Budget Town Hall for City of Houston FY27 Budget - May 20, 2026
Budget Town Hall for City of Houston FY27 Budget - May 20, 2026
Councilmembers Sally Alcorn and Mario Castillo hosted a virtual town hall on May 20, 2026, to present the proposed FY27 budget and gather public input. Stephen David, Chief Strategy and Operations Officer, detailed the city's fiscal challenges and two major structural changes to address a projected $209 million budget gap.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Gloria (representing Barrio Dogs) advocated for increased funding for BARC animal welfare, suggesting a dedicated fee or tax increase, noting Houston lags behind Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio.
- Tamika asked about making Metro fare-free, citing that fares account for only 4.5% of Metro's budget, and questioned whether that would create avenues for alternative public transportation.
- Susan Rogers opposed the proposed $5/month garbage fee, arguing it would disproportionately impact low-income residents, and questioned other options such as reducing tax abatements or cutting police budget.
- Clayton (Brooksmith 3 neighborhood) inquired about funding for traffic calming devices and sidewalks, noting recent low-income housing and a daycare built in the area.
- Lynn asked about flood mitigation co-pays and whether drainage funding would be affected.
- Guadalupe questioned the opportunity cost of transferring funds from the combined utility system to the general fund, arguing the money should be reinvested in water infrastructure to address sewage overflows and leak repairs.
- Taylor asked about plans for neighborhood park maintenance and additional resources, noting the parks budget remained flat.
Discussion Items
- Stephen David presented the city's financial structure: enterprise funds (airports, public works) are structurally balanced, but the $3 billion general fund faces a chronic deficit due to a local revenue cap (Proposition One) more restrictive than the state's SB2. He highlighted efficiency savings of $122 million and $100 million from voluntary retirements.
- Two major proposals were outlined:
- Solid Waste Municipal Utility: Declare solid waste a utility (allowable under state law) and impose a $5/month administrative fee per household (staying flat for at least two years). This moves $117 million in expenditures out of the general fund.
- Right-of-Way Rental Fee: Require the water/sewer utility to pay the general fund 5% of gross revenue (about $104 million) for occupying city right-of-way, a practice already used with CenterPoint, Comcast, and AT&T and standard in other Texas cities.
- These measures would reduce the FY27 budget gap from $209 million to $25 million, preserve fund balance above the 7.5% minimum, and delay negative cash balance from FY28 to FY29. David emphasized this is a "maintenance budget" that buys time for further efficiency or revenue conversations.
- David responded to concerns about regressivity by benchmarking the $5 fee as the lowest in Texas (other cities range from $19–$65) and noted senior/low-income discounts exist elsewhere. He also explained that the utility system has excess liquidity (215% debt service coverage vs. required 135%, and 550 days operating reserves vs. policy of 300) due to accounting changes, leak-pipe prioritization, and cheaper borrowing via state/federal programs.
- On parks, David mentioned partnerships with Harris County to transfer maintenance of some parks, working with nonprofits like Career Recovery and Resources, and potential for more park rangers.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes were taken; the town hall was for public education and input.
- Proposals will be debated in upcoming meetings: Budget & Fiscal Affairs Committee on June 2 (including presentation of the Rice/Kinder budget survey results), third budget hearing on June 3, budget amendments on June 4, and final adoption on June 10, 2026. Public can speak at any Tuesday session before then.
- Councilmembers encouraged feedback via the online budget survey (already 800 responses) and written questions on councilmember websites.
Meeting Transcript
I'm Sally Alcorn, and I am chair of the budget and fiscal affairs committee for the City of Houston. And my vice chair, Councilmember Mario Castillo, and I are hosting these town halls. We had one in person town hall at Fondy Rex Center on Saturday, which was great. And this is our online option. So welcome to all who want to learn more about how we're spending your tax dollars and the city's 7.5 billion dollar budget. If there are any elected officials on here, speak now. You're welcome to introduce yourself. I don't know that we had any sign up. I think everybody's heard this a lot around the horseshoe already. Um but I want to just start by um uh welcoming uh Stephen David. He'll be giving the presentation tonight on the budget. He is with the mayor's administration, he is chief strategy and operations officer for the city of Houston for the mayor's office. And this is his 86th presentation of this year's budget. He has been to numerous groups around town, knows uh this thing backwards and forwards. My my colleagues and I have spent the last week and a half holding budget workshops, budget hearings for all 23 city departments where the director comes in, lays out their budget, we do outcome-based budget, which really aligns our functions and activities and programs with performance metrics. We can see it that way. How many people work in a specific division, what their goals are, what their metrics are, and that's the way we analyze the budget. We did that for 23 departments with numerous hours and hours of questions, um, some written questions, lots of out loud questions. All my questions and answers that I've gotten so far are on my website if you're interested in in seeing some more detail about the budget. Uh, but I know we're just here to get into the meat of it, so I'm gonna turn it over to Stephen David. Um, if Mario Castillo is in, I know he was going to be a couple minutes late. If he's here, you're welcome to say something, Mario. Um, if not, Steven, we'll just get started. Hey Sally, I am on. I do want to make a note. Um, if you would like Spanish translation, there is a QR code. Boothlingo is the person uh that's in the team's uh meeting. You can scan it and live interpretation will be provided uh for the budget town hall today. So that's available to you uh if you just scan that code and uh I do want to thank everyone for participating. Um Sally and I have really tried to foster more community engagement around the budget, which is why we started hosting town halls out uh in the city and also this virtual option. It's important for us to hear from you. These are your tax dollars this year specifically. There are some uh big changes being proposed, so we want your feedback on that. Uh and so I want to appreciate everyone who's here to learn, listen, ask their questions, and share their thoughts. Um, and Stephen, thank you for uh being here to present as well. Yeah, so thank you, Councilmember Castillo. And and so Stephen will go through the a high-level, you know, version of the budget, um, high level, you know, the big the big overview of the budget. And then we want to reserve most of the time for questions and answers. So we'll get to questions and answers afterwards. We do ask that you kind of limit comments. You're certainly welcome to make a comment, but really get right get to the question as quick as you can. Um, we'll give everybody you know at least a minute to get out their comment or question. Um, but but focus the focus will be on the question. So um with that, Steven, let's uh let's get started. Thank you, Councilmember Alcorn, thank you, Councilmember Castillo. Also uh thank you to all of the staff that have helped support this. Uh a lot of times we do work in the background and this thing runs smooth runs smoothly because of them. So I'm excited to present tonight's budget uh or tonight's presentation. As Councilmember Alcorn said, this is my 86th presentation. I can absolutely give this in my sleep.
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