On May 15, 2026, the Houston City Council received the FY2027 budget presentation from the Department of Neighborhoods (DoN). Director Herbert Sims led the presentation, highlighting the department's partnerships, outreach, and alignment with the mayor's priorities. The proposed budget reflects a 9% increase over the FY26 adopted budget, primarily due to the inclusion of the Office for People with Disabilities and targeted reductions. Council members praised the department's work and engaged in discussion on language access, volunteer programs, and neighborhood initiatives. Two members of the public offered comments.
All right, we are back for the Department of Neighborhoods budget presentation for 2027. And I welcome Director Herbert Sims and the floor is yours. All right. There we go. Can you hear me now? All right. Good morning. I want to thank y'all for your time on this Friday morning. I would like to start by recognizing the Department of Neighborhood staff who is joining us this morning behind us. Would y'all please stand? Don't just wave, stand up. So these individuals work in our neighborhoods and partners daily. They answer the calls from the community. They attend events and meetings in the evenings and on the weekends. They solve problems and remove obstacles to improve residents' lives and communities. They make it easier for residents to participate in government for them to be involved in their neighborhoods. When I tell you that we have collaborated with more than 200 partners, when I tell you that we have collaborated with 14 city departments, every council district, thank you so much for your collaboration and all you do to get us what we need. So now that I know you have other responsibilities, everybody's on this side. And commitments to get back to I won't take up too much of your time this morning, but you're welcome to go. But if you want to see me present, you're more than welcome to stay. But thank you guys so much for all you do. All right, we're gonna get started here. Council members, I would like to thank you for your support and partnership with our department. It is our honor to serve the city of Houston. As the Department of Neighborhoods moves forward and builds on partnerships and outreach we've established, we will continue to sharpen our focus on finding ways to help residents feel heard, included, and empowered. And with that, I'll begin my budget presentation. So please skip the strategic alignment side for me. So our work is centered around partnerships and collaborating with uh community stakeholders. As you can see on the first slide, most of our programs aligned with mayor's quality of life priority, with the exception of human trafficking and gain prevention and intervention, which fall under the public safety uh priority. The government that works priority, administrative services is about 48% of our budget because it includes all indirect restricted and department costs that supports other programs. Next slide. So our plans to eliminate the gap. Um the department uh implemented about 286,000 in targeted reductions through operational efficiencies. These reductions included one vacant position, adjustments to program expenses, focus reductions in community engagement and language access, which included language access software we anticipated needing, but um we were able to um achieve our goal without that hardware and software. We also um have reductions in super neighborhood fund, but it still leaves us 170,000 to work with our neighborhoods. We spend 100,000 about each year, so we have plenty of dollars to expand that program and to offer more um super neighborhoods grants as well as administrative costs as we move forward in FY27. Um these actions were taken without compromising course service delivery, and so um we will be able to get our core services completed with these reductions. Next slide. On this side, you'll see that our FY27 proposed budget reflects a 9% increase over 26 adopted budget. This variance is primarily due to the inclusion of the reduction impacts and the full accounting for the Office for People with Disabilities expenditures, which were not included in last year's budget. And as you can see, all funds are allocated to the general fund. We do not have um any other fund in the department of neighborhoods. Next slide. So here, personnel versus non-personnel. I'm sure this has been quite redundant with you all. We're about 79% personnel, one percent supplies, 12% services, and 8% in restricted accounts in the department. Next slide. So here you see expenditures by program. Um, this slide illustrates the expenditures by program. You can see the reduction in community engagement, which I explained before, which is our super neighborhood fund, as well as an FTE that we um through the department reorganization and the volunteer retirement move to the New Americans division out of MAO.