Good afternoon.

The time is now 2 03 p.m.

on Wednesday, September 17th, and the City of San Antonio budget work session is called to order.

Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Corps.

Councilmember Castillo Anguiano.

Councilmember Villa Gran.

Councilmember Mungia.

Councilmember Castillo.

Councilmember Galvan.

Councilmember Alderete Gavito.

Here.

Councilmember Mesa Gonzalez.

President.

Councilmember Spears.

Councilmember White.

Mayor Jones.

Here.

Mayor, we have Quorum.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

This meeting is here about potential amendments.

The FY26 proposed budget.

Eric, over to you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

So Justina's going to walk you through a very, very short presentation.

Hand it back to me.

I'm going to cover some of the high points in the follow-up memo you got today.

And then I'll turn it back over to you, Mayor, for the for the conversation.

Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council.

My name is Justina Tate.

I'm the budget director for the city of San Antonio.

Wanted to provide a brief overview of the budget amendments that are that were included in the list last night, as well as uh potential reductions and resources to fund those.

So there are total of six budget amendments included in the general fund for a total over two years of about 11.5 million dollars.

This includes increasing uh $750 for base salary for a total of $6.8 million.

This restores funding, report partial funding to install new radar feedback and traffic signs as well as flash stop flashing stop signs for a total of 500,000.

It would fund an additional 15 new police officers for patrol for a total of 40 officers.

This would be about 3.1 million dollars over the two years, and restores funding in the amount of a million dollars for minor repairs.

The last two amendments uh include restoring one position for the vacant buildings program to be added to the development services department, and finally includes three million dollars in one-time funding for street lights.

Now this next slide provides a summary of the resources to fund these general fund uh amendments.

This would include eliminating the inner city incentive transfer in fiscal year 2027, as well as moving the Alamo Promise funding to ready to work in fiscal year 2026.

For revenue enhancements, uh this would include increasing the parks environmental fee by 50 cents, going from a dollar fifty per month to two dollars, two dollars per month, and this would generate about four million dollars in capacity in the general fund.

So it would be about eight million dollars over the two years.

So in total, uh these additional reductions as well as revenue enhancements would generate about 11.5 million dollars of capacity in the general fund.

And finally, uh the last slide just illustrates the restricted funds and capital budget amendments.

So all the restricted funds would include uh a 750 base salary adjustment for uh personnel positions that are funded through those restricted funds, and finally, uh the capital budget would include a million dollars for each council district for capital improvement projects for a total of ten million dollars.

That concludes uh my presentation, and I'm gonna turn it back to the city manager.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Justina.

Um so we sent the memo to the council last night um that outlines what what uh justina just walked through.

I did want to I did want to point out that in the memo, and you saw in the in the memo last night that we did not make any assumptions on agency funding.

There was a lot of conversation yesterday, so that's one of the items that we're looking for additional clarification from the council today.

And then um, and then the second memo that was sent earlier was a little bit more uh detailed follow-up that came out of yesterday's conversation, specifically some questions around some adjustments to potential revenue out of the health department.

Um, and you've got that there, and Claude is here uh to answer any questions.

Um, and then the follow-up specifically around uh several questions that uh the mayor had and and uh and several of you.

Any questions, and then the follow-up specifically around uh several questions that uh the mayor had and and uh and several of you I did want to point out that we did outline uh to to you all's uh comments yesterday uh a process for the use of uh ready to work dollars for Alan Promise, and uh Alex and Mike Ramsey worked on on that description, and I just wanted to highlight that because that's that was a big topic of some of the comments that that were uh talked that were mentioned yesterday that that we would treat these uh uh uh problem animal promise scholarships that are funded with the city dollars from ready to work, uh, but would not be considered ready to work participants, and as part of ready a part of Alamo Promise now, uh the Alamo Colleges provides to the city uh because we fund them, uh the names, the addresses, the demographic information, the number and dollar amount of the scholarships, as well as the total number of Alamos promised scholarships.

We did uh we are proposing to add that is terms of the reporting to the city so that we can share with the council and the public use of those dollars that the program and study chosen by the uh students, the graduation rate uh of the students, the list of graduates and graduation dates, and and then finally the list of job placements, wages, and higher dates.

They won't be counted as ready to work, but that's still important information.

I think several of you pointed that out yesterday, and we want to make it as easy as possible for Alamo Colleges as they administer their funds for for um for the program.

The rest of them are pretty self-explanatory, Mayor.

Um Justina mentioned a couple of them, but we're all here prepared uh as well as the department heads to go into any further detail on any of these other items.

Thanks, Mayor.

Great.

Uh thank you, Eric.

Um, and thanks to the team for the quick turn on understanding where we may have a little bit more um headroom, in particular um increasing the fees on food and beverage.

And I appreciated the memo how that is identified 433,000 dollars.

Um I would like that to go toward if folks have had a chance to look at the Metro Health memo that um that Dr.

Jacob has provided.

I would like that to go toward those items.

Um and let me if you hadn't had a chance to look at it, um, some of the things that that would go toward um helping uh mental health support in particular for young kids in areas of of higher needs.

Um the other one would be uh tuberculous control and and prevention, um, increasing capacity by approximately 336 hours and uh and expanding those hours so that working folks can take advantage of those things, as well as increasing some of the nursing assessments um that are available there.

Um so 433,000 divided among those two entities is what I'm going to be looking for.

There is the other option.

Thank you again for I think just providing some additional clarity.

If we did want to um look at providing the pay increase to those that made to our city employees that made um a hundred thousand dollars or less.

Um it sounds like by restricting that um that pay increase um that it would identify go back to the memo here.

1.5 potentially 1.5 million, uh 1.4 excuse me, 1.4 uh million affecting 760 employees.

So what that shows is nine percent of our employees um make over 100,000 dollars.

So the vast majority would still receive this this pay raise.

Um again, by if we wanted to go that route, and I welcome hearing from my colleagues on additional things that we could um invest those resources in, but again, wanted to provide that as an option.

Um to highlight some of those things that that would be, I think potentially I would support considering um the programs that we have in particular that help our seniors.

Um I know we've talked about uh that program that folks really like that goes very quickly.

Um our seniors with some of the help they need around um their homes, especially if they've unfortunately been um fined due to a code violation.

Um we know there's also an opportunity to plus up resources for um for our seniors to have food delivered to them again in light of rising prices and just a very difficult environment plusing that up.

I think we could we could help ourselves.

Um there's also another program I want to I would support uh putting additional resources toward.

It's called the um essay kids breathe program, and I think when you look at the stats of that, it's pretty remarkable, and I think we have to understand um though the implications of that in light of some of the challenges we talk about often here of public safety, right?

So when you look at the return on investment of SA kids breathe, um uh there was a 66 percent reduction in missed school days for children enrolled in the program.

Similarly, over a 12-month time, um, there was a 98% reduction in emergency department visits for children that were enrolled in that program.

So again, um high rate of return and a a real savings to our community.

But frankly, if those kids are in class, uh they are where we need them to be and and are getting the most um they're getting the most out of that experience.

So those are the opportunities I think that we could look at if we wanted to restrict that that that pay increase to just the 91% of our city employees.

Um now we'll move to comment.

No one's signed in yet.

Okay.

One second.

No one's signed in.

Just to be very clear.

Please please sign in if you'd like to speak.

Mayor while they're doing their connection.

Was one of the things I was going to point out on the memo last night, and it really goes to uh uh councilwoman Via Grand's comment yesterday.

Actually, several of you uh mentioned it.

Um you'll notice that uh yesterday afternoon we we had a reduction of the inner city incentive fund in fiscal year 26 and last night's memo we pushed it back to 27 because I think some of the conversation that was initiated by Councilman Via Grand was we haven't used that money in completely in production, and if affordable housing is continue is going to continue to be a priority, which it it is, then we ought to make sure that we're tapping those dollars.

So that was the that was another change from last uh uh last night's memo that I forgot to point out.

Okay.

The other thing I know we've um had conversations uh about how we're going to approach delegate agencies.

We could also as a body determine that there are things that are just too important now and too underfunded now that we think we should consider um funding, right?

So when you think about the rape crisis center, when you think about for her um big mama safe house, those are the things that we know um we just couldn't we don't have enough of, and the need for those is is already high.

So again, I appreciate the uh you know the discussion around you know how do we account for others, but we could also look at the need in our community and think about addressing those in light of that, especially if we wanted to uh to look at again restricting the uh the pay increase to just 91% of our city employees.

Um let's see the first person who has signed up, um Chair Aldrete Gavito.

Thank you, Mayor.

Actually, uh I have some comments later, but I did have a clarifying question.

Eric, what's the first thing you said you we needed clarification on the uh the the agency issue there was we did not include any of the agencies on any of the topics regardless of the suggested funding mechanism yesterday in last night's memo.

Um so just some clarification on that front.

Okay, perfect.

Thanks.

I'm in later with comments.

Um thank you.

Um I appreciate this as we see.

Oh, and this was hard.

As we see it now, I believe that it should go across the board.

Uh two percent for those making whatever they're making, and the 750 base salary increase.

I think that is the um most equitable and fair thing to do.

I understand the need to find more dollars, but I don't think it should be at the expense of people uh that have some people making a hundred thousand on the city have served this city for well over a decade, and I have problems telling them you don't get a cost of living increase, uh, because that's basically what two percent is.

So I I want to move forward with that as it is.

Um I like that the restore the funding to the new radar feedback.

I think that meets our public safety goals.

Um provides funds for 15 new police officers.

I'd like uh to know how many of those new patrol officers would be safe officers.

Um if any would also sit in any patrol positions that are doing specialized unit.

I want to make sure if we're getting 15 officers in addition to the 25, they're in our communities and not sitting in some specialized unit.

Um of course the restores funding in the amount of one million to minor repair programs.

Um is a plus, and then the um the vacant buildings program.

Uh I am not sure about that one position.

Uh, if it's going to cost us to move it to development services, I'm still iffy on adding more employees uh when we're we're when we're currently in a freeze.

I do want to again when we talk about public safety.

I do want to reiterate because what Big Mama's House brought forward um that I the form I was given to by councilman because Councilwoman Castillo, I really feel like that's significant, and I really feel like they can they're helping right now within the police department.

I really think that they are helping, they can help with other programs within the city, including Metro Health, and so I would really like to see that um increase.

I I do appreciate the effort on the food establishment increase.

I'm just concerned that this has not gone gone out to our small businesses in our Texas Restaurant Association, and I I'm already hearing that so many businesses are closing and they're looking for reasons to to say why, and while while a lot of us know it's it's just in it's inflation all over the place.

I mean right now, currently me and transportation department are debating because they say the mediums are causing their restaurants to close, and I know it's more than that.

And what I don't want is the city to give them another excuse for them to say it's that now you're charging 20% um state max.

So I really think we need to look at at some of that as we move forward.

So, in terms of delegate agencies that sits within the delegate agency fee, I am looking to hear from my council colleagues on those.

I think they're all worthy fees.

I think when for her spoke, again, they did mention that they were getting referrals from you know agencies that hadn't been included.

So I think that that's key, and I think American Gateway is going to be needed as we move forward in these times.

So we have we have people that that have family that need help with immigration issues, and we have dreamers that work for this city and for major companies, and they're gonna need help too.

So I really think that we need to to think about where we put our priorities and and just be very thoughtful as we move forward in our words today.

But um, thank you so much.

I I would be willing if if we needed to um look at Big Mama's house, and we needed to get more funds for as much as this pains me to say, I would be willing to not restore the funding of a million in minor repair program.

Oh, I'm sorry, yeah.

And and just work with the seven million if it meant that we could get some of the delegate agencies that my council members are are passionate to um uh and passionate about on.

So um, yeah, I I think you've done a good work with what we've had.

I'm I'm encouraged.

I think the next point moving forward, truly, is to have a very respectful conversation here and then really move forward on how we are going to make um make more money here in the city of San Antonio and how we're going to help that.

And that is a you know, making sure we have jobs, making sure we have homes for people that want those jobs, and making sure that they are um financially sound to go out and to um to visit other places, and so I think that we need to kind of look at how we move that forward, and um I appreciate all the city staff and just T in particular, Eric, Maria, uh just the whole team for all your efforts as you move forward.

So um that's that's kind of where I'm at right now.

I look forward to hearing from my council colleagues regarding the delegate agencies because I'm really it's so hard.

I'm not sold completely, but I did uh those three that I did mention.

I I know I've they serve my district, but in particular, but I know that y'all have some that serve y'all's district and have different needs, so I'm I'm really uh want to hear from you guys on that.

So uh again, my first priority, my priority that I came in was the um the two across the the um making sure it our city employees got that, and that's amendment number one.

So I'm ready, I'm ready to move forward with that.

Thank you.

Um Eric, maybe it's muddier um uh justine.

Can you speak to how the increase on the food and beverage um because what was originally proposed actually based on the change in state law would have reduced um the small business, well, not small, but the the um food and beverage establishments would have reduced their fees by 50 percent.

Um when in the two examples that you provided in your memo.

Do I have that right?

So what the state legislature did is that it only allows municipalities to charge either a license for food or liquor, but not both.

And in the past we were charging for both.

So for um some businesses that only were charging one of the two fees, they may or may not see a decrease, because also the the way that it's calculated now is based on gross sales rather than how it was being done in the past.

Um so for some agents, some restaurants perhaps they may see a reduction because they're not they're not being charged the two licenses like they were in the past.

But I and I'm gonna ask Metro Health if they're here.

I I don't know if they have done an extensive analysis of all the accounts that are paying those two fees today.

Thank you.

That's helpful because at least in the memo that was shared with us and two of the in both of those examples, they were paying half of what they paid previously.

And so to the point of it may actually increase, it's not clear that they would actually do that.

Um it's not it, and it may actually still be less than what they were paying previously.

So if you could shed some light on that, thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Yes, based on the comments from uh uh deputy city manager.

This is consistent with what we forecast.

And so what you see now, different from what I presented back on August 26th, this is a projection based on the gross volume of food sales.

Um so we are recommending, at least based on your request, that we go to the max.

We are sensitive to the plight of the Texas Restaurant Association and other small businesses, but this is uh based on the gross volume of food sales, and this is the best um uh projection that we have uh based on that revenue.

Doctor, in the memo, and I'm asking you to do some some quick math here if you can.

In the memo, you provided us two case studies.

Can you quickly do the math?

And maybe you can come back to us later once you do it.

But hey, if we were to increase it to the max there, what would it look like in those two examples?

That that'd be helpful for us.

Thank you.

We can do that.

Thank you.

And you can just raise your hand and we'll call you back up here.

Whatever you've got the answer.

Thank you, sir.

Okay.

Councilman White.

Uh thanks, Mayor.

I'm gonna be very brief.

Um thank you to staff for the work.

You know, where we've landed um on the amendments.

I I think uh again, there's always tough decisions to be made.

Um me personally tremendously disappointed um with only the additional 15 officers.

Uh you know, I I cited that study yesterday that that has us last in in Texas out of the major cities in terms of safety.

Um I wanted to do it yesterday, but I wanted to read the first line in this in this study.

It says city safety or lack thereof can lead to great disparity in quality of life and return on dollars invested by residents, businesses, and government alike.

And I think that's really a uh um it's a line that we should all really consider when when we think about what what we're doing for public safety.

And I I couldn't agree more with um the mayor and and some of my colleagues that that talk about the need for a holistic approach to public safety.

Uh yes, lights help uh yes, improving literacy rates amongst our our citizens is going to help down the line.

There's a lot of things uh that we can do that actually, Councilman McKee Rodriguez has talked about a lot uh over the last two years, frankly, a lot of which I had not thought about uh, but that I think he's correct on.

Um but there's uh it it's not an either-or.

Um there is no question that more police officers on the streets uh help deter crime, make the city safer.

And again, our lead law enforcement official stood at that podium and uh he said this is how we're gonna make the community safer when when we move to this 60-40 ratio that he's talked about, the community is gonna be safer, the quicker that we can do it the better.

And so to only add 40 officers in this year's budget as opposed to the 65 is very, very disappointing to me.

Uh the increase in in fees, I guess that that environmental fee, I uh I'll again say I don't like that either.

It should not be up to the citizens of San Antonio to uh uh keep shouldering the burden of uh how we want to spend money down here at City Hall.

Uh they pay enough already, and and the fee increase that's that's there on top of all the other fee increases uh that we're hitting them with not right.

They pay too much already, and so in my opinion, we've done a lot of great work in finding areas that we can cut.

Um we should make further cuts.

We need to look harder, we need to look uh deeper.

Um I support the uh two percent across the board that uh councilwoman Via Gran just uh just mentioned for our uh for our city employees.

Um and I guess uh on on Alamo Promise, I think Priscilla Camacho, are you here?

Yeah, could you could you come up for a moment some of the requirements that um moving this money over and into the ready-to-work column, uh, I think there's some concern about some data that you all may not be able to provide.

Can you share that with us?

Absolutely.

So Priscilla Camacho with the Alamo Colleges district, thank you so much for the opportunity.

So just me start off, really appreciative of the the work that's been done to make this not a co-enrollment program that was heard loud and clear of our concerns with that, and so I want to thank the council and I want to thank Mike and Alex for working to get that done.

We only got this list just a few minutes ago, and so in a quick glance, I just wanted to let you know most of the information that has been requested as part of the data sharing agreement we will provide is okay.

Two things I would like to point out, and the first one is the most important.

The job placement information is not available to us at scale by the Texas Workforce Commission.

And the reason why I mentioned that uh very prominently is because we've been having these conversations with the state as regards to our outcomes funding for HB8.

So our state formula funding, we've been having these conversations, they want to include job placement eventually.

TWC is working really hard to do that, but we're not there yet.

So my recommendation is in the alternative, if we can offer to provide transfer data, we send a lot of our promised students to four-year universities.

We provided that to many of the council this morning so that we can share with you where some of those students are going if they're progressing down to a four-year degree.

The other is with regards to the intro where it talks about semi-annual basis, we would ask if we can align that with when we present that data.

Since you're asking for graduation information, we want to make sure that it aligns with those reports that we have to send to higher ed board anyways when those graduations occur.

So we think we can work through that and the details, but the job placement is the critical piece because we just do not have access.

Ready to work is different, and it's a burdensome process because we have to verify we have to go to the employers, we have to get paperwork from the students.

That's just not realistic with 8,000 students that are COSA eligible.

Can I ask a quick question, Mayor?

Yeah, can we get it annually?

Yes, absolutely.

Uh the wait which one?

The last one.

The graduation?

Yeah.

Yes, yes, yes, we can.

Instead of semi-annually annually.

We absolutely can do that.

We can adjust for that accordingly, Mayor.

And then and then in terms of the in terms of the job placement, we can work in the contract to make sure that um in the alternative for now, we can focus on transfer data with the goal of getting graduation data.

We can we can work through that in the in the actual agreement.

But that's acceptable to the council.

And and absolutely, and what we can do is always put a continuous once we know that TWC can do that for us, especially because we know that next legislative session, they have an eye to potentially add it if it's available.

Maybe the mayor and council can help you with that.

I think I have some advocates on my behalf for this one.

Thank you.

Thanks, Priscilla.

I don't know.

I'd ask my colleagues to to certainly consider that so that we can we can make that um funding adjustment work.

Uh the the last thing I'm gonna I'm gonna say in terms of you know looking looking for other areas.

Um I won't harp on that, but um just the idea that we've got we've got to take a hard look at these things.

And you know, uh at the risk of of setting off a fire storm, you know, the these delegate agencies, again, I I want to I want to say that I I know that they all have noble missions and do great work, but we're cutting in so many areas across our city this year because of this deficit, right?

I I want to I want to say that I I know that they all have noble missions and do great work, but we're cutting in so many areas across our city this year because of this deficit, right?

And and I think this delegate agency funding, it's it's a little bit over 24 million dollars.

And if we were just to reduce that 2.5% of that would result in 600,000, you know, that could go to help us fund more officers.

Um I also think we need to look, and my colleague um councilwoman Spears is gonna uh believe talk about it in a minute.

We also I think should look at the overtime, right?

That our office that we're paying for right now because we are short staffed on the police force and adding more officers would reduce the amount of overtime uh pay.

And so um there's another area that I think we could provide savings while getting additional officers on the street.

So I just I challenge us all to let's continue to think creatively, let's continue to make the hard decisions, and let's do what we can to uh to make our community safer.

Thanks, Mayor.

Eric, would you like to say something?

Yeah, just just for clarification purposes, uh um we are we are overhired, as you heard from from uh Mr.

Riley yesterday and in the follow-up memo.

So um it's it's nomenclature in the use of the words short officers.

I don't want the public to think that we can't fill positions or that we have trouble with recruiting classes.

Um I think short in in y'all's arena is a policy conversation about a goal or or strategic plan, but but I just don't want the public um to to think that we're short, that the we're we're in a deficit because we're doing as much as we can.

In fact, we're spending we're spending over our budget personnel budget right now, based on the cadets and the and the officers in the field that we're authorized to do.

Thanks for that clarification.

Uh Chair Aldrate Gavito.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh just a couple quick notes.

Um, again, I'm also disappointed that we're not getting up to the 65 officers.

You know, 40 is a is a start in the right a step in the right direction.

But uh, you know, I think about us talking about the core services of the city.

No other agency or nonprofit can do police work, no other agency or nonprofit can do firefighter work.

No other nonprofit or agency can fix our streets, and these are core services that we as a city council need to focus on to keep our city running efficiently and effectively.

So definitely still want to push to see more police officers.

Um, you know, again, it's step in the right direction, but we're not there yet.

Um I I do also want to um agree with Councilwoman Via Gran about the employee increase across the board.

Um yes, I I I also think of a uh a tenured city employee who's maybe making over a hundred grand but supporting a family of four.

Maybe it's the only uh income that they have.

So I feel like they are deserving of uh an increase as well.

I'm glad to see the vacant buildings program on there.

I know yesterday we talked about the roles and responsibilities of what that uh position would do in DSD.

Uh do we have a timeline when we could see that?

Yes, ma'am.

That's uh included in the memo we we just issued today.

Okay, and and what it would be would be um a um a senior code officer dedicated to the vacant building program to conduct inspection additional inspections, uh monitor compliance with registration maintenance and safety requirements, issue citations for enforcement, and then support the case managers um and um that 95,000 dollars, and this was the follow-up, one of the follow-ups from yesterday.

Um the the uh the fee structure for residential um the residential um vacant building fee is proposed, was proposed at 250.

This memo um outlines uh to y'all's question yesterday, it could be increased to 400 for residential and go from 750 to 900.

That additional revenue would pay for that 95,000 position.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Thanks for that.

And thanks also too, thanks to Justina and all of the budget team for all of y'all's work.

I know um it's you know, not easy hurting cats and we're the cats, and you know, thank you.

I won't yeah.

Anyways, um also um want to echo support for what Priscilla said.

Thank you, Councilman White for bringing her up and and clarifying that.

Sounds like we we nip that in the bud.

Um quick question for Maria regarding the delegate agencies.

I know at one point we were gonna um look at the 24, 25 million of delegate agency funding and look which ones of those were delegate agencies and also which ones are discretionary.

Have we done that yet?

Uh we have.

So, and um the HS presentation, and perhaps Mel has those numbers, but we did that analysis on what agency support core services, oh uh human services, for example services are our senior centers programming, um, and what and and what other agencies have very worthy uh costs, but they're not uh directly tied to the services that we provide.

Perfect.

I'm curious how much what the percentage breakdown is of delegate agency funding again, and those are services are helping us towards our core services of homelessness and that kind of stuff versus discretionary.

Do we have that, Mel?

Yes.

So discretionary is about 4.8 million of the 24 million.

Oh, what's that percentage?

Tim.

Um eight.

Math at the podium, about 20 percent.

So 20% of our of that 24, 25 million is going to discretionary.

Again, nonprofits, noble causes, worthy causes, but not necessarily working towards our one of our meeting meeting one of our core services.

That's correct.

Okay, great.

Thank you for that clarification.

Um that's about it.

You know, again, just want to echo more police officers in support of all employees getting city employees getting an increase, vacant buildings program, um, Alamo Promise, and and um I think I'm good.

Thank you.

Thanks, Mayor.

Chair Corps.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, thank you all for this presentation.

I want to um offer a different um option for the revenue and recommend us not increasing the environmental fee by 50 cents and reducing that to half and changing that to 25 cents.

Wait, if we change it to 25 cents, I just took half of that, it's about two million dollars.

We could still cover our full raise for all civilian employees.

I think it's really important that we do all civilian employees because I believe you all work really hard too, and so um all of our employees deserve that.

But um at the same time, that doesn't leave us very much funding for um uh some of the other items on this.

So I want to reiterate that I do not think it's a a good decision to be funding personnel and to um Councilman Via Gran's point.

I understand that that vacant buildings program is in a position too, so maybe we do hold off on that for right now because of the upcoming deficit this upcoming year, and knowing that we're gonna need additional position.

So I don't know that there was sufficient support to have 15 new police officers in the this list.

So I'd like for us to listen to see whether there is support for that, because again, I think the thing that you mentioned now makes me think we should reset what our goal is for officers.

You said we're not short, but if the council wants to have uh a discussion about what our goal looks like for how many patrol officers are needed, how many safe officers are needed, that that's a strategy conversation that should occur.

And I think that's something we can take up at public safety committee to re-look at what is 6040 look like, where did that come from?

Let's take um let's figure out what the right number is for our community, and then we can bring it back to uh B session and have a full team conversation for it.

So I think if any of my colleagues think that that would be a way forward so that that way we can all agree on this is what we really need for patrol, this is what we really need for SAFE.

But this number was provided to us, and so I like that I don't think it was intended that way, but I do think uh that comment resonated with me.

No, no, it's the the goal of getting to 60 percent, 40 percent proactive was a council goal.

And and you guys talked about this with the budget work session through others, and I I suspect that that will be a topic that will be revisited.

Um intentionally or unintentionally, it's it's the same.

It's it's a strategic conversation about from policymakers standpoint where do y'all want to go?

Yeah, where do and how do we get there?

Yeah, and I one of the conversations just to air, um, what we talked about in public safety was looking at our data and how are we matching the data that we're seeing in the community with the actions that we're taking on a public safety standpoint.

So, is it patrol officers that are needed, or do we need to support more officers in the financial crimes unit because they're the ones that actually do elderly abuse work, which is one of the subcommittees that was created for public safety.

So just tying a little bit more of the actions towards the the data that we're seeing, I think will be helpful too.

So that would be my um uh proposal for everyone to kind of weigh in on to see if we could rediscuss as a team what is our real goal for our officers and for SAPD to make sure we are all aligned on it.

Um and then the last thing I will stand also because if we're if we do reduce if folks feel like we want to do the don't want to do 50 cent increase, then um if we have enough support for that, then I guess there's a little bit more funding.

But if we do reduce that to 25 cents so that we're not putting the burden on our um our on our residents, then we don't have a lot of additional funding for some of those other items.

I totally understand Councilman Via Grande's point about major minor home rehab and council uh Councilman Castille yesterday mentioned if we could do more support in minor, but it looks like from the memo that it's gonna be the same number of units.

And so um given that, I think that the only thing out of this list that I think we could continue to look at would be the radar feedback signs, flashing stop signs.

But um, aside from that, I think the number one priority really just needs to be looking at fully funding our civilian pay raise, and then of course our delegate agency funding.

I think that's really important, whether it comes from the reserve or this, if we have some funding left over.

But also I didn't see on here was the book festival restoration.

I know a lot of us mentioned support for that in the initial session, but uh, we may not have said it yesterday, or at least I didn't say it yesterday because I was like, oh, there was so much support for this, it's only 50k, it's gonna get baked in.

But um I should have said it.

So if we can, if other people feel like they want to support the book festival uh funding, let's make sure to share that out loud today.

The only other thing, Mary, you you were um asking about the mental health supports and the tuberculosis supports, and I read that memo, but my only now looking at like if we increase a program and then we're going into next year in a deficit for metro health, it's hard to take away.

And that mental health support is so important.

But at the same time, I think we need to think about for them.

How are we gonna start planning now to uh support some of those programs that aren't gonna be funded next year?

And um, so that would that's the only reason why it would be hard for me to say, yeah, let's add an additional uh six, seven hundred thousand dollars in programming support for them.

I think that's all I have for right now.

Thanks, Mayor.

Yeah, thanks, uh Chair Core.

I appreciate your your comments um on it on a couple of things to your point of you know, how do we plus these up?

But what does that look like like sustainability-wise?

Um, part of it is looking at what do we do, what do we know we need to bake into our budget, right?

And so it's no longer optional each year, but it's no kidding, something that we take into account.

That's a different way of of looking at it if we are all sold on the benefit of increased mental health resources in this case for area kids in areas of of higher needs, which we understand could become public safety concerns if if not um sufficiently addressed.

And I mean, well point uh point well taken on on again, how are we um I think as this body has has routinely come back to is our you know various differing understandings of of public safety?

Because yes, we will routinely uh lean on on chief's comments, um, but we don't as often lean on the the comments, for example, of Dr.

Jacob or others.

Um, and frankly, in the literature that was provided to us, the very clear linkages between illiteracy and criminality, right?

Um, so um I know we can you know routinely speak to to one person in uniform uh that that speaks to public safety, but we can also um I think better appreciate some of the other contributors uh more holistically and how they, as chief said, his asks is based on workload.

So, how do we decrease chief's workload?

Uh we do that over the longer term with some of these more strategic investments.

Um, Chair Galvan.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um Thank again, city staff for putting this uh work together.

I know it's been tough, and so grateful for all the work you all have been putting into this.

Uh we're almost to the finish line.

Um I go through as quickly as I can, but not talking too quickly.

Um supportive of uh finding funds for the mental health uh essay kids breathe, the mental health resources.

Uh, I think that's just they're invaluable resources, and I think definitely within the community health committee reviewing ways that we can make sure that this is baked into the budget in the future and seeing where we can mitigate uh some of those losses that we are expecting to have to take uh in 2027.

Um supportive, of course, of uh delegate agencies and big mama's safe house uh for her at the rape crisis center, American Gateway and the Book Festival.

I am also supportive though and eager to review the delegate agency funding in the fall.

Um even some of the other grants that we provide uh to external partners and just kind of reviewing what that process looks like for every uh everyone, whether it's in arts or economic development or wherever it is, just to make sure that uh where we're sending money out, that we're getting a quality return, of course, and it's meeting the goals that we need for our for our community.

Um there's a lot of work, a lot of worthy causes out there that are deserve the support, uh, but it really does just come down to where we where we can do it, right?

Um the food permitting um I think it's something that we should definitely review within the economic workforce committee if we can just reviewing generally not just the mental health permitting related to small businesses but general small business permitting that and fees that we uh require to see are there ways that we can kind of adjust here and there um to make it easier for small businesses to open up and to operate uh but still pro provide enough resources for us to continue the services that we have as well and so I think it's just worth the conversation in the future um definitely hear the points on the minor home rehab um it I don't feel good about um removing that funding and I I don't think I'm fully sold on it just yet but I I I'm taking seriously the the capacity piece of it I think you know to some of the comments made about uh having to pick um here I it makes me stuck with I I don't I'm not supportive of the 15 uh additional officers just frankly again we're you know we're still at adding officers 25 of course it's less than what originally uh intended um but so is everything else for our our city budget and I I just think seeing that number grow grow wider throughout these next several years um as we're looking into further deficits it's gonna be tough to continue to support um and seeing other pieces have to go away because of this either or situation that we're in um and I don't yeah I just I'd get stuck there with that as we're looking uh at choosing between home repair trauma care and other kinds of support here uh within even these amendments but then of course more so within the Health and Human Services departments in tandem or in total uh within 2027 even some of the senior center programming in my district is gonna be impact 2027 and so just weighing that heavily about the this is an either or conversation and I I don't think I want to choose uh option three given the fact that uh or amendment three given the fact that there still is gonna be 25 additional officers added.

Um I had a couple questions for staff um based on the 2024 financial reports um am I understanding correctly and yeah I know we're not looking at that we may not have those ready on hand so we can talk about this offline but am I understanding correctly that for tax abatements in total the cities provide in 2024 it's 10 million dollars that can try to see okay I don't have that right now but we'll work to that thank you.

And I think same thing goes to the uh property tax exemptions um looking at 53 million dollars if I'm looking at that correctly as well the 2024 financial report and those of course break out into different forms of residential commercial industrial um I just want to see if there's anything there that we could also review of course understanding it's the day before we're meant to adopt it tomorrow but I just would like to get a better clarification on uh the exemptions where they're going to um yeah and just how that will may impact us into 2027 as well.

Um council member you you you're talking about two different things abatements and exemptions correct okay they're both in 2024 financial report but just identifying both of those I believe we can talk off more about it but there's different pages about it.

Yeah we updated the we'll we'll pull it out the the exemptions we have because we was in an earlier presentation and and we'll get the uh the tax payment answer that'd be great thank you um let me see if I'm missing anything else from my comments here from my notes here the vacant buildings one of course is something that I'm very supportive of trying to keep in um but I understand too if we're if we're struggling to to make make it whole I'd be comfortable uh with removing that that position um since it's unfilled anyway but it I still think it's gonna be needed and given the amount of vacant buildings that our city does have and having that larger conversation about what our vacant buildings ordinances are making sure that we have the resources to really address them is important to me.

So I'd eager to hear from more from my council colleagues about that one.

And then of course uh still supporting uh the employee compensation uh for the across the board um and I do think though it's worth looking at uh whether it's for 2027 or future budgets uh ways to look at potential caps not to dispect anybody's work here in our city um but I think understanding too the economic conditions that we're in that there's always gonna be folks who can weather it more I'm sure some of us can weather it more than others right I'm sure I could whether more than a different uh full-time employee here at the city and I want to make sure that our full-time employees can weather um inflation to the best of their abilities um most equitable way that we can but nonetheless I'm still supportive of the current um proposal for the across the board 750 dollar increase as well.

Uh those are all my comments for now mayor thank you.

Councilwoman Spears.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um thank you again for all the hard work y'all have done, and especially the quick turnaround.

Um I want to say first that I'm I remain open to many of these ideas, and I hope all of my colleagues are still open-minded and aren't totally like stuck in the ground on some things because I know I am.

I'm listening to what you're saying, and and I'm really absorbing like what's important to your districts.

That being said, I do want to tell you.

Well, let me start here.

I I fully support what Priscilla is saying about Alamo Promise, and I would love to see that work out.

Um, I think that's a really innovative idea, and so I'd like to see how we can really make that make that happen.

Um I'm also supportive of our COLA adjustment because I'm the insurance going up so much.

Um I I want to make sure the families can all afford afford that insurance, the health insurance if they need it.

And um so this is my main point.

I really really want all 65 of these officers, and and I want to lay out for you why this is important.

Um when we talk about the delegate agencies.

I I would like to go ahead and and and and look at that in October because um I think it there are a lot of those that are core service.

We know there's a bunch that are for core services, and maybe we need to make some adjustments to how much they're getting, and if we do anything now, it it may impact that number um negatively.

And so I would like to really look at that in October comprehensively.

Um that being said, I want to point out that very often the first point of contact for these delegate agencies that are doing core services is a law enforcement officer, and they make that connection.

And um, it is through their training and and understanding of the needs of our residents that that they make those connections, and I think that we can't overlook that.

Um I was at a homeowners association meeting last night and explaining about the officers or talking to me about speeding, why can't our safe officer be out here more, set up speed traps, etc.

etc.

etc.

And it is just a pervasive problem in my district.

We're experiencing theft response times, it's it's a clear deterrent.

I know all of your districts are having the same problems.

We all are.

Maybe you're having a different law enforcement a problem that your your police officers are able to assist with, but we all have that problem.

It is in the 2026 budget survey as the number two item overall response for across the city.

Um we talk about the other law enforcement officers across our county, which would be sheriffs and constables, they have different jurisdictions and different roles.

Sheriffs should be serving mostly the county constables are serving writs, evictions, and um and other sorts of papers for our court system.

But I don't believe any of us can say that we feel safer.

We're seeing violent crimes every night on the news.

Um I think the comprehensive approach is totally important.

I would love to partner with the mayor with with you SUC on the literacy program.

I totally agree.

Um, but I think that is a longer term thing that we're that we'll see the benefits of and it has to be sustained.

But in the short term, we have to look at the public safety part where we add the police officers.

There is nothing that deters crime as much as seeing police officers in your community.

And the fact is this you are already paying for them by the overtime dollars we are spending on these officers.

Right now, it was 27.7 million in 24 that we spent on overtime.

It's an estimated 20 20.5 million in overtime in the 2026 budget.

And from October to July, it was 431,673 hours of overtime.

So you're paying for them already.

We might as well make it FTEs.

And I don't think it's a stretch to do that.

I think that's what our our residents are asking for.

I think forcing overtime or even if it's not forced and it's then it's still hard on our officers.

It can cause burnout, it affects mental health for them, and we don't want to be straining our our police officers as it is.

Um I just want to reiterate this.

This is this is top of mind for me, top of mind for my district, and I really do remain willing and and hopeful to work with you and what's important in your districts, and I am listening to what's important in your districts, and I want to help in every way I can as well.

But this is this is paramount for mine.

So I really hope that you'll can reconsider or consider um supporting item number three up to 65 officers.

So I think that's all I have right now.

Thank you so much.

In case it helps anybody with your recommendation, Councilwoman, do you have uh recommendations on how to pay for that?

Yes, just the reduction in and that budgeted overtime would pay for that.

They budget the overtime dollars and it would pay for the additional officers if we went to full time.

Chief, could you speak to that if that if if that you think that would make um is that how that would actually play out?

Yeah, I don't have those figures, but um so far this year, um through August we've spent uh 26.9 million in overtime.

So I don't know what the cost for that uh 25 or 45 officers would be.

The the other issue, Mayor, for context is that the proposed budget already included a two million dollar reduction in police overtime because we contemplated making some changes and shifts that that the chief is authorized under the contract.

Um so we have that the proposed budget is already eliminating two million dollars.

Um if if uh if that's something the council would like to us to consider uh this afternoon or tonight, I mean it's it's um there would be something not done.

And so we would figure out tonight if if we were gonna further eliminate overtime, if that's something you guys want us to look at, then I think what I owe you back is uh what would not be done because uh my my guess is in every department where we're spending overtime, it's for a function or service or something or coverage.

And so to provide back to the council, this is these this this is what we would do less of Mayor.

I can ask a clarify.

I I don't understand what you mean by what we would be doing less of.

Can you so um so we spend um Rick, how much how much did we spend we spend um five point uh one million dollars this year on district fill, which makes sure that when uh an officer is off on vacation or leave or a family emergency, that patrol district has to be filled.

We're hiring somebody to backfield on an overtime.

Uh we spend um uh about three million dollars a year on holdover calls.

So a call that comes in the last 30 minutes of the shift, the officers got to see it through.

So that is unintended um overtime that we pay because it goes beyond their shift.

Um so there's a variety of different overtimes uh that are assigned to categories.

We have court-related overtime, so there's about 12 different categories, so we could look at that if you guys are interested in making some further adjustments and be able to to um at least share with the council what the impact of that decision is.

Thank you, Mark.

Chairman Gia.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I just want to emphasize the collaboration and work with Animal Promise.

Um so I think that's gonna be a good partnership um with some of the data that they're asking for.

Uh and since we just got off the subject uh on 6040, Chief, could you answer a question for me?

The the goal is 60 percent of the time proactive, 40 percent of officers' time reactive.

Um this amendment doesn't necessarily pass, what's the current ratio?

Yeah, okay.

50-50.

We didn't start out there, we started out much lower than that, but it's even up now.

And the more we add the that ratio will change.

So 50 percent officers' time is responding to calls and 50 percent of their time is directed patrol or whatever else they may do proactively.

Okay.

And so I think that to councilman core's point, thank you, Chief.

I appreciate that.

Uh it is a policy discussion because if you know 50 percent of of any given patrol officer's time is to do proactive work, and there's some need of speeding, or there's some other things of that nature.

You know, I just wonder where that connection is on the Jeff Smith.

I'm sorry, Councilman.

I just wanted to clarify the average is 50-50, so we may have some patrol districts that that is not the case, but just overall when we take the entire patrol um division.

Right.

So some to your point, so some could be over or under that 50-50.

Correct, yes.

So there might be some officers and divisions currently doing 6040.

Correct.

Okay.

So I think that warrants a larger discussion of the public safety committee and some data points on that because that is a policy discussion.

These are numbers to get to a policy goal.

That again, six of us who are voting on this budget did not vote on that.

So I think that's extremely important to consider.

So when it comes to the the delegate agencies, I I do support those.

I think there is just no time to waste with some of the work that they are doing.

So if you look at the work that you know for her is doing, it's extremely important work, um, as well as some of the other nonprofits that were listed in the um Big Mama Safe House is another one, American Gateway.

You know, um I was fortunate to go to um swearing in today um of a lot of folks who are became U.S.

citizens today at City Hall.

Uh and that was just several countries from around the world, right?

And the mayor and I were sitting next to each other, and she kind of said, you know, I wonder how many people here utilize American Gateways.

Um because these are folks that are immigrants that were going through the process, and now they are U.S.

citizens.

Uh and we get to see them all take the Pledge of Allegiance together.

So that's extremely important work that these organization organizations do.

Um so it's nothing nefarious or bad that they're doing.

And I'm not sure if it was lost in yesterday's conversation, but I did support all of the amendments yesterday with the exception of number three.

So I did support the SA book festival uh and everything else.

So in your backup memo for the vacant building position, you mentioned that that position would go to development services, which is a uh enterprise fund, and so there would be some fees associated to pay for that position.

Yeah, it'll go to the development services department, but it'll be in the code division.

Okay.

Which is funded by the general fund, and those additional fees that are in the memo would be deposited in the general fund for that position.

Okay, gotcha.

Perfect.

And those fees would be assessed on vacant properties.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

And if for some reason we didn't get enough, you know, revenue from those or people weren't paying, we could supplement that.

Well, ideally, no, but uh the there's a pretty conservative estimate based on the number of fees.

I'm sorry, um permits that we issue now, both residential and commercial and then accounting for the incre the proposed increase.

Gotcha.

So let's I think we're pretty conservative about it.

Okay, I just want to make sure because I know there's a lot of folks who don't respond to these things, but yeah, okay, that's good.

Um yeah, so those are those are my comments um on that.

Um thank you.

Appreciate it.

Dr.

Jacob, thank you, Mayor.

Uh, you had asked about the scenarios to play out, so just refer to the memo from September 1, pages four and five, and those are the two examples.

So just to play it out on balance, uh, this would be less of a economic or financial burden on the area restaurants.

Uh, if we look at the current fee structure, which is based on the size of the organization, there are different tiers, uh, one to ten employees, eleven to twenty-five, twenty-six to fifty, and fifty-one and over.

The two scenarios that we played out were at fifty and over and twenty-six to fifty.

Um, so under the old rubric, uh the food license would be uh, for example, for 50 employees or over, that would be 1200 dollars.

Um under what we presented three weeks ago, under the new free structure, we were recommending that that would be based on a scenario of 150K of gross volume of food sales, that would it would go from 1200 down to 850.

Um with this proposed amendment today, we're now saying if we go to the 20 percent max, it would go instead of uh 850 would be 928.

Um so unbalance across the different scenarios.

This uh would be of savings, if you can say that in air quotes, given some of the margins, but that I did want to at least just acknowledge there are different scenarios.

We gave you two examples based on 50 more employees or 26 to 50, and uh uh uh assuming uh 150k in terms of the gross volume of sales, that's what we used um back on September one in the memo uh back on September one.

Thanks, Dr.

Jacob.

Um so by and large, it would be still significantly lower than the what they were previously paying, and we identify 433,000 more dollars for the budget, correct?

Okay, thank you.

Councilwoman Mesa Gonzalez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Just wanted to show my support for the two percent increase across the board for our city employees, making sure that yeah, the two two percent and seven fifty base, uh, just like I said yesterday.

Um I know that the previous council was presented with a UTSA study uh that stated additional officers were needed over a three-year period to get us to an appropriate level of service based on our population.

Um and this was previously built into the two-year budget.

Um management, SAPD, and council agreed that this was a necessary size.

So I guess what changed from then to now the the goal was to add um 360 officers to achieve that 60 forty split that chief talked about over three to five years um as we could afford it.

And that was part of the conversation with the council at the time.

Um we added um justina, how many were the first two years?

We've added 165 the first two years of the three to five years.

Um and when we laid out the forecast to you all in uh late June, I know that feels like a decade ago at late June, we made no assumptions of adding officers at that time beyond the necessary adjustments for uh the South the new South Side uh patrol substation.

As it went through the budget, and frankly, part of the conversation with the council at the end of June was the public safety was a priority.

Um I did not originally have any officers, any additional patrol officers in the trial budget, and based on the conversation the council had at the end of June, we built in the 25.

So um it was a goal to get there, but it was not um something that we said we were gonna do every year.

Councilman White is referring to last year's budget.

We talked uh to the council about because we added 65 in the fiscal year 25 budget that we would shoot to add an additional 65 in this upcoming budget, but financial conditions changed, and uh I did not uh I did not include it in the proposed or the the trial budget that we showed you all at the end of June.

And the 25 I guess the 15 are those throughout the city, are the 25, I guess the 40.

What is it?

Yeah, 40.

How did those get dispersed?

Yeah, so um to to the item that we sent last night to answer councilwoman via Grand's question, we're assuming 15 patrol officers, not specialized units, not safe officers.

Um we're assuming patrol officers officers uh those 15.

Throughout the throughout the city.

Okay.

Um I think it was a now clinic.

I noticed that didn't make the final cut.

Uh that was unfortunate because I I do think making sure we have services for our first responders is important, um, especially mental health services.

Um but I know that there was a conversation between Maria and the director of now clinics, so I just wanted to clarify um any potential opportunities for that.

Uh sure, councilwoman.

So this morning I had a conversation with the uh executive director of clinical operations, and our conversation was around psychological services that could be provided to police and fire.

For example, when we go through the process of vetting cadets, we do a psychological assessment as part of that process, and we use our in-house uh psychologists to do that.

Uh however, we've had had challenges in the past few years in uh attracting those individuals to work for the city as well as retaining those individuals.

So we talked about having a meeting later this month to explore maybe a contractual um agreement where they can provide some of those services that we need at in both departments.

That is an example.

We also provide psychological services, for instance, when there's a critical incident in both departments, fire and police and officer involved shooting or um any other incident that our employees um require that that assistance.

So having those services is critical for the work that both departments do.

So uh councilwoman, well, I don't want to use risk of your time, I'll just add something.

No, go ahead.

Go ahead.

Well, I was just gonna say this there's a little bit of a it's a little bit of a distinction here because I think what you all were talking about yesterday, and as we we looked at the material last night, it was um equipment and commodity support.

Um and um th those services for all our employees, police fire and and city employees, uh those types of of mental health resources are covered under our insurance plans.

And so um if employees have been using that fund or that clinic, um hopefully they're they've been using taking advantage of the the the health benefit.

What Maria talked about with the clinic today is maybe another way to provide support, but but kind of killing two birds with one stone because we have a we have a need inside the departments for certain services, and they may be able to fill the gap, and so there may be another way to uh address that issue.

Yeah, that's great.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Uh, what else?

Um last one is Almo promise.

Just again want to support uh the funding for that, and I think that was recently amended, right?

As of with Mark and I think the manager, so that's all.

Thank you.

I want to make sure that we are um all understanding uh what the request was for the clinic.

Um did you see some of the materials that were that were on there that were requested?

No, but we're not moving forward on that.

No, no, no.

No, well, well, but I also want to make sure that when we're talking about those funding for things that support first responders, some of the things on the list um would not have met, I think the the SNF test, right?

So yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

It's like Legos and Essential Oils, so bird bath.

I mean, right.

Okay.

I mean, I'm assuming it would work for the clinic, though.

Understood.

Yeah, yeah, understood.

But I think there was now that there's more clarity on what they've asked for and where it would actually go, um, we're on a good path.

Okay, councilwoman Castillo.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Uh thanks everyone for the presentations.

Um, I continue to remain supportive of the 750 base increase in addition to the 2% across the board cost of living adjustment.

Our city employees literally keep the city running.

It's a very demanding job.

Uh, tonight we're having uh we're creating a new neighborhood association, and we're gonna have so many city departments there as well uh during dinner time, right?

When folks have families, so just grateful for uh the work of all city employees, no matter uh what level you're at.

Um, it's just a very demanding job, and literally you all facilitate the goals of this council in each of our districts.

So um just thank y'all.

So I'm supportive of that item, and of course, to ask me for advocating and uh meeting with each council member to ensure that we're equipped with the information and request of uh your members.

Um I'm supportive of line item number two, and then currently not supportive of item three, given conversation.

I do believe it does merit a larger policy discussion in terms of which units are going to help us meet those policy goals.

Um, for example, um, you know, uh Chair uh Dr.

Sitcor during the committee we talked about youth violence, senior violence, and so much more, uh, and their specialized units that I think we need to be saying um that we should be supportive of within those units rather than just blanket uh more officers without understanding the direct impact that it's going to have towards these issues that were being briefed on in committee.

Um, you know, no doubt I know uh district five, and I'm sure this is appropriate to all of our safe officers and officers, but I know for a fact that those in D5 um, you know, are are hard workers and they have our community at the forefront of every decision and action they take.

Uh and what I always emphasize is no matter what neighborhood association I'm at, our constituents are coming up to them about concerns about homelessness and vacant lots and vacant homes, right?

And unless those 20 officers are going to build homes in the vacant lots or cribbed uh clear liens, right?

It's not necessarily going to address that public safety concern that district five residents are calling us about.

Um so that's why with the line item number four, I'm supportive of that because the trend in D5 in particular, and what our safe officers are often responding to are uh issues with vacant lots, right?

Uh they serve as a host to so many issues from illegal dumping, questionable activity, and so much more.

So I believe by helping folks stay in their home by helping them rehabilitate their home rather than having it go through the building and standards for process, ending up in demolition and then a vacant lot, we help alleviate that public safety concern.

Um so I'd be supportive of um restoring that one million for that.

And then regarding the delegate agencies, you know, while these delegate agencies cannot do the job of a police officer, I agree with that 100%.

They can help reduce the need for our constituents to call 911, right?

Um, like for example, with the SA forward plan under the violent prevention, right?

That's where Big Mama Safe House uh plays a huge role.

It reduces the need to call 911 because someone's been shot, it reduces the need to call 911 because of some type of violent activity in the community.

So very grateful for the work of Big Mama Safe House, and I'd hope to see them uh within the budget tomorrow for us to move forward with.

Same applies with for her as councilwoman via Grand mentioned.

Um there's nonprofits and some delegate agencies to the council's point that uh often are doing referrals, and I think we need to look at that.

Are they doing the work or are they serving as a triage mechanism?

Because we already have databases to serve as that triage point.

Um, but who's collecting all those cases, right?

And who's doing the actual case management?

I think is who we should be be supporting, and for her is one of those examples, as well as American gateways.

This is something that I would hope that we could talk to some of our small businesses about before we move forward with it.

Uh I appreciate the numbers that Dr.

Jacob laid out, but I would like to be able to communicate that to our small businesses in the district before we move forward.

And then lastly, uh I'm supportive of reinstating the funding for the book festival, but but I've as I've mentioned during past briefings.

I think there's opportunity for visit SA to help us uh cover those costs because folks come from all throughout the United States, stay in hotels, uh, go to the restaurants to to come uh whether they're an author or they're attending the event, and I think that's something that we should be asking VisitSA to help us uh cover those costs.

Those are all my comments.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh Councilman Castellon Ghiano.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um thank you all for the presentations.

Uh we're almost there.

So kudos to all of us for kind of working together and getting through this.

I know it's not easy.

Um, but I just want to say I'm super supportive of all these amendments except for three and um six.

I would love to get the officers down to 10, but I don't know what uh that will look like, or if there's any support for that.

Um and then as for six, I brought this up yesterday, uh, just because I'm really worried about us getting to phase three.

And so I wanted to see if Maria Vadegas was here to possibly kind of um explain how our funds were used already with the previous phases or the phases that we're currently in, um, as well as what plans we have for phase three.

Maria Vargas, director of integrated community safety.

So far for the community safety reserve money, we used uh approximately 420,000 at POPB for the Rosemont uh property at 1303 Rigsby, which is the first site selected for POPB, which is in the second phase of the violent crime reduction plan.

Uh we were looking to possibly use that money at the new location as well for some of those improvements to location, and delegate agencies was the primary focus for the focus deterrence in order to provide the wraparound services to the offenders in the community, with always the possibility to again use the community safety reserve money to supplement any of the uh strategies we'd like to employ throughout the violent crime reduction plan.

And specifically for POPB, the funds were used to purchase camera trailers.

So SAPD received eight camera trailers as part of that money, and ACS was able to conduct an additional uh vaccine clinic at the Rosemont property.

Awesome.

Thank you, Maria.

Um, and then my my question for Eric is um if these funds do get diverted to street lights, how can we create a fund for phase three?

Well, the the council will have we'll have to deal with that going forward.

We set aside this money uh about two and a half years ago.

It was a little over three million dollars.

We've used 400 of it, and and and and frankly, I think it's a good use of the money because otherwise we're sitting on it in a reserve.

When we get to phase three, um, then that's something that that we talked to with the council.

But um I I think the really the the matter before you all right now.

Do we continue to hold on to it for something that we will eventually get to, or do we address an immediate need in like street lights?

So we'll need to tackle that that uh that later down the road.

Yeah, and I think that would be as soon as uh probably next month when we talk about delegate agencies, because that's what would like when we do that presentation, we would like for you all to consider funding some of those agencies that we can utilize for the third phase of the crime reduction plan.

That's a good point.

Awesome.

Yeah, really appreciate the clarification.

I think I'll just let uh councilman McGee Rodriguez handle that when he gets back.

Um because that was just my main concern.

Um it's just a really good product, and I just want to make sure that we're um seeing the best of what we got.

Um, and then going back to the conversation that we had with overtime and officers.

I wanted to see how much of the overtime was for work in Fiesta, Spurs events or parades.

Um, if we have that right now, if not, uh a memo is perfectly fine.

Um what else do I have?

Um for fiscal year 25 uh Fiesta was 2.7 million.

And your second question?

Uh it was just for a lot of events like Fiesta, Spurs events, uh parades.

We don't do Spurs events, and that's where the sheriff's handle uh handled that right now.

Um we have um an event category of 1.5 million dollars out of the general fund, but that's collected.

There's a fee on every ticket at the Alamo Dome that's remitted to uh the general fund to offset those um those those uh police uh expenses.

So it kind of nuts out.

Yeah, okay.

Awesome.

Thanks for that clarification.

Yeah, I think I uh still don't agree uh with with number three, um, and just hearing what we were discussing today, it does kind of sound like a policy issue.

Um so again, I'll let Councilman McGee Rodriguez handle that when he gets back.

Um delegate agencies absolutely in support of Big Mama Safe House for her essay book festival, American Gateway.

Um I think those are all really really incredible um agencies, and then let's see about that.

Yeah.

Um I guess I'll just bug y'all one more time about this tours just because I know that they were pre-authorized in the past, and I know that we want um what is the word you used yesterday, council?

Consistency, yes, consistency.

Um, and so of course, if we know that the church board isn't gonna go uh and approve these items, obviously it won't go forward anyways.

Um so again, I would just appreciate some support for pre-authorizing these just because they're really really incredible projects.

Um, but that is it for now.

Thank you, Mayor.

Eric, before we go to the second round, yesterday, um Council uh Chair of Yegran asked about um looking at a cut of the of the tickets from the botanical gardens.

Is that coming up in another memo?

No, ma'am, that was not one of the follow-up items we got to today.

Okay, yeah.

Okay.

That's unfortunate.

Um, all right.

Uh councilmember White.

Yeah, so just to uh just reset on this because there's been conversation about our policy and do we need to re-look at our policy?

I mean, I deterring crime.

I mean, is that really something we need to discuss whether or not we want to deter crime in the City of San Antonio?

And I want to read to y'all the City of San Antonio budget document from last year.

All right, and it said the following in FY 2023, the city partnered with a consultant uh to conduct a staffing study of the police department.

The study recommended adding 360 officers to achieve the goal of officer patrol time consisting of 60 percent proactive patrol time and 40 percent responding to calls.

And the reasoning uh for this is said in the next sentence increasing discretionary time facilitates proactive policing efforts, including crime prevention, targeted enforcement, increased officer visibility, customer service, and problem solving efforts.

So again, the chief has said at this podium that this would help deter crime.

We hired a consultant that did a study that told us it would it would help deter crime.

Uh I'm happy to have more conversation on it, but again, it's very, very obvious to anybody that's looked at this stuff for any amount of time that officers out there on the street help us deter crime, and that is our number one responsibility is caring for the safety of our residents.

And I should point out that again, we got these numbers on April 1st of this year, the crimes against people and the crimes against property that occur in our city.

And districts one through six have the most crimes against people, and districts one, two, three, four, six, and eight have the most crimes against people's property.

The benefit to more officers is going to benefit the entire city, but particularly some of these districts uh that suffer from more crimes than others.

I just I cannot understand, and and you know, I think the absolute world of you, councilwoman, but when we talk about book festivals, I mean, and it's a great event, but when we talk about that versus you know, adding officers to protect the safety of our citizens, I have I have a really hard time with that.

Um, and you know, the the the mayor and and others have talked about focusing on core city functions, right?

And we heard, you know, several minutes ago that we have 4.8 million dollars in delegate agencies going to non core city functions.

We all agree that public safety is a core city function.

Can we not take one, two, five, ten percent of that money and move it towards doing what our chief of police has said will help make us safer, what our consultant has said will help make us safer.

We also have the UTSA plan and the hotspot policing, where we have evidence that putting more officers on the street in these high crime areas brought crime down.

It just makes the the our citizens, this is what they're asking for.

It's our duty to do it.

And to think that we are now gonna backtrack on this plan, we pay this money for the consultant to come in and do it.

They tell us how we can have a safer community, and then in year three of the plan, we backtrack on it.

And it's not gonna get easier next year, right?

We know the budget deficit is worse next year.

So it's not like we can say, well, we'll pick back up with this hiring plan coming up next year.

And and and Eric, I don't know, I gotta take a little issue with what you said earlier.

We have, as of last night, we have 2,056 nine officers in uniform.

We're authorized to have 2,075.

The idea that we're we're oversubscribed because we have some cadets in the in the classes, to me that that doesn't mean we we have enough.

We're still a couple of hundred short to have out on the streets right now.

So we we are short, in my opinion.

And when you have thousands and thousands of crimes being committed every single year here, yes, we will never have no crime, but we can do better than we're doing now.

Uh Chair of Yogadan.

Uh go ahead, Eric.

I was going to make a suggestion before you start the second round because I I um just listening to the conversation so that we get to finality and preparation for tomorrow.

Um just to remind everybody the the on the agencies, because we're talking about agencies, uh what we talked about tomorrow, and based on today's conversation, um for her and the rape crisis center funded out of the reserve set aside for the last four months of the fiscal year, and that's uh 91,000 for for her, 56,000 for rape crisis center.

We would pull that out of the four-month funding that you all are going to allocate next year.

An additional 50,000 for American gateways that is you all talked yesterday would come out of that same reserve.

All three of those would be eight-month contracts, and then we have a new delegate agency, Big Mama SACEP Safe House.

The number you all were talking about yesterday was 144, and that would be that would not come out of the reserve, that's additional funding.

That's just as it relates back to yesterday.

And then the last agency that I think we're that's getting clumped into the larger conversation is combining the um the family family violence prevention services and battered women sheltered contracts into two and awarding it for 12 months.

So we have three different types of agencies that we're talking about generally, or you all are talking generally, but I just wanted to reset.

That's kind of my understanding of what we were talking about yesterday.

And as you go through the second round, some validation against or or an alternative that to that would be helpful for us.

Mayor, may I make a quick clarification?

There's not there's not gonna be any finality today.

The finality comes if and when the council approves the budget.

Just wanted to make that clarification.

Only in my head, Andy.

Yeah, um, for context, when we're talking about the um the the funding for um the police officers, does that account for the settlements or where does that get paid out of the settlements that we um are sometimes reviewing?

Just in general, not it's not specific to a budget, but the the settlements that we often um are made aware of with police officers, how is that paid for?

So, councilwoman, we have a liability fund.

Uh, and that's where not only the settlements related to police, but any settlements related to the city come out of that fund.

It's often referred to mayor's fund 75, I'm sorry, fund 75.

Fund 75, the liability fund, right?

Yeah, it's an internal service fund that we allocate dollars based on actual and uh the legal risks or cases that are outstanding, uh, Mayor.

And that's not uh part of chief's budget, correct?

That's different.

Okay, thank you.

That there is an assessment, uh, Mayor, that we um base on the history of claims, like for instance, if you look at all of our budgets for any city department, that will be a line item for that assessment, which is uh general liability, just yeah, general liability.

It's an internal assessment that we charge every function of the city into one pot, and that one pot is the liability fund.

Understood, thank you.

Uh Dr.

Jacob, to put you on the spot again, in case it is helpful here, just because it's not an insignificant amount of money.

The 433, is there any way that you can say definitively um by tomorrow uh that the as a result of the increase in the 20 percent that no new that no food and beverage um provider would see an increase as a result of the 20 percent You want me to state it as an absolute um that's correct.

Is that possible?

Um that's what I'm asking.

Is it possible, Dr.

Jacob?

Just based on the scenarios and looking at them going from the old system to the new, we don't see there to be additional duress for the the businesses.

That's what you were asking in terms of.

For any business, any of those seeking one of those.

And just know that the now this the new system will require looking at gross food sales rather than the size of the organization.

So we'll try our best, but I I I will not guarantee that no business will see an impact.

Understood.

Okay, because I my understanding is the top end of that is 150k.

Is that right?

Yeah, that's based on what the uh state now has as the uh the different tiers.

Um zero to fifty, uh 50 to 140, or again the breakdown into three different tiers, and that's what we gave as the two examples.

So mayor, I think the tricky point for for uh um the doctor is that we're moving the state is moving us from a per employee to a gross sales, and so there may be some adjustment just based on that action that that we're not accounting for.

All right.

Okay.

Um councilman White, what was he done with it?

You're done with your time.

Okay.

Uh Chair View Dunn.

Thank you.

Uh so I I think the one question going back since we were just there for the uh revenue enhancement, do we have to pass this tomorrow?

If if this is going to be if we can get the recommendation, do we have to pass it tomorrow?

Or can we do that in the future?

With the 20% we can do it in the future, councilwoman.

Okay, because um if it goes along with what Metro Health is uh moving forward with, and if we could talk to restaurant owners and see if if there is something how we can help them through this process or um uh if if it's not reconciling because of the employees, maybe keep that keep a portion of it there.

But I I do hear what you're saying now, uh Dr.

Jacobs, is that this was what I recommended, and we we didn't spend a lot of time with that.

So thank you for that.

Um Andy, is it possible for us to pull amendment three as a separate item we vote on tomorrow in regards to the budget?

The answer is yes, councilwoman, yes.

Okay, uh okay, because I I don't want to be here forever.

Um I think that might be where we go.

At this rate, however, I I do want new police officers.

Uh I am fine with the 15.

I I'm fine actually going out down to 10 now because they're not going to be safe officers or specialized officers.

Um here are some things that I've heard, and just because I worked for PD and I sat on public safety, are my concerns is I need I need overtime.

We need to have our officers have overtime.

Um I'm not prepared tomorrow to say let's cut from overtime until we do more work, and I see that new those new hours go into effect because that holdover, if in districts one through five, um, and maybe one through six, they find out there's an hour or 30-minute block, the criminal element finds out there's a 30-minute block that they're not answering calls, that's where we're gonna see a spike.

And it it's happened before.

I think uh and I think I was on the department as CRT when we were transitioning in TURS and we had that one or two weeks where there was a there's a break and it just it seemed to all come at a certain time because it was shift change.

So I I'm not okay with with doing that without doing more due diligence work in public safety.

Um but I do think that in terms of our commitment to public safety and to meet our goals, we still need to continue to kind of get uh a little closer to that 65 number than we are right now at 25.

But I am fully appreciative of the stance that this was about what we could afford in the budget.

The other thing I want to say is that when you join the police department, whether you are a cadet or not, you are still part of the police department, even if you're not out on patrol.

So I I I respect you, you're part of the team.

Thank you to all our cadets that are doing that.

Um we this doesn't happen, Eric, if we don't if we don't increase the park fees, right?

We're we're we're not doing we're we're having to go with the budget you you gave us.

There is no amendments to to do um item number one if we don't increase the potential revenues with the parks incremental fee.

Is that correct?

Not without all I have is 3.5 then.

Not without further adjustments and putting the the elimination of the inner city fund back on 26.

Okay, so then we'd have to put the this inner city fund back on 26 and move.

So I am not okay with I I am not okay with um just doing um the reductions.

We need we need to look at potential revenues.

And the team brought us back in the spring with another council, an opportunity to raise some taxes, and we said no then.

And now we have the fee and and we have increased fees, but we have to deal with the reality that we are gonna need to ask for an increase somewhere because cutting the delegate agencies is not gonna get us to the point where we need to be with the deficit.

And I know it's hard, and I know nobody wants to say taxes are going up, but this is the this is the economy we live in now.

This is what this nation voted for, and we are going to have to we're gonna have to find the money, and we're gonna have to find ways to raise fees and find potential revenues.

So I know this is difficult.

I hope you all support it because I think 50 cents is at five years.

I think Eva Lee did a great job.

I think we need to move forward with this.

Thank you.

Chair Goldvan.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, just wanted to circle back a couple quick things.

Uh I don't know if I mentioned the Alamo Promise one in my first round.

Just want to say I'm supportive of moving forward with uh the adjustments and funding to it, uh, make sure it's still fully funded, but within ready to work.

Um definitely supportive of Council Member Castillo's point about um the hot tech supporting uh the book festival through visit essay.

Um just briefly on the note about uh please overtime.

I definitely hear the point that Councilmember Spears mentioned about you know, just it's something we are paying for, right?

Something that is uh impacting our budget as well as impacting our officers' workload, and I think we should be looking at uh ways to reduce that workload and see how those uh efforts can also uh support reducing overtime when it's not needed, right?

And so I think that conversation does need to happen.

I don't think it's right necessarily today, um, but in our policy conversations, figuring out um are there evaluations we can make with our home subvention services, our stand-up SA, mental health resources, other recidivism resources, um thinking about youth services too, right?

All how do all these other um wraparound services address issues of overtime, address response times, address overall um crimes uh in our city.

Uh we see other cities uh reducing their crimes significantly by investing in parks uh in health resources, in human services, in youth services.

Um I think it's worth us take uh taking a look at and seeing how it not only impacts uh crime rates and violence in our communities, but also uh addressing some of these costs that we're looking at at the moment as well in the well into the future.

Um I think the same evaluation can be made too about traffic calming infrastructure uh when we talk about speeding and seeing what kind of fixed costs are there, what kind of long-term costs are there versus uh patrol on speeding.

Um of course the effectiveness of both, right?

Uh looking at patrol and reducing speeding, what's the effectiveness there versus infrastructure that ultimately reduces uh or attempts to reduce speeding in our communities as well.

I think those are also good ways to just evaluate as we look into a 27th of seeing how these costs are gonna impact us long term, right?

Especially if we're gonna see further reductions in our our budget.

Um I think it's just worth having the information ready uh for our next round.

And so just want to leave those comments there, and as we can have conversations throughout the rest of this year and go into the next about uh public safety.

I think those are those are important information to have on hand.

I think there's all my comments, Mayor.

Thank you.

Chair Corr.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I wanted to uh circle back to the Alamo Promise question, and I know I was the one advocating for the um alignment yesterday, but I just want to understand the impact on the ready to work program.

Mike, can you come talk about we one of the things that we measure for our dollars is how successful we are being with the ready to work program?

And so I wanted to talk about just so you know or could you help us better understand what the impact of this change would be to our ready to work metrics?

It won't impact the ready work metrics overall at all.

It won't impact the ready work metrics overall at all the way that we have developed this compromise is that the LML promise outcomes we report it report it separately.

Now there will be students who decide that on their own that they want to enroll in both LML promise and ready to work that won't be restricted if somewhere down the line they realize they qualify and they're willing to go through that process of solding those two forms they can get access to additional support then they will be in both calculations but we'll make sure that we report that out to the council as well if the students decide to pursue that on their own.

Okay I just wanted to make sure but so when we're saying these dollars are going towards those kids and we're tracking how many folk how many of our folks are receiving funding and then going on to the jobs that we are working towards they won't be counting towards that.

No they will not be counting towards that as Priscilla spoke to when they get that job placement information if they get that job placement information from the state we're report that out separately as job placements from Alamo Promise if that's obtainable from the state but their graduation rates we report it separately from the general ready to work dashboard.

So we are taking funding essentially from ready to work that's funding promise but it's not considered and it's not going to be calculated for ready to work well and and the the current ready to work budget already funds a portion of it that way we just don't ask for the data.

So right now right now it's partially funded through the general fund and partially through ready to work that's not part of ready to work so all we're doing here potentially is doing it all through ready to work and then asking for more data.

Okay.

Okay of course I support the program I just want to make sure we're live like we've set really high goals for this program too so that we're continuing to track being able to get the metrics to track to that and then also why is it not in 2027 why is that was that dollar amount only in 26 because in the 20 in the two year balanced budget that we proposed we proposed doing this in fiscal year 27 already we just we put it as a marker for next year we pulled it up okay okay um thank you thank you Mike I wanted to just comment on a couple of other things and the argument about deterring crime that's a much larger argument than just adding 65 police officers to the workforce and I understand that the um comment on book festival versus patrol wasn't supposed to be in that um vein but literacy helps deter crime and and the the thing is you and I or some of us sorry we're supposed to talk to the body um sorry Indy some of us had the opportunity to get all like sometimes it would go to library and read and get that exposure and a lot of our communities don't have that access.

So when we look at funding currently and long term we have to do both right we need the officers on the streets right now so that we can make sure things are um moving along in terms of if there is a crime that occurs we need someone there to help solve help work on the situation.

But the same time the $50 and $5000 now that could help an additional eight schools visit and I I don't know what the number is I'm I was estimating visit the book festival get to see an author and then maybe we're changing the trajectory of 50 kids' lives who will not no longer be in the system we can't compare that to one officer and unfortunately it's not as tangible right it's not as easy to say that the this $500 is going to deter two percent of violent crime is going to go down but we have to figure out a way to make sure we're investing in the things that keep our community safe in the long term while also doing the current uh the the strategy of reactive policing right it has to be comprehensive and so I think the only thing we're saying is that what is that number to council member Mungia's point six and when you said six of us was like we're not supposed to be counting but there's new council members on um the team and quite frankly previously every time they came to us with a police increase it was from federal government dollars we haven't had to use a lot of general funds like we were getting matches there was a lot of additional grant support for supporting all of the police officers we were gaining I just think there's if we're based on the way that our our community is going we have to have a conversation so that that's I guess all that I'm saying as far as the delegate agency monies goes if we have additional funding if we don't have enough support to do those officers I think we should bring that to our general fund so we don't impact that later and potentially use that additional to support the uh community safety policing measures that were mentioned for our nonprofit delegate agency support so if there is funding left over I would say it should go to bringing up the those delegate agencies now and then we can use some of that funding later.

Thanks, Mayor.

Uh, just a couple quick comments.

Eric, my um priorities haven't shifted.

You know, I do think more police officers, uh, all employees pay and then the vacant buildings program.

I um definitely agree that we need to think about public safety comprehensively.

Um I think that what councilwoman Terry Castillo brought up about several of our residents feeling unsafe because of vacant buildings um in their neighborhoods because of homeless encampments is true.

And uh, but one of the things that I know I hear loud and clear from residents is that police officer presence makes them feel safe.

I I do want to echo what Councilman White said, you know, it this isn't a guess of if more police officers would be helpful.

There was data behind it.

You know, we heard about hot spot policing and the trends um that the lower crime rates that that uh solved for.

And so, you know, we're obviously um in this budget deficit, there there is some either-or um conversations that we have to have.

And so to me, if the proven method is more police officers, and that's what our residents who know our neighborhoods the best are asking for.

To me, it's incumbent on us to to deliver that for them.

So, you know, definitely still want to push for for more officers.

I did have a quick clarifying question on all of the wonderful nonprofits that y'all talked about for her and Big Mama Safe House.

I know that they do all great work.

Would those be would those nonprofits be considered delegate agency funding or discretionary funding?

Uh they would all be uh discretionary except what you all talked about on the um better women's shelter and making that designated, but all the others would be would be discretionary.

Okay, so all of them would be discretionary.

Um and and it and I think that you know uh we we do is it possible for us go ahead.

R if I think Eric is thinking maybe competitive versus designated.

Um so Mel, if you can help me with this, but I think of those agencies, the rape crisis center is considered core to the services that we provide.

Okay.

That's correct.

It does it would be through a competitive process because there's a number of agencies that provide those services, but it is core to um our programs and health departments.

If so, just so that we're all clear.

So rape crisis center is considered a uh core service, yes.

And battered women's shelter is considered core service.

Yeah, absolutely.

The other ones for her, Big Mama Safe House, and I feel like I'm missing for her is was funded through ARPA, so it wasn't really part of the calculation.

And then Big Mama's Safe House was not funded through DHS.

Okay.

Is it possible for us?

Um, I know y'all have the list somewhere.

If if we can have the information to this evening of what agencies are um delegate agencies and what your discretionary, I think that that would be helpful just as we wrap our minds around um around this, you know what that the again, these nonprofits are all doing, have wonderful missions, noble causes, um, but I think it's important for us to see which are delegate agencies and which are discretionary and uh as we're tied on funds right now.

That's all thanks, we can provide that.

Thank you, Melanie.

Councilwoman Castillo.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, just wanted to chime back in regarding uh the delegate agencies that are not funded.

Uh I know during uh with the Metro Health budget uh the unlock program was uh scrapped.

Uh so I do think there is value in a need to identify funding for Big Mama Safe House given the SA forward plan, right?

With the violence uh interruption component and uh violence prevention, uh they do serve a city's core service.

Um so that's something that uh I would like us to identify funding from from.

And if you're looking for direction, I would say item number three uh can be used to support um big mama safe house as well as the violent prevention goals.

Thank you, Mayor.

Okay.

Does everyone you uh chair Mungia?

Who else do you have?

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, and I would appreciate some background information on the switch for us particular program Metro Health, I believe was going to DHS, and that is project worth.

Um I I believe that has a little bit of a more of a public health aspect to it and then youth programming.

So I don't know if it's still possible to keep that on Metro Health or how we can respect that program's original intentions that it was under Metro Health continuing.

So some background information on that.

Yeah, Councilman.

And we'll the mayor brought this up yesterday on a number of items to make sure that we're tracking the implementation and having the desired effects.

It was one of the recommendations from the comprehensive budget review.

Certainly if it has unintended consequences or we're missing the mark to the mayor's point yesterday, then we'll reconsider what we do because uh we want to make sure that we continue to serve uh the youth in a variety of different ways.

And yeah, we believe consolidating that would allow us to do uh more with less.

Yeah, okay.

Appreciate that.

Uh and since it's been mentioned a couple more times with the um UTSA plan, you know, I had uh officers share with me anecdotally um that you know, hey, we're going out there putting our lights on, but you know, as soon as we leave, what's gonna happen?

Um and then also I wonder, you know, with all that activity in a particular area, which a lot of these places seem to be apartment complexes based on the call volume, is displacement of crime, right?

So the police are there, they might be preventing a crime from happening at that location, but does that crime then get displaced somewhere else if it's still occurring, just not that location.

Did you have spinning?

I was gonna say UTSA has evaluated the implementation of the plan and um happy to share those reports, but they haven't found evidence that displacement has occurred.

Um but they have those numbers recorded for the two and a half years that we've been doing the program comes.

Yeah, and I think that's good.

I think there's some obviously that we'll miss the mark of of it not being reported or called in, right?

Because there are crimes happen every day that we just don't know about that are not called in or reported.

Uh and also the success of that program, and correct me if I'm wrong, uh necessitates phases two and three of that program.

So the overall strategy has three components.

Uh the first one, which is the high visibility at the hot spots, and then I guess your answer to your question is yes.

Uh when when the visibility doesn't decrease the violent crime in those areas, those are the areas that we target for phase two.

And uh and then finally, phase three, we're trying to um hopefully eliminate the behavior by assisting those individuals that have committed criminal activity, connect them to services, and help them to be able not to re-offend.

Right.

And so just real quickly, phases two and three are kind of high-level.

What are those phases again?

So phase two, we have done two locations.

We're working right now in district three on the second apartment complex.

The first one was in district two border with district three, and then focus the Terrance, we hope to begin that in 2026.

Okay.

And what do you do in phase two at those properties?

So what we do is that we look at uh that potentially the the causes of the violent crime.

So for instance, we can have youth that is disconnected, we may have code violations.

Uh so we bring all the city departments.

We have actually a task force that is led by Maria Vargas, where we bring all those apartments to identify um those issues that we are seeing and be able to connect those individual to individuals to services.

Yeah, I think that's a really important note is that phases two are trying to identify root causes, that's all, uh, for that program because it they clearly state that simply having an officer with the lights on doesn't solve that issue.

And then number three is recidivism, so people who do get arrested that come out of jail and continue doing crimes in our community, even though they have been addressed by put the police department at some point.

So I do think that's a really good point about um policy.

I think obviously as the city grows, there's going to be a need for more officers, no doubt about it.

Um and I think we also have to do the ratio of police across all sectors, right?

I mean, a lot of our taxing units have police.

University of health has a police department, um, our colleges have a police department, via has a police department, all our ISDs have police departments.

We do have a sheriff's, we do have a constable, they do do different things, but they also do traffic stops.

So and the sheriff's office is instrumental in human trafficking issues, being able to pull over 18-wheelers uh they suspect something.

So I think that has to be part of the conversation also.

Thank you.

Has everyone spoken that would like to speak?

A point of clarification.

Go ahead.

Um Thanks, Mayor.

The Metro Health funding that we've been talking about.

Are they going to assign what like what they want to do with that additional funding afterwards or you mean additional funding?

The 433,000.

Sorry.

Like if that for if that 20% increase moves forward, would they just determine how they would spend that 433,000?

Well, my recommendation is that it would go to the gaps that they've identified in the memo.

So mental health support, the TB control and um uh TB control and prevention, but it doesn't cover all of that.

Yeah, um, but those would be and again you can see in the in the memo what those would specifically go to.

One increasing by 336 hours, uh, the number of uh uh hours for the clinic, as well as um helping an additional 100 youth in areas of higher need.

And doc can I is it a please Dr.

J.

Could you just explain the the one question that I had earlier about like how you all might consider spending it?

Would it be the same?

Would that yes?

Thank you for the question.

So consistent with what we reflected in that memo was looking at our fragility, those are the four components of what you see reflected.

It's for our mental health capacity building efforts, it's for uh where TB uh staffing complement as well as the language access.

Um and then the the addendum tied to SA Kids Breathe.

So we'll figure out operationally uh based on the but there is there are higher costs than the than the 433.

That's right, just to be clear.

Yeah, so you guys would just figure out exactly how to figure it out.

And and is there a concern that if we increase those now, we would have to decrease them next year because there are their costs that would continue moving forward, right?

Like if we increase the mental health support by 500k, we'd have to find the additional 500k next year, right?

That but you you feel comfortable that that's still what you want to use the funding.

Yes, we provided for FY26 and 27 in response to the memo.

Oh, I would add uh I would add councilwoman, if the um fees are increased as the mayor mentioned, then that is recurring funding.

So that increase, I mean that additional cost will be paid by that increase in revenues.

Okay, thank you, Mayor.

Plus all the uh funds from the book festival.

Um Eric, can you summarize what you heard on the delegate agencies, please?

So I think what we're gonna do, Mayor, uh in the memo back to you all.

Um we're going to we're going to include um the for her in the rape crisis at eight months for the dollar amounts we talked about yesterday.

Um we have um a new American gateways and big mama safe house gateway as an additional 50,000 and Big Mama Safe House at 144.

New funding.

Um, and then the combining of the family violence.

I I think that um we can make adjustments on the memo that we sent last night on the dollars.

We're also gonna net out the 95,000 dollars for the vacant building because uh based on today's conversation, it sounds like the council is um uh amenable to uh increasing those fees for the residential and commercial permit on uh vacant buildings, so we'll be able to net that out, which will give us a little bit more flexibility and be able to um balance it out at those numbers that uh that we talked about yesterday.

So and uh we're we'll leave the revenue where it's at um as proposed the the Alamo promise with the considerations we talked about today, uh the parks environmental fee, and in addition, the um uh for the the food and beverage fees that you all talked about.

So we'll add that on the revenue side.

Um we'll leave uh the two percent um and 750 increase in uh the flashing and the radar.

Um we'll uh happy to talk to anybody later on tonight, but I'll uh based on the numbers, we'll we'll leave the officers for now understanding that there's gonna be a larger conversation.

Um and part of this summary, councilwoman, and so is that if I'm not summarizing it properly, you all can weigh in the uh the million dollars uh additional for the minor repair and then the um the street light funding.

Uh I think uh doing my quick math over here uh we'll we'll balance everything out with those adjustments.

Oh, and then the added expense um on the um on the metro health aspects that you all were just talking about.

We need to add that in there.

Thank you, Eric.

Um, again, thanks to the staff for all the the hard work.