevino Santos and Assistant Director Shanessa Broussard presented the budget, highlighting a 5% increase in the general fund primarily due to HOPE, pension, and health insurance costs. The proposed general fund expenditure is approximately $26,913,000, with special funds totaling $2,756,000, reflecting a 4% overall increase across all court programs. The presentation also covered new performance measures, revenue projections, and departmental achievements.
Budget Presentation Highlights
- The Municipal Courts budget comprises the general fund and four special funds. The general fund increase is driven by employee compensation and benefits.
- Eight programs make up the court, with new performance measures developed in collaboration with Finance and Ernst & Young.
- An initiative launched in August 2025 allows individuals to handle court requests by email; from August 1, 2025, through April 30, 2026, 7,963 requests were processed (average 884 per month).
- Revenue for the general fund in FY27 is projected to increase 2% over FY26 budget and estimates. Special fund revenue is projected to increase 13% over FY26 estimates.
- The municipal court technology fund shows a 29% increase, attributed to vendor funding for collection efforts and cost realignment, not higher court costs.
- Customer satisfaction survey achieved a 99.6% favorable rating across all court locations.
- Special dockets (homeless court, veterans court) continue operations; the homeless docket has assisted 524 individuals and resolved 2,284 cases through March 2026.
- Teen Court had over 150 student participants and graduated 46 seniors.
- A new jury management system implemented in FY26 includes a paperless process and debit card payments.
- The court received the Texas Municipal Courts Education Center Traffic Safety Award for large municipalities.
Discussion and Q&A
- Councilmember Castillo asked about the technology fund revenue increase; Judge Santos clarified it is due to vendor funding and cost realignment, not higher collections.
- Councilmember Romares shared a positive experience seeing Judge Santos assisting visitors in the lobby, and asked about email reminders for court dates. Santos explained the court uses text messages (not email) because email addresses are not captured on citations; text messaging is used for reminders and closures.
- Councilmember Romares inquired about the traffic safety award; Santos described outreach efforts including distracted driving education and a mobile simulator from Texas A&M.
- Councilmember Martinez attended the teen court graduation and praised the program. She discussed potential overlaps with other city departments and suggested enhanced collaboration. Santos noted existing collaboration with the Department of Neighborhoods (anti-gang office) and participation in My Brother's Keeper.
- Councilmember Martinez asked about increasing wedding fees ($100 weekdays, $150 weekends). Santos agreed a fee increase is justified due to rising staff salaries and indicated the court will revisit the fee schedule.
Key Outcomes
- The Municipal Courts FY27 budget presentation was received by the council; no formal vote was taken during this workshop.
- The court will review and potentially propose an increase in wedding fees to align with cost recovery.
- Continued collaboration with other city departments, including health and neighborhoods, will be pursued.
- No public comments were made during the workshop. A person who had attempted to comment online will be contacted separately.
Meeting Transcript
Team, so if you you people hopefully are watching on HTV, that's still going on. The only problem is now we're unable to accept comment. I think somebody wanted to comment online. If you're somehow out there listening and we'll contact the person who wanted to comment and make sure they know. But if anyone else is listening on HTV, we're gonna have to have a new link for this afternoon's workshops, but for this workshop, if you have a question, and you're watching online, if you could email at large5 at HoustonTX.gov and we'll make sure and get that that question answered. I really apologize. There's not going to be an ability to call in on this on this particular um workshop. But welcome back, everyone, and we are very happy to have presiding judge Nellie Trevino Santos and Sanessa Broussard to present the municipal courts department's budget 2027 budget presentation. So with that, I appreciate your waiting so long, and the floor is yours. No problem, thank you so much, and uh good morning uh committee members and staff. Uh I am very, very pleased to be here today to present the municipal courts uh FY 27 budget. I promised uh councilmember Alcorn that my uh presentation, my staff is uh timed me on it, and they know that I can uh, you know, I'm the youngest of nine kids, so I can talk. Uh but it's about 13 minutes, so I'm gonna leave some time for you guys to ask questions, and uh, but I do want to uh recognize I know council member mentioned her, but this is Assistant Director Shanessa Brutsard. She's the one that's been timing me and cracking, you know, making sure, and then my wonderful executive team uh that is here to support me. I also have staff members from municipal courts uh watching online and uh, you know, and many of them are dispensing justice right now. So thank you to my team. Um wanna uh get started with the next slide, please. Um, the next several slides are going to provide different views of the municipal courts budget, including by fund and by program. Next slide. This slide reflects how the municipal court programs align with the mayor's key initiatives. Uh, our courts primarily um work under the categories of public safety and of course government that works. Next slide. This chart includes a comparison of expenditures for all the municipal court funds by fiscal year. Our budget is made up of the general fund, and we have four special funds, which are listed on this chart. The general fund reflects a five percent increase for FY27 when compared with FY26 budget. The majority of this increase is due to the HOPE, pension, and health insurance increases. Next slide. This slide includes a comparison of expenditures by fiscal year for FY27. Our proposed expenditure budget for the general fund is approximately 26,913,000, and the total for the special funds is approximately 2,756,000. Next slide. As reflected in this slide, the municipal courts is comprised of eight programs. For FY27, there's a 4% overall increase in expenditures across all municipal court programs. We have worked very closely with finance and the Ernst and Young team to refine our performance measures and create new, more meaningful measures that reflect the hard work that we do at the courts. So as we move through the next few slides, I will highlight the programs that have new performance measures. Next slide. The administrative services program includes the oversight of budgeting, procurement, audit compliance, contract administration, and safety and security. The program's performance measures include monitoring of expenditures and revenue for both the general fund and the special funds to ensure compliance with their special and specific statutory requirements. Next slide. I would like to highlight an initiative which we began in August of 2025 that allows individuals to handle certain court-related requests by email instead of having to come to the court. Since August 1st of 2025 through April 30th of 2026, our team has processed 7,963 email requests, which is an average of 884 per month. Next slide. The first is the percentage of total court cases adjudicated through our specialized court dockets, and those are dockets such as like our homeless court, our veterans court. Next slide, please. The public information services program provides oversight of clearance letters, requests which are requests for employment and for military purposes. The timely response to open records requests, media inquiries, community outreach initiatives, such as court tours, and other outreach programs that we have for the community, and they also serve as the city council and legislative liaison. We have two new performance measures for FY27. The percentage of individuals requesting open records who report a positive experience with in-person service based on survey responses. And the second is the average number of public information requests reviewed and processed. Next slide. Our group is amazing, and some of the work they do with the students, especially around like during the breaks when kids don't have anything to do.
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