Good afternoon.

The time is now 104 p.m.

on Wednesday, February 18th, and the City of San Antonio B session is called to order.

Madam Clerk, please call roll.

Councilmember Corps.

Councilmember McKee Rodriguez.

Councilmember Via Gran.

Councilmember Mungia.

President.

Councilmember Castillo.

Councilmember Galvan.

Councilmember Aldereta Gabito.

Councilmember Mesa Gonzalez.

President.

Councilmember Spears.

Here.

Councilmember White.

Here.

Mayor Jones.

Mayor, we have Corum.

Great.

Thank you.

Great.

So today we're going to receive an update on the FY263 plus nine budget and finance report, the recommended FY27 budget calendar, taxpayer impact statement, and then the outcomes of the federal tabletop exercise.

As we have, frankly, regardless of the topic, whether we're talking about rate increases or whether we're talking about infrastructure, we have routinely talked about the challenging economic environment that we see and that we anticipate, particularly with the implementation of the one big beautiful bill.

And so each of the things today will help us understand kind of where we are, where we may have some potential leeway as we look at potentially shorting up any additional cuts at the federal level.

Again, this is something that I asked Bidon not necessarily to generate all the answers, but really to help us understand what assumptions we might be making and then how we would better collaborate to mitigate any risks, at least as we understood them now, as we look to close the budget gap, understanding some of the changes in the budget may in fact affect the most vulnerable already, on top of those who will be more vulnerable once we see the federal cuts implemented.

Okay.

Thank you, Mayor.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

So uh yes, so Freddie is going to walk through our first quarter report.

Um this is something we do every quarter in terms of the financial reporting to the council.

It'll it'll give you an early indication of how we fared um in uh the fall of of twenty-five.

Um the the report is part of our overall financial strategy to update the council on the city's fiscal position throughout the year, and our next point of uh of reference for the council will be our six plus six report, which is closely followed thereafter by um the five-year financial forecast and then the council's um budget work session.

You'll Freddie will go through the calendar here with you shortly.

Um you hear from Freddie uh this afternoon that our our financial position of the general fund is is in line.

We've had some little bit of continued challenges with sales tax, um, but it's been mitigated by CPS revenue.

Um we'll kind of point out um all the other major operating but uh funds that we have and where we stand, but but generally everything is moving uh on track.

Um as the mayor mentioned, uh the back end of the we're also we've also included the taxpayer statement that was a CCR that went to governance earlier in the year and uh kind of laying out took taking the feedback of governance.

Uh that is something that we would are uh expecting and recommending that we do as we go into fiscal year 27.

And then the last part the mayor touched upon it, the federal uh tabletop exercise, which was um a worthwhile exercise for um us to go through as an organization and particularly the departments that were participated in that.

Um I also wanted to um uh make sure that the council saw the email that Sally sent out here about a week ago that kind of gave an update in terms of the federal budget uh that was uh finally agreed upon, 11 of the 12 aspects of the federal budget and those appropriations more to come, right?

It is a continued effort in kind of watching what's happening at the at the federal level.

The president has yet to lay out his budget, will uh which will undoubtedly uh kind of lay that framework.

The exercise was good for us to go through with our stakeholder partners because it helped narrow down the focus of who are we trying to serve, who do we need to serve, where are our vulnerable populations, and in a uh cataclysmic type of funding scenario, what do we do?

Um and uh you'll hear from uh from Justina about that uh this afternoon.

So with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Freddie.

I'm the budget director for the city.

And today we're gonna cover the uh FY26 first quarter financial status as well as some projections for revenues and expenses for the fiscal year.

We'll also highlight some of our budget initiatives.

Uh, I'll talk about the recommended 2027 budget calendar, also review the uh potential impact taxpayer impact statement, and finally, uh Justina Tate will present on the federal grants tabletop exercise.

But before I get into the presentation, I just wanted to draw your attention to the binder in front of you.

Uh it will include the presentation, the three plus nine financial report, a January status of or January status report on our budget initiatives and our CB uh comprehensive budget review implementations.

It also includes the 24-7 performance report and the federal grants tabletop exercise.

And we'll also and it also at the end has the uh draft uh FY27 budget calendar.

So going on to our first quarter financial report.

Just keep in mind that this is a preliminary financial update to the city council.

It represents unaudited actuals from October through December and compares the results to the plans for FY26.

In this presentation, we'll highlight the general fund and selected restricted funds.

However, the report that is provided includes additional refund additional funds that's in your binder and it's also available online for review.

We'll start off with a recap of our FY26 adopted budget.

As you can see, and you'll recall a little over 4 billion, 4.06 billion, comprised of three components.

Um, the first one would be the 1.21 billion dollar restricted funds, which includes such funds as the airport, development services, and hotel occupancy tax as well as solid waste.

We also have our capital program, which is 1.16 billion, which is primarily primarily made up of 2022 bond projects as well as uh airport projects.

And then finally, the general fund, which is the largest operating uh budget at 1.69 billion.

And as you know, the general fund provides for cities core services to include public safety, street maintenance, park maintenance, and animal care services to name a few.

And next we'll go into more detail within the general fund.

So to recap our FY26 uh adopted budget, we include a two-year plan within the adopted budget.

And so you can see there on the left, the FY26 adopted budget includes uh about 1.9 billion in total resources, 1.7 billion in expenses, and then financial reserves of 1.72 uh million.

Um the FY27 plan you'll notice also has uh budgeted uh total resources of 1.8 billion, total expenses of a little under 1.8, and then financial reserves of 85.6 million.

Now you recall the financial reserves are part of the city council policy that we adopt each year or that are approved by council each year during the budget goal setting session, which represent 15% of our uh of our revenues.

Now, one thing to notice on here when we did the adopted budget for 26, the FY27 plan included 10.7 million dollars of potential reductions.

Um, those reductions are also listed in our budget document as potential uh FY27 reductions.

So this next slide will uh provide some highlights for the first quarter financial status for the general fund and some restricted funds.

So overall for the general fund, the results for the first quarter are in line with budget.

Um our three major revenue sources, the first being property taxes performing consistent with the adopted budget plan.

Our sales tax revenue is below budget for the first quarter, but slightly ahead of last year.

CPS revenue is ahead of budget due to more off system sales and warmer weather that we saw in the first quarter, and then within our restricted funds, our hotel occupancy tax is underperforming a bit due to a lower occupancy and average daily rate than what we planned.

Development services and airport revenues are performing within budget.

The solid waste fund is consistent with budget with slightly lower recycling revenues and less expense.

And then we're also we highlighted our employee benefits fund, which is uh showing over budget due to higher than anticipated health care costs.

And I'll go into each more each of these funds in more specifics as we move along.

So for general fund revenues, we anticipated about 502 million dollars to be received in the first quarter.

So you can see that we're 8.6 million ahead of budget through December, as we've collected a little over 510 million dollars.

This is primarily driven by uh additional CPS revenues because of warmer weather in the first quarter of the fiscal year as well as additional off system sales.

Sales tax are slightly uh below budget and slightly ahead of uh prior actuals.

Um we're showing about a 700,000 uh below the plan for sales tax.

I did want to point out that we did receive the January check for sales tax last week, which showed that we were below the plan by about 1.9 million dollars.

So through January, we're gonna be showing about 2.6 million.

However, for the since this is a preliminary financial report, we'll continue to monitor our sales tax revenues.

And so for now, we're holding it at the adopted budget.

But when we come back with the six plus six in the spring in May, we'll provide an update for that.

Um, for CPS revenues, we're showing 9.1 million over uh through the through the first quarter.

Um, due to the uh the volatility of the revenue and weather patterns, we're gonna hold that for the rest of the year just to show the 9.1 million.

So overall for the general fund in the 3.9 3 plus 9 projection, we anticipate to be over about six point to be above the plan or above the budget by 6.7 million dollars.

We also also wanted to note that we also received the CPS January check, which is about $3.3 million over the plan, driven mostly by additional off system sales as well.

Before I go to that, I also wanted to point out on the expense side.

We're within budget in the general fund.

We're 1.7 million below the plan for the first quarter, and um, where we'll be pretty much in line with the with the physical year adopted budget at the end of the year, just slightly below the the adopted budget.

So this slide is is what we would look at what where we will be with the three plus nine projections as compared to what we showed you on the previous slide.

So overall, the general fund is projected to be about 1.1% ahead of budget, again, primarily due to uh CPS revenue, a better beginning balance, and slightly less expense.

As part of our financial practices, we'll continue to monitor on a monthly basis our revenue and expenses, and we'll update projections as additional data and information is is received.

And we'll provide another update on revenue and expense estimates for FY26 with the five-year forecast and six plus six report that we'll do in May.

Now on to some of our restricted funds.

We'll start with the hotel occupancy tax fund.

Hotel occupancy tax was budgeted at 100 and just under 109 million dollars.

However, through the first quarter, we're below the plan by 1.9 million, and this is due to um lower occupancy rates and average daily rates.

Um, for the first quarter, our occupancy rates were about 1% lower than we had planned, and our average daily rate came in about $3 lower than we had planned.

However, in talking to uh stakeholders throughout the city, such as uh folks over at uh Visit San Antonio, there is some optimism with with um with hot with hotels in calendar year 2026.

So you're not gonna see a dramatic decline in our projection as you saw in the first quarter.

So assuming kind of the same occupancy rates and ADRs that we've seen in the first quarter, we're projecting at this point to be down about three million dollars at year end in the hotel occupancy tax fund.

Um, the other hotel occupancy tax uh funded departments, such as the convention center and Alamo Dome, their revenues are pretty much in line with the budget.

The convention center, as you can see, is in line with the budget.

The Alamo Dome is slightly under through the first quarter.

However, they have picked up additional dates and the concerts towards the end of the year, so we anticipate that the Alamo Dome will be in line with budget by the end of the fiscal year.

And then you can see the uh the expenditure, the departments that are funded with the hot tax, the community and visitor facilities fund, visit San Antonio Arts and Culture and History Prevent Preservation are within their budgeted amounts for the first quarter and also are anticipated to be in line with their budget at year end.

Next, on to the airport.

The airport is approximately a hundred and sixty million dollar fund, provides aviation services for the international airport as well as Stincy Municipal Airport.

Overall, the airport is doing through the first quarter slightly better than the plan.

They're combined about 200,000 over the over the budget.

And we anticipate that they'll be uh pretty much at budget at the end of the fiscal year.

In the development services fund, um, this is roughly a 49 million dollar fund that is supported by fees paid by developers for plan reviews and inspections.

Revenues and expenses as you can see are in line for the first quarter and are anticipated to end the year slightly better than budget.

You'll see that that 1.4 million dollar variance in revenues in the first quarter.

Most of that is attributable to the airport expansion project, the terminal development program.

They are starting to pull permits and reviews from development services for the projects that are that are well underway at the airport.

On to the solid waste fund.

This is a hundred and sixty-two million dollar fund supported by primarily the solid waste and environmental fees.

Revenues are slightly below the budget for the first quarter, and this is due to less recycling revenues than anticipated.

The price per ton that we had anticipated is about $20 less than we're actually getting.

So it's a slight um uh decrease in the revenues and recycling, and that's what's driving the 1.4 million dollar um unfavorable variants at the year end is is uh we're keeping that uh current price per ton consistent and we anticipate being down 1.4 million at year end.

However, that's offset by less expense in the in the solid waste fund.

Uh there's less expense for uh disposal costs, collection fees, and other areas.

So overall, at the end of the year, the solid waste will be uh pretty will we project them to be pretty much at budget.

We wanted to talk to you a little bit about the employee uh benefits fund.

Um we are starting to see some challenges over the past few months.

We've seen some challenges in this fund since last summer.

We've uh we've seen a significant rise in the number of claims that the city has received as well as the cost of those claims.

Claims activity for the first quarter was 7.4 million dollars over the plan, and our projection anticipates us being 4.5 million dollars over by the end of the year.

So you can see it's across both uniform and civilian claims.

Uniform claims are about 9% over the FY26 budget and 11% above FY25, and civilian claims are 5% over the FY26 budget and 12% above FY25 actuals.

Um I did want to note that that we just received the January numbers and they did perform better.

We were we're pretty we're at budget for January.

So along with our uh colleagues at Human Resources, the budget office will continue to monitor this fund and we'll provide an update with the five-year forecast and six plus six presentation in May.

So, in summary, as far as the three plus nine report goes, this is keep in mind it's an early financial update.

Um, our financial position for the first three months is in line with the adopted budget with the exception of the hotel occupancy tax fund and the employee benefit fund.

Our next update on uh revenues and expenses on the general fund and these funds will be included in May with the FY26 uh six plus six financial report.

Next, we'll highlight some of our uh 26 budget initiatives.

Um in your uh binder, there is the uh budget initiative report for the first quarter.

We're only gonna highlight a few, but if you'd like to see all of them, they're included in that report, and it's also available online.

Um, overall, most of our initiatives are either on schedule or ahead of schedule, and a couple have been completed already.

Um, but we'll um and one of the things we're gonna be doing as part of our FY27 budget process is looking at our budget initiatives and our performance measures and see how that we can better align them to the goals of the city.

And so that's something we'll bring back to you as we're uh developing the 27 proposed budget during the goal setting and then this summer as as we uh go through our work sessions and look at the proposed budget.

But to highlight a few things that are in that budget initiative report, the first one we'll talk about is the low barrier shelter.

So in the FY26 budget, we included 4.8 million dollars, and this pays for the lease for the barrier shelter.

The operations are covered by uh SAMS ministries, which operate the shelter uh for the city.

Um, so the goal this year for the low barrier shelter was to um serve 450 unduplicated clients with a fit with 55% of those clients who exit the program having a positive outcome.

Through January, the goal is 125 unduplicated uh clients.

However, we uh ended up at 110, so we're slightly behind schedule on the number of clients served at the low barrier shelter, but we anticipate to make that up as we go through the fiscal year.

And we also had 21 clients that exited the shelter to stable housing.

Under the minor repair under one roof, there was a $2 million ad in the budget for a total of $8 million.

The goal here is to assist 455 households with minor repair, and through the first quarter, we've assisted 93 households.

So that is also on schedule.

Rental assistance, um, we added one million dollars for a total budget of 5.7.

And so um the target for FY26 was to assist 1,839 families, and through the first quarter, we're on schedule and have uh provided 785 eligible individuals with either rental or relocation uh assistance.

Moving on to some of our um public works uh initiatives.

We have our street maintenance program, which was budgeted this year at 122.4 million.

The goal there was to um to uh complete um these pavement preservation projects and 353 rehabilitation rehabilitation projects.

Those are actually ahead of schedule.

So through the first quarter for street maintenance, we've completed 668 of the 1558 pavement preservation projects and 127 of the 353 rehabilitation projects.

The sidewalk program, which is 17 million in the FY26 budget.

We are also ahead of schedule on these um metrics or initiatives.

We've completed 3.4 or about three and a half miles of the 22 and a half miles of sidewalk construction and just under two of the 10 and a half miles of sidewalk repair.

We're also ahead of schedule on the pavement markings, which has an adopted budget of 11.3 million this year.

And of the 1,153 lane miles, we've completed 232, 232 through the first quarter.

A couple more highlights in public safety.

The fire enhanced squad, um, which added uh 12 positions, 12 uniform positions and 1.3 million.

So those 12 cadets started the class in January, and they're scheduled to graduate in July.

So once they uh graduate, those squad units will come online, and we estimate that to also occur in July of this year.

We also added 40 police officers in the budget at 2.2 million.

Those 40 cadets are scheduled to be in class to begin their cadet classes in this September.

Next, we will move on to the 2027 budget calendar, but before we do that, we wanted to talk a little bit about our budget process for the upcoming fiscal year.

So we have several initiatives that are underway.

So you're familiar already with the comprehensive budget reviews.

Um, so we instituted these last year for the 26 budget.

The comprehensive budget reviews and FY for FY26 identified 6.3 million dollars in efficiencies that we included in the budget.

Uh and so these, and so for this year for FY27, we're looking at police, fire, human resources, municipal court, and library.

I also wanted to mention that in your in your binder behind with along with the budget initiatives right behind that.

There is an update on the uh FY25 uh comprehensive budget reviews and those implementations that have been that have been uh taking place this year.

For so you have that at your uh for more information if you'd like.

Um so just as a reminder, when we do comprehensive budget reviews, which are with the Office of Innovation, the budget office, as well as these participating departments, we look to identify efficiencies, identify any duplication of services, and make any process improvements that we could identify in working with the departments.

Another thing that we're doing this year and continuing to do is do a detailed line item review for all contractual services and commodities, taking a deep dive into the history of these uh accounts and spend and expenses and looking for ways to uh to find savings there to make sure that what the departments are spending is what they actually need for the coming year.

And then finally, the last thing that we would do is um work with the city attorney's office to identify core versus non-core programs.

So core programs will be things that are mandated by the federal or state governments or things that are uh mandated by the city charter.

Um so the plan for that is that we would come back to you as part of the goal setting session in May to present to you our analysis of those core versus non-core programs to get your feedback and roll those into what the council priorities are for the coming fiscal year budget.

So moving on to the recommended budget calendar, um, we would recommend that we start um with the six plus six five-year forecast presentation on May 6th.

We would have the mid-year ordinance the following week on the 14th, and then we would do another community survey starting in mid-April that would run through early May, so that we can have those results for you when we do the goal setting session on this recommended date of May 22nd.

We will take during the goal setting session on May 22nd.

We would um present the survey, present the core versus non-core, talk about uh what council priorities are for the coming budget, take those back and then come back on June 17th with a trial budget with a two-year trial budget for the general fund.

Then the rest of the year is uh pretty much status quo.

We'll take the month of July to work with the city manager and departments on the budget development.

The city manager would propose the budget on August 13th.

Um, immediately after we would have our town halls and budget work sessions with the council and the community.

Um, ultimately um doing the budget adoption on September 17th.

Now we would like your feedback on this particular calendar.

We'd like to have that um by February 25th so that we can finalize the calendar and um make it available to the public by March the 6th.

And so we encourage any feedback that we can get today on the budget calendar as well.

Next, I want to talk a little bit about the uh taxpayer impact statement.

So this originated as a council consideration request that was submitted on March the 25th of 25 by council district 10.

And what we would do here is we would develop and publish the taxpayer impact statement to include in the adopted budget, the proposed budget, we would include it with our uh public public meetings for our for our tax for our tax meetings.

We could also publish it in the local newspaper, and we would also put it on our website.

So there's many avenues that we can use should the council decide for us to do this.

We can we can have it publicized in many ways.

Um we could also adopt it as a city ordinance, and um what the taxpayer impact statement would include would be property tax and fee comparisons for the city.

One thing that we did, and what some one of the things we heard at feedback as this went through the governance process um last year is what type of fees and what type of taxes are other cities doing and other jurisdictions doing.

So this slide illustrates what um some of our counterparts within the state are doing.

So you can see that Dallas and Austin published their property tax, their sanitation fees, which would be equivalent to our solid waste and environmental fees.

Um energy and water for us would be CPS and SALS, their stormwater utility fee.

Austin actually has a transportation user fee, so they publish that.

That's whether you see an NA on San Antonio because we do not have that fee.

Um, but other than those major fees, there aren't any really any other fees that these other jurisdictions are are using.

And you can see like Corpus Christie and El Pas El Paso County only do the property tax uh comparison.

Um, and one other thing to note since the um CPS and SALS rates are not part of the city budget.

We would ask them as they do their budget to publish an impact statement with those fees uh as part of their budget process.

So this is kind of an example of what the taxpayer impact statement would look like for the city.

So it would show the fee that we'll compare property tax and fees from fiscal year 25 and physical year 26, the adopted rates.

It shows what a typical resident would pay.

However, keep in mind that there will be residents over and under, as all everyone's amounts would be different as far as property tax goes.

Um, so you can see there on the right, we're using a medium homestead taxable value of 100 just under 157,000 for FY25 compared to 160 for FY26.

So that would increase by a little over 17 for the average resident or homeowner.

As far as our fees go, we've selected the fees that most of our residential or residents pay.

Um, there are other fees like I mentioned before that are included in the budget that our residents pay, but they're they're much more of a of uh the population of those that pay those fees is much less, and you would see with a property tax bill, solid waste fee, environmental fee.

So it's not included here.

So we're including the solid waste fee, the environmental fee, and the parks environmental fee.

No change to the solid waste fee from FY25 to 26.

Same with the solid waste environmental fee, but you may recall with the parks environmental fee as part of the budget amendment process.

Um that was adjusted, and the impact to the to the uh the rate payer on that is six dollars for the for the year.

And then we've also did not adjust the stormwater utility fee.

The stormwater utility fee here would be the um sorry, um so we have three different tiers that residents pay, and this one represents tier two, which most residential customers pay.

Um, and so overall you would see that the impact on our statement would be about a 1.7% increase or 23 dollars and 27 cents comparing these fees between FY25 and FY26.

So, with that, that includes my portion of the presentation.

I'll now turn it over to Justina Tate and she'll talk about the federal grants tabletop exercise.

Thank you.

Thank you, Freddie.

Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council.

My name is Justina Tate.

I'm the interim assistant city manager for the city of San Antonio.

As Freddie mentioned, today is a high-level overview of the federal grants tabletop exercise that was held in December.

I do want to note that included in your binder is a detailed uh report that that is included that um was is included in your binder and was also sent on Friday.

This provides more detail about the discussions had during the tabletop as well as the impacts on the community if certain city grants were reduced.

Before I begin, I want to take a moment to recognize the partner participants that are uh attending the meeting today.

Uh, we have former councilwoman Rocher Garcia with our chest organization.

And I also want to note Dr.

Halperan with UT Health as well as Jamie Manglesdorf also with UT Health.

Uh Dr.

Halprin and his team really helped us look at the impacts of or the potential impacts of the Medicaid um changes that have been implemented or that will be implemented through the reconciliation bill, as well as Medicare and ACA, the changes to the Affordable Care Act.

So today's dynamic uh federal fiscal policy environment continues to evolve.

For the past five years, municipalities, including San Antonio, have navigated through spending, new spending to address community needs during the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by strong revenue growth, and also historic levels of federal aid.

However, that revenue growth has slowed, and federal aid from the pandemic has concluded.

Additionally, we have seen federal funding proposals that could reduce support to states, local governments, and community partners.

I do want to note that in February, 11 of the 12 appropriations billed bills were passed by by Congress and the Senate and approved by the president.

This funded most of the federal government through September of 2026.

As part of these appropriations bill, it does include slight increases to housing and urban development as well as health and human services.

In an effort to prepare for potential reductions in federal funding and identify the impact on the city's budget, Mayor Jones requested that the city host its first ever federal funding tabletop exercise.

This tabletop exercise was held in December, and it included participation from 34 outside agencies.

Participating agencies included health care organizations, housing and homeless agencies, school district, food access organizations, utilities, nonprofits, and county and city departments.

The participating agents spent the day discussing how a reduction in federal funds could impact community and ways partners could collaborate.

For context, the City of San Antonio budget includes about 153 million dollars in federal grants funding, and this provides funding for 663 positions.

We focus this tabletop on certain grants received by health, housing, homeless, and human services, which represents about 85.7 million dollars of that federal funding.

Additionally, these grants support 436 positions representing 66% of the total federally funded positions that are approved in our budget.

This exercise was planned over five-hour period and divided into two scenarios.

In the first scenarios, the groups discussed the impact of a 50% funding reduction for federal grants that are received by the city.

In the afternoon, the groups discussed the impact of a 50% funding reduction to certain community-wide grants, but also looked at the impact of the reconciliation bill for eligibility on Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, SNAP, and the Affordable Care Act.

This exercise provided a forum in which organizations could begin discussing the impact of a loss of federal funds.

Some examples that we talked about during that on that day is that the food bank brought up that if food assistance programs such as the WIC was reduced, the food bank would have to triage and ration food, potentially moving individuals to carbohydrates and starches, which could have a downstream health effect.

Another observation was made that if clinical services were reduced, the bed capacity at hospitals may be available.

However, the staffing may not be available and we may not have the capacity to staff those beds.

Hospitals could bring in staff for a period of time, but they may not be able to sustain that staffing for a long for in the long term or for an extended period of time.

So the grants that we focused on supports most of our social services.

Many of these grants support our low-income, unhoused, older adults, and underinsured underinsured populations.

So through this exercise, we identified focus areas as we analyze the impact of potential reductions to our city grants.

So as we looked at the as we looked at the impact, we really wanted to focus on with the remaining grant funds, protecting the most vulnerable populations, ensuring the health safety of the community, providing the grant funds that provide the most assistance to the greatest number of individuals, and finally funding those services with no potential alternate funding.

So based on this discussion, we identified key five key findings of the tabletop exercise.

This includes funding reductions.

We noted that funding reductions would create significant disrupt disruptions to health housing, food access, and education education systems, existing service networks operate at a high capacity, and would it would be challenging to initially absorb large scale increases in needs.

Partners also emphasized the importance of consistent and unified public messaging to reduce confusion and fear among the community members.

And we found that there was strong support that existed for improved cross-sect cross-sector coordination, shared data tools, and unified resource and referral systems.

As we discussed during the day, we found that a lot of the uh populations that are being served by these partners are they're serving the same population.

So looking at ways that we could fill out one application that all agencies could potentially use and finding some efficiencies that we can employ across the sectors.

And finally, uh implementing proactive partnerships across sectors through regular meetings.

As we found from this tabletop exercise, there's still a lot, there's still work to be completed to continue to understand the impact of federal funding on the community and how it would impact other organizations.

So, as part of this, a recommendation is to create a cross-sector federal funding impact working group.

This group would look to further develop federal funding dependency and the impact of loss on uh the impact of loss of funding on the community, discuss ways to share data and information, develop comprehensive communication plans that can be used across organizations to address any federal funding reductions if uh we ever face that.

Explore philoth philanthropic and also private sector partnerships to support critical services.

One thing that was discussed during the tabletop is that as part of the reconciliation bill, there were tax breaks that were provided to our some businesses, and having them help us with the impacts to as of the reconciliation bill, having uh not or for profits help us with addressing some of the impacts that we're seeing that we may see with Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, and SHIP.

And finally, uh I'm sorry, also developing training and technical assistance from nonprofits on federal rule changes and grant requirements, and and looking at potentially developing subgroups within that federal impact working group so that health we can have uh subgroup for health, housing and homeless, and youth so we can focus on those specific areas.

In summary, I just want to remind us that most of the federal government is funded through September 30th, 2026, and currently there are no changes to the grant uh to our grant funds at this time.

This tabletop exercise was well received by our partners, and it created a forum to continue conversations with partners on the impact of federal funds in our San Antonio community.

This concludes my presentation, and we'd be happy to take any questions.

Mayor, just one thing, and it was it was in Freddie's presentation, and I mentioned it to several of you before today's presentation.

We included the the information about the employee benefits fund because that normally or typically wouldn't be in a three plus nine report, but because of the expense we saw in the in the fall, we wanted to bring it to your attention.

It is something that we're gonna have to do a lot more work and and and hopefully you caught uh what Freddie said.

Um they've started digging into the January expenses and they're more in line with 13 and a half thousand employees plus dependents plus spouses, we're probably close to 40,000 covered lives.

27 27.

So there's a budget cut right there.

So 27,000 lives that we ensure.

So things happen in families with employees, and um we we need to certainly do a lot more work and monitor to determine whether or not the fall was an anomaly or as a trend and what's happening in terms of terms of services, but I wanted to make sure that we put it on this report.

We have a lot of work to do, and we'll keep you guys updated on that.

That's an important part of us as an employer.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um I thought it was useful in my pre-brief.

Um, so if Freddie, you want to talk about on slide 19 um the uh the DOJ uh grant answer that we're still waiting on regarding the 28 additional officers, or Eric if you want to take the uh yes, ma'am.

So um the council will recall we received a grant from uh the Department of Justice on COPS.

We have um actually this week we're finally scheduled to have a conversation with them about alternatives around the use of that of those funds.

The council approved those uh positions in the budget, and essentially our question back to the Department of Justice is can we use that for what we've already done, or does that something we need to plan for for next fiscal year?

So when we get that answer, Mayor, from DOJ in writing, that's something we'll communicate to you all um immediately.

That way you you you have that answer answer as well.

Um I'm glad to see the um kind of Freddie, how you laid it out and how some of the steps taken from um from FY26 help us going into FY27.

I think what would be still helpful though is um an understanding of, and I talked with Eric um just before the meeting about some of this, which is understanding where we have some additional levers, um, particularly when it comes to property tax, uh, because we can talk about cuts, right?

But I think we should also be thinking about the money that we forego and whether or not we're being we have a strategic enough process and understand exactly what we are foregoing.

Um so I'll uh reiterate my ask.

And I'm fine with the timeline that you've uh laid out here, uh, but by that May 22nd um goal setting session, if not sooner.

What I'd like um Eric is uh is a process that helps us understand and helps us review uh proposed TURS projects so that we can have a strategic discussion about you know what is the best use of those of those resources.

Is it um in the TURS or is it potentially in the general fund?

And again, just a like a process that helps us look across.

I know those are traditionally looked at kind of onesies and twosies, um, but given given the gap that we have and some of the things that we're continuing to have to cut or find or uh positions going unfunded, I think it's that we at least looking at that given.

I mean, that's 48 million dollars that um that we forego about half of that um in the city tours.

Okay.

The other piece of this conversation that I think is really important um are the economic incentives.

And I know we're having that discussion.

Alex will tee that conversation up for us, and we when we relook those, um, but again, ensuring that the abatements that we are approving the ROI there is sufficient to cover what we have what we have foregone.

So look forward to that analysis that helps us ensure that we have a strong handle on that as well.

Um it dovetails actually on the the last couple of briefings.

Um what is laid out here in terms of the financial picture, um the 142 million that is that is um closed, or there's a the proposed plan to close that that does not include the eight million that we lose when a Medicaid 1115 waivers expire in September, right?

So one thing that we may this body we may need to consider is um as you all look through um some of the preliminary impacts of of what that lost eight million dollars covers.

If this body is not comfortable assuming those risks, especially in the public health space, um then we may need to um have Eric identify some potential options that help us offset that uh given the risk that we don't want to assume.

Um but again, if you haven't taken the time to look through that, and I know we're gonna get more information as we get closer to the actual um budget season, but you can see what that 11 million, excuse me, what that 8 million already covers and it's things like domestic violence and public health testing, all things that we just don't have a lot of resilience in.

So that's another 8 million that we may need to potentially offset.

I think it's also important that when we look at this.

This came out in my pre-brief, and just to make sure everybody's on the same page.

Um the things that are identified to close the 142 million dollar gap, um, that does not take into account um the impacts of the loss in the Medicaid 1115 waivers.

Those two things right now are currently separate.

Justina, if I've mischaracterized that, you can correct me.

Okay, so she's nodding, saying we all that to say we have a gap, we closed it.

That doesn't necessarily mean we have accounted for the impacts of the most vulnerable when that eight million dollars of Medicaid 1115 money goes away.

So as we get closer and we get a frankly a more refined picture, we may need to find another way to close that 142 million dollars as it becomes clearer the impact of the loss of those resources, if that's clear to everybody.

Okay.

We had this conversation.

If we don't help ourselves, but um we won't get that revised number until May, Eric, is that right?

Okay.

Um in case others want to want to comment on this, as I was going through this very helpful briefing with um with Freddie and Justina.

One of the things I reiterated to them as I was going back to our experience with the last budget sessions, is really helping us understand.

I mean, it's great to to see um kind of the progress made toward our goals, but um what I think is really helpful, what what we need a better handle on, Eric is is helping us understand how far we are, not from the goal that we've set, but from the the severity of the problem in our community, right?

So for example, when we talk about sorry when we talk about slide 18 and we talk about a sidewalk program, um that funds, you know, we're 3.48 of 22.5 miles.

What I don't have a sufficient appreciation for is how many miles actually, what is the total scale of the problem, right?

And if we set a goal for, we talk often here of F streets and whatnot.

Um, but if we said, hey, if we wanted no S streets in our community by 2040, what would that take?

Right?

Those are the kinds of things that we as a body really need to um, I think wrap our heads around as we not only look at our economic development incentives, but also as we have major economic deals and need to be asking for more, like that's where the money would go, right?

But I so I think really helping us.

I I use the phrase in the last budget session, Eric, you know, helping ourselves helping see ourselves better.

Um, and I think the severity of some of these things, you know, whether it's F Streets, whether you know, on the sidewalk program, kind of how many miles of sidewalk is it?

You know, I know there's as we hear often there are many communities that still don't have any sidewalks.

So, really kind of laying out the picture for what it is, and if we wanted to set goals around when we could quote solve that, how long would it take us to get there and how how much would that cost?

Those are the kinds of things I think will be helpful as we go into this budget as we and then helps us shape our um thoughts around the bond.

Okay, I'll save my own.

Mayor, before you go, yeah, please.

Yeah, just just on that last point.

So you know, and and that's why that's why the goal setting session for the council um is important because we do a lot of things.

Um there's a lot of need, and and it's it is uh it is critical that the council helps set that priority.

Uh we were in this room two or three weeks ago with uh with with one of the utilities talking about frame the what's what is the priority, what are the risks associated with it.

So, you know, certainly one of my takeaways from the budget conversation last year was was how are we how is that 1.78 miles of sidewalk important to uh the goal and the outcome and the destination, and um you know, I think I think as we prepare uh for that goal setting conversation, which we'll have the the the um uh PFM is part of to help facilitate the core versus non-core conversation.

That's the first step of that.

Um and um, but but I I think it's it's one of those things that'll be is necessary for us to make sure that we're hitting the mark that you and the council and and the general public are looking for in in a growing city with a lot of demand with never enough resources, and so that's that's the algebraic formula we've got to we've got to work on on our end.

Thanks, Mayor.

Yeah, thank you.

Um last thing, I think um, as we are going into this, you know, I just appreciate the the way in which that group wants to kind of come together and and serve as a as a brain trust.

Um thing though is we really want to make sure that we're tightening the connective tissue, right, between that effort and for example, our ledge team that is helping us be thoughtful about the things we need to be going up to Austin and asking for um so that it makes it easier as we anticipate uh the impacts of some of these some of these cuts and where we can where we can help ourselves, or frankly, where they can help us.

Okay.

Uh Councilman McKee Rodriguez.

Thank you.

Thank y'all for the presentation.

Um, I'll start off with a few things that I think y'all were asking for feedback on.

Uh, one was the timeline.

Um, to me, adequate seems good.

Uh looking forward to uh participating this year in the budget discussions.

Um second thing was CCR that councilman White had filed.

Um you let me know, is it is the intention to publish the statement in newspapers or in other medium outside of our budget document?

Yes, council.

I mean, we can do that.

We can put it so traditionally we publish our tax notices in the Express News as well as the Princea.

We can certainly do that with the taxpayer impact statement as well.

Okay.

It sounds like uh councilman would like for that to be written into the ordinance, so if that's possible, I can be supportive of that.

Um next thing.

So go on the in the same vein of infrastructure that the mayor was just talking about.

I know a couple years ago, a few years ago, um, we had established a goal to get every council district to a PCI score of 80, uh, 80%.

And then no district would have more than 10% of their uh streets be S streets, or no district would have more than 10%.

Uh and it sounds like we are off track from that goal.

And I would wonder for this budget cycle, how do we how do we get there?

How do we get catchback up, whether it's through our general fund as was mentioned or through the bond as was mentioned as well.

Uh, but I do think we need to really quickly get back to back on track there.

I think that's it would be a huge improvement for many of our districts, uh, especially those of us in the inner city.

Um the question uh and then also for infrastructure on the slide where um is it looked like most things were on track for the year.

Does this incorporate any of the projects from the from fiscal year 2025 that we were behind on this report is focused on the 2026 budget initiatives?

Um, but we can uh the second piece of that is uh update on the CBRs, uh, but we can give you a status update on the other budget initiatives that were included in 2025.

No, yeah, councilman, I think what you you're talking about, the 2025 streets, the the prior year uh street projects, some of the those are all on track.

They're they're they don't all get done in 12 months anyway.

But my last uh update with uh Mike Shannon and Art Reinhart, um all of those previous year projects were um on track and on time.

And we can get you we can get you a list on that.

Sounds good.

And there's and I know the mayor uh mentions hers and uh is very interested in a conversation about tours and their capacity and what they can do for our uh for our general fund, et cetera, et cetera.

Um which tours are locked away, basically.

Which one which tours are unavailable for funding?

I know the Houston Street Tours is one.

Can you tell us which tours would not be a part not be a part of any of these discussions?

Yep, sorry.

Um is I understand it, the mayor's talking about alters, right?

Yeah, so is so you know, look at the missions like a project Marvel.

Um, are we able to Houston Street Tours?

I know is it are we able to use any money from Houston Street Tours at all?

I I think we would have to do, we'd have to go back.

We did a presentation on the tours a couple of months back.

We showed the council what our obligations are.

Um, because all of them have some level of obligation um and uh timelines, and there are I'll say it this way there are risks associated with probably every single one of them, but but we lay that out.

Um ultimately I think that's a that's a council conversation, but for the fact that we've got maybe debt obligations or contractual obligations, and maybe a separate conversation in executive session around some of those.

Sure.

And I think TURS probably should have been re-evaluated seven, eight, nine years ago when they were being used as tools of gentrification and displacement and whatnot.

But I think over the past four or five years, I'm thinking about the under city tours, West Side Tours.

Um, these have been tools that allow us to invest in their original purpose, allow us to invest in our communities and and I'll speak to inner city tours as chair, uh being able to invest in the community in ways that they want to see, I think has been invaluable.

Uh and I would uh highly advise against you know any any move that would harm that ability.

Um and I mentioned a few sessions ago that uh my goal is going to be, especially as it relates to our bond capacity for bond the 2027 bond is uh I want to be able to take as many projects out of competition for that as possible.

And so using the inner city tours to fund capital projects is gonna be a priority of mine.

And I would like my colleagues' support in being able to do that.

Uh all that said, I don't think there was there anything else y'all were looking for feedback on.

I think I think those are the only thing I was gonna respond to your um your your street question, councilman.

Just a reminder of the council, we set aside money this year to redo how we do the five-year IMP.

So the goal from a couple of years ago, um uh I I think we're gonna have to set a new goal based on the level of data we have.

Um now that art's on board and and and dealing with the department.

That's something that we're scheduled to do this year.

Um, but I think I think um if I had the forecast, I think uh how we do it is gonna look differently.

Um it should look differently given maybe some of the challenges in certain parts of town and the um the investment needed.

Um and ultimately that's gonna be a resource question.

But uh, I guess my hope is that is that we change the way we've been doing street IMP for the last 20 years.

Sure.

I look forward to that and have full confidence and uh Art and Mike to be able to get us to where we need to be in a timely manner, and I look forward to setting a new goal with my colleagues.

Thank you, Mayor.

Yeah, thanks.

Um councilman to be very clear.

So I mean, I want to be trying to misunderstand.

Um the uh the goal that he said was set previously regarding streets in every council district.

Who who is tracking um progress toward that goal?

Public worksers.

Public works is okay.

Um, because I'm not sure we necessarily referenced that in the last budget session as a goal that we were working toward.

We did.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

But but I get I think the bigger point is is that that goal was set based on a framework by which we allocate and project out uh street projects.

Um and I think I shared with you all during the budget.

Um the longer I'm city manager, the the less confidence I have in that process.

I think it the and for example, the data is differently.

Back when we set that framework, we were using 2D information when we scan and and now we have access to 3D.

Um there are uh I I think I think the challenge is gonna be when we reform it.

We we publish online um, you know, Mrs.

Garza can look and see uh what streets uh if her streets on the 2029 or the 2030 list, we do it five years in advance.

And I think we're gonna have to figure out based on the work and and there's a lot of work that needs to be done, but how do we meld things that we've already told the public but but get uh but make sure we're spending our money where it needs to be spent uh councilman um Aldra de Gabito Thank you, thank you to um Ben, Justina, Freddie, and your teams for all the work to get us here.

Uh I'm just gonna jump right in on slide 14.

Uh I know that Eric, you mentioned us seeing this increased trend in claims, and obviously we know that healthcare is extremely important and we need it continue to prioritize good benefits for our employees.

Um, one of the things that me and my team were talking about is how many people could be using EAP, but they're using their insurance instead.

I think um I'm I'm curious if that could help offset costs.

Um not really a question there, but it's just something you know that we were just all talking about um as a team is that people are just are used to using their insurance and they could be using the benefits of EAP uh uh system instead.

Um slide 18, the infrastructure slide.

You know, I know uh a few weeks ago when SAS was here, I asked kind of a rhetorical question, but you know, I think we see it here as well on how much water leaks contribute to us constantly having to fix our streets, you know, and so this is what we have to work in conjunction with SAWs.

Um, because we know that water um wreaks havoc on our streets, and so you know, we're just kind of all driving ourselves crazy, and you know, we're all kind of constantly fighting each other.

Well, maybe not districts nine and ten, but the rest of us are all fighting each other for infrastructure dollars.

And so um, you know, we just have to uh we just have to um you know have have SAS do their part, I guess is what I'm saying in in making sure that we're not over investing in our streets because of a problem they're causing because of their water leaks.

Um let's see uh on the budget initiatives um document.

I did have a couple things I wanted to call out on page two.

It's good great to see the code officer for the vacant buildings program is up and running.

I know that that was something that we uh a couple a couple of us were really supportive of.

And so, you know, we're I'm definitely excited to see um and and want to keep monitoring how it improves the program.

Um on uh page four, and we talked about it on slide 19.

The additional firefighters, we're really looking forward to those firefighters at fire station 10.

We know that the our our fire station that serves you know a lot of residents in districts one, five, and seven.

Um it's one of the busiest in the city.

Um we know we know we need a new location for that.

So what we're we're really looking forward to that uh or we're happy to see that on um on slide 17 of the budget initiatives document or page seven for the low barrier shelter.

Um you know, I I it you know, we're we're excited to see this, but I'm also curious, and Eric, maybe you can remind me because I know a lot of this was gonna was funded through ARPA funds.

So have we talked about long-term plans for for this in particular?

It yes, ma'am.

So uh it was initially funded with ARPA.

This year is funded with general fund.

Okay, but but part of what we laid out and that uh Mark Carmona was working on is um where do we go from here because long-term uh spending that much money for the homeless, I'm sorry, for the uh low barrier shelter.

Um I'm not certain is the best use.

It now there's no question that there's need.

And and you heard uh Jelynn and Eric Epley in here last week.

Their uh Strack is paying for the rest of the building to be used for uh their needs in terms of diversion, not jail diversion, but diversion and and um the um the homeless or unhoused clientele that that needs services.

So the building is being used by both us as well as Strac and the hospital systems.

Mark is working on you know what is that business plan, what are the goals and outcomes that we're trying to achieve in terms of priority order, and we hope to bring that uh at least kind of an initial draft to you at that May goal setting session.

Okay, sounds good.

So it was funded through Opera Funds.

Now this past year it was funded through general funds, and then Mark, I think you're gonna come with us with with what that plan looks like, and um so we can decide whether to to take it out more of the general fund.

Okay, that's helpful.

Um thank you to Councilman Mark White um for leading the initiative on the taxpayer in impact statement.

I'm also supportive of it being posted on on uh our our major media channels, you know, Express News and I think you said La Prenza, probably others as well.

Um you know, it needs to be on the city's website, but we know that the city's websites, you know, still kind of can be a little tricky to navigate.

So I just wanted to make sure that it's it is in front of residents.

Um I'm in favor, uh I know I can't remember what slides it was, but of all of the different fees, I'm I'm in favor of putting as much as possible so we can be as transparent as possible with residents, definitely including SAS and CPS in there.

Um and and then again just blasting it so that residents see and feel that transparency.

And and again, thank you to Councilman White for for leading that initiative.

Um regarding the calendar, that calendar looks uh good to me.

Thank you, uh Freddie, for that.

Um also Eric, to your point earlier, you know, I do think that the this council needs to have that discussion on what we consider our core services to be.

Um I I know I I can't remember what where we were talking about when we're gonna have that conversation.

Eric, do you know when we're supposed to have that conversation about really our council priorities and and what I think all of us have a little bit of a different definition of what core services are?

Yes, ma'am.

So it's gonna be at the goal setting session in May, and and I think I think the council should expect.

I know we did it a little bit differently last year.

We did it at Council Chambers, it was almost B session-esque.

Um I think I think what we what what the staff would recommend is that we plan for a full day conversation to allow the council time to go through those those different aspects and the goal setting and the priority setting.

Part of that is that core non-core conversation.

Yeah, because I do think that you know it seems like every budget we're we're we're constantly just changing what it means to be core services and what our city budget should prioritize, and so um we just need to hash it out and and I'm looking forward to that conversation.

Um the tabletop exercise.

Is there a reason that council members weren't invited to that um well it was staff?

So um it would have just been interesting.

I think we told you we told you.

Council members were invited.

Yeah, we weren't invited.

No, I you were go ahead.

They were not invited, no.

It was it was when we presented it in October.

Um we mentioned that it would be in December.

The goal was really um we had the partners there, and to really have that fluid discussion about what um you know how these these um uh reduction in federal funding would impact the community.

Absolutely, thank you.

Yeah, I know we weren't invited.

Um and and really we didn't necessarily for for me, it wasn't necessarily to participate in the conversation, but to be a fly on the wall.

Here are experts leading these different initiatives, talk about their priorities.

I think would have been helpful for us to be included in.

Those are all my comments.

Councilman White Thanks, Mayor.

Um I want to thank my colleagues who have already spoken for their their support of the taxpayer impact statement.

Um I just I I really I thought this was important, which is why I drafted the CCR and I appreciate everybody who signed on to it.

I think all of us get comments from our residents all the time, like, hey, I saw a new charge on uh on this bill, or now all of a sudden my my garbage can fee is raised.

You know, what's going on with that?

And so I think it's important to be as transparent as possible.

And um prior to us adopting a budget every year, whether it's a week before or two weeks before, whenever it is, I think we should uh have an ordinance that publishes this taxpayer impact statement that requires the city to to put on the website to put in the newspaper.

Here's the property tax rate, is it going up?

Yes or no.

Um here's this different charge.

Are we raising it?

Yes or no.

So that the citizens of San Antonio can see uh what the effect of adopting the new budget will be and what it'll mean to them and their pocketbook.

So uh I appreciate the support on that.

I hope more are supportive of it here today, and I look forward to again passing something that requires the city um to do that in the very near future, and certainly in time for uh this coming year's budget.

Um zero-based budgeting.

Our new our new hybrid budgeting model, uh, these comprehensive budget reviews to me is is a is a good step uh towards that.

I I think the uh the PFM group that um was here last year, and I guess maybe back, Eric, in in April in April, um, to to talk to us about moving towards uh sort of a new model of budgeting here, including this conversation that my colleague referenced on core versus non-core services.

I think that is a very important conversation to have.

Um I think for the most part we will all agree on on what core services are, but there are probably some areas where there may be some disagreement.

You know, for for me, I I say it all the time, not not to bore my colleagues again, but to me, city government is about public safety, it's about infrastructure, and it's about economic development.

And if if we can stay in those lanes, we can we can do more for our citizens than anywhere else.

So uh I'm happy to see the new budgeting model moving forward.

I look forward to the PFM group being here and having these further discussions on this um in the spring.

Um the TURS conversation that Councilman McKee Rodriguez referenced, uh, I would agree with him.

I I would caution us uh to look at at dissolving our TERS or taking money from our TURS.

Uh these are these are valuable um the way I see it, they're valuable valuable economic development investment tools uh that we have all over our city, and so I would not want to see uh anything happen to the TURS.

Um streets, I do have one question.

Uh the bad to the bad to excellent streets.

It looks like our goal for the year was a hundred and four, and we've gotten 17 done in the first quarter, so a little bit behind pace, but we think we're gonna we're gonna catch up and get to that 104.

Councilman Art Ryan Hard Public Works.

So the bad to excellent streets, those are our streets that require a mill and overlay or full reconstruction.

So as the manager mentioned early on, those a lot of those streets are on the 18 month to 24 month schedule.

Uh so that's why the numbers um may not be completed.

We are tracking ahead of plan though from where what we projected.

Great, great.

Um again, as of last year, 22% of the streets in this city were in poor failing condition.

Uh to me, that's unacceptable.

Uh, this morning I was out uh doing some meals on wheels, um, food delivery with with that great organization, and I think it was our last stop.

Uh, the lady that we delivered the meal to uh walked me out to her road and said, you know, while you're here, take a look at this.

Um, and it was actually a street that had attempted to be repaired, apparently in the last year, and the contractor did did not do a good job at all.

And she said she actually spoke to the contractor and said, This is what they paid me to do, so I'm doing it and I'm done, which I thought was was was a little bit disturbing.

Um, but I again I just I just raised the point that we need to make sure that we get more of our streets up to par.

And I'm happy to give you the information of who of where that street was, Eric.

Yeah, so we can deal with the contract.

Yep, yes, I knew you wouldn't like that.

Um the low barrier shelter that my colleague mentioned.

I also had a question about that, or maybe not a question, but more comments.

It looks like that only 20 percent of the folks that have gone through there.

We were able to move to to stable housing.

Um I don't know.

To me, that doesn't look good.

I don't know if historically that's a that's a good or a bad number.

The 4.8 million dollars that we have as the cost for the low barrier shelter, that's an annual figure, right?

Right, it's an annual figure.

So we've done 110 people in the first quarter, so that would be 440 people for the year.

If the numbers continue to track, that equates to about 109,000 dollars per person.

Um so Eric, I I agree with your sentiment earlier of of looking at is this really the best way to use city money going forward.

That seems like a lot of money uh per person.

Uh, homelessness is obviously a very substantial problem here as it is around the country.

I'd love to find a way to to attack the problem.

Uh I'm not entirely sure that that this low barrier shelter is the way to go.

When we were using ARPA money to do it, I think it was one thing.

We've certainly tested the low barrier shelter.

Uh I it was not for us using general fund dollars, and again, if this continues to track like it is, I think that's a lot of money per person, so we do need to relook at that.

Um the timeline I think is okay for the budget, and um again, this is the most important thing that we do every single year.

How we spend our taxpayer dollars, um, you know, how we give them their bang for the buck is really our primary job here as a city government.

We need to use the citizens' tax dollars in a way that can best improve their day-to-day quality of life, and I hope we do that um when we move forward and look at the 2027 budget.

Thanks, Mayor.

Point of clarification on on my end.

Um, I know leading up to the to the tabletop, um, there was um a final framework for federal grant table type exercise.

That was a memo that was sent out uh by Eric to the entire council.

Um, and I know we also um wanted to make sure people's inputs as part of that were included.

I know those were solicited.

Um, so wanted to clarify in terms of what was shared with folks prior, um, and then managing expectations about the final report that would be provided in in January, February.

Okay.

Councilman Mungia.

Thank you, Mayor.

Can we go to slide 26?

So I love the idea behind this, the taxpayer impact statement.

I think it's a good thing.

I think it's an effort to be transparent and and reach people in areas we're gonna get to them.

I would also add a couple details.

I think we need to add the rate of some of these fees and and taxes.

So you know, you look at your tax bill, that's based on that home value, uh, and that's also based on the change over time.

So, you know, you you don't see that it's like what the 53 or 56 cents per hundred dollars.

So we need to add the rate on there for these, and I think we should also add a note.

And I know we had this conversation earlier, it's a separate fund, but we should add on here some of the other major funding sources we get at the city, right?

So uh, yes, it is a state law that we get money through sales tax, but we should let people know there's additional revenues come from sales tax, hotel occupancy tax.

Uh we don't have to get intoo much detail, but I think to be more transparent, you know.

I don't want folks who think these are all the the only ways we get funding at the city.

So I think we should just add a couple extra notes on there.

Uh but yeah, I this should be part of the ordinance and we should add it to the newspaper and media and all that, make sure it that could be a really nice cover page on the budget too, I think.

Just a real quick snapshot.

So I'm good on that.

If we go to slide 22, the budget calendar.

Um, you know, I think it's sometimes a little bit of a compressed timeline.

Um I don't know that we should be having community budget town halls in September when we plan to approve the budget on the 17th.

That's a real quick turnaround.

And if you're one of the last districts to get booked, you know, telling residents, well, we get your input in next two weeks we're gonna vote on it.

It it doesn't feel like their input is gonna be actually considered.

So I think maybe having town halls wrap up by the end of August before September is something good to do.

Um did you want to add something?

I just wanted to know that would be the plan.

So we might do all the all 10 town halls the two weeks after we proposed, so they would be done by August 31st, so we could get you the report in time for budget amendments to help to help you as you go through that discussion.

Yeah, and if you could send me the presentation, I think y'all use a kind of similar presentation for the town halls last year, you know, the templates probably the same.

I think maybe changing the template a little bit.

We started to go down this conversation basis, you know, for the presentation.

And I think we just need to add maybe a little bit more slides to let folks know because while they saw the kind of the budget circle that you have, they didn't really see like the top five funded departments listed out plainly.

And I think once I tell people, you know, the top three departments are you know, police, fire, and public works, it kind of resets their frame of mind.

So I think just a little more information on the presentations uh versus the discussion that we kind of get into between each other, I think would be helpful.

Um, but maybe that's to each person's own town hall.

So uh but you know, when it comes to the budget, the calendar and our um input process as a council, I think we should also do um really try to consider the long term that we have now, the longer term we have with the four years.

So I know last fiscal year was a bit of a crisis, and we had to cut some things right off the bat, and the economy was not looking great, and there was new you know, new people up here.

But we should really try to plan for three years uh as far as our goals.

So I know we do a financial forecast for three years and cuts, but you know, as talking about public works.

If our goal is to really look at that, I mean we have folks here for that long amount of time without interruption of elections.

So I think it's uh we should really try to look at that longer approach to it.

I think we also have to look at uh a future discussion, but more equity.

I know that's sort of an ambiguous term, and you know, Eric and I talked about equity and and public works, and you were kind of like, I don't know what exactly that means, right?

I think there's different definitions of what equity means at public works, but we do have to have a more equitable budget.

Um, and that's in different areas, right?

That doesn't mean that we take away from certain districts.

I think it's just to the needs of those districts.

And we're having a really good conversation and councilman Galvan's committee, the education committee about getting a lots of points of data together where you know there are low performing schools or school closures where there are um issues with pedestrian mobility with crosswalks.

So we have a lot of data out there, and I think in this committee we're trying to do it on an education lens, but there is just a lot of data to show where the need is already.

And I've talked a lot about the donut, right?

Where between downtown to 410 on all sides, um, that part of the city needs probably the most investment of anywhere else, and that touches almost all of our districts.

Um I think we need to have a serious look at concentrated efforts inside 410, um, whether that's parks or streets or mobility, uh, especially with high density, you should expect more pedestrian mobility, uh, which you should expect more infrastructure to support safe walking.

So, you know, I think it's all there, we just need to kind of organize it a little bit more.

And when it comes to the benefits, you know, it I understand that's a lot of uh employees that are you know have some things going on in their lives or their family, but you know, I think we just nixed the employee health app, I forgot what it's called, but it was some sort of benefit plan where employees were tracking their steps and uploading it, and you kind of get some points based on that.

And a lot of employees like that, and we what did away with it, this budget cycle, and then we see that there's a lot of health issues.

I'm not saying the two are tied together, but you know, we do need to look at that next budget.

Like, how do we promote employee health and and add some sort of benefit to it?

Um, maybe not just them, but anybody who's only insurance plan, it might be something holistic looking.

So I don't know what the particulars of these cases are, but I think that's something we can work towards just to kind of foster a little bit of um health in our city.

And since it's been mentioned, the homelessness, you know, we are dealing with a crisis, and we had a town hall in D4, um, and you know, homelessness was a major, major topic around the Marbach area.

And I I let folks know it's it's a huge crisis, it's not easy.

Uh, and we can you know look at the cost and divide it per person, but if if you're gonna criticize that or express concern, I would suggest offer what the true cost should be.

You know, if $7,000 is too much per person, what is the right amount per person?

If it's taking too long for people to get into housing, what is the appropriate time?

Right.

Uh if someone's gone through abuse out in the public, which they have, I've I've heard these stories where people have been assaulted, people are dealing with addictions, uh, people have been kicked out of their homes for all sorts of reasons.

What is an appropriate amount of time for someone to get over that and get to work and be in the house?

I don't know what that timeline looks like, but I don't think that we should um criticize that specifically.

We need to work with Mark and the team and the folks that are out there.

So I think in April, we're gonna try to do a PCDC meeting at one of the shelters in San Antonio, have uh a big conversation there about what we're looking for because we're gonna have a problem on our hands when this uh Lowberry shelter goes away.

I think it's 380 units, was it uh that are gonna be eliminated from the city, right?

And so it's gonna be a huge detriment.

So if somebody's ready to go into a shelter, we need to have the space available for them.

And so we've got to have a good plan.

But again, if it's too much money, what is the right amount of money to solve a problem like that?

That's what I would ask my colleagues.

So that's my input.

Thank you.

Councilman Corp.

Mary, can I just real quick?

Yeah.

So just just so that the rest of the council has some context on uh the the conversation that the councilman and I had um around streets and equity.

But my point during that conversation was that I don't know what it is.

My my point was that it means different things to everybody else when we talk about streets.

And and and frankly, that's one of the reasons why I am strongly recommending we redo our IMP because um in terms of need, that should be driving where we allocate that, not not based on equity.

Now, the the reality is is that I think probably there's a lot of overlap in that in those two from a geographical standpoint, but um those the the city's definition of equity around street has been a kind of a geographical distribution, and and that's uh while there are probably F there are F streets in every district, there are more in certain parts of town, and that's where we need to probably come back to you to the mayor's point earlier.

What is the goal?

What what is the outcome?

What's the goal?

What's the plan to get there?

How much is it gonna cost?

And these are the resources we need because that's the ultimate decision that you guys need to make because it once we lay out that plan, if we're streets in this example, it has to be resourced.

Or if it's not resourced, then the then the plan slides out, right?

What we can afford to do, and that's the con the constant trick.

But I wanted to kind of give some additional context.

It was a much longer conversation and and much more detailed, but it it's not an it's not unlike the the same conversation I've had with many of you.

Thanks, Mayor.

Councilmember Corp.

Thank you.

Um thank you for the presentation.

This is really informative.

I love budget time because we get to look at progress and we get to to drill down into the numbers.

So I'm gonna start off.

Uh I'm gonna do it how we do teacher feedback, which is glows and grows.

So some of the glows that I saw were the from a small business perspective, the lift fund dollars.

Um, I'm kind of concerned that we're almost out of those dollars actually.

Sometimes when we're doing too good, it means that we're almost underfunding a program.

And so that program is 75% already complete, which means that there's a lot of small businesses that are using it and we're helping them buy down loans.

And so I think we need to look at for next year.

Is there any capacity at EDD to do more of that?

Because it's um it seems to be having good success based on the numbers.

Um, as far as uh a little bit of competition on the federal tabletop exercise, I wanted to commend Justina and the team for the robust group of folks that you guys brought out and brought together.

The work that Alamo Workforce Solutions is doing, work for Solutions I'm always doing, has been really beneficial because Bear County has 62% of our providers that are four-star rated, which is really high.

It was the highest of all of the counties except for one, Kendall, and they only had six providers.

So we're serving 10,000 students, and the majority of them are in the highest rated child care facility based on that work.

So I was excited to see that.

Um excited to see the fire department needs assessment being prioritized.

I haven't um been able, I I know that was a our um uh CCR started by council member McKee Rodriguez, and I'd love if we could potentially see the RFP before it goes out.

I'm not sure if that's possible or if it's already been it's already sent out, it's already since okay.

All right, well, we're we'll see what comes back, and we maybe we can bring the results back to public safety, Maria.

Um, and then obviously this uh SMP work that has been happening.

Um, I was really excited when Eric actually put pushed for having a consultant to redo our SP.

I get calls all the time of like the street down the road is getting done again on another slurry seal or another mill and overlay, and my street hasn't been touched in the 50 years that I've lived in this home.

And so I feel like our SMP is broken.

To Eric's point, there are people that have called us.

We actually now track every time that someone calls and asks about a street, and they know that it's on a we know that's it's okay, it's on the IMP for 2027.

We track it that way when we come back and try to swap things, we're not inadvertently telling someone, oh, it's gonna get done and then it's not gonna get done.

So we're gonna have to think strategically about how we roll it out.

But I know that um from the goal that RFQ is also already been released.

Do we know?

I I asked Andy, I was like, are we allowed to see the responses?

Apparently we're not.

But do we know how many folks um have responded?

Did we get some quality?

Can we at least make qualitative statements like that?

So um it's an ongoing solicitation, councilwoman.

So it's open right now.

No, no, no.

That has closed and has been reviewed, right?

So we're working through negotiation process now.

So, that's not to say much.

Okay, all right.

Well, I'm curious to see what they come up with.

I'm curious to see what recommendations recommendations they make and if they recommend new technology in terms of how we're managing programs and how we're managing the IMP in general.

Um, the rental assistance goal.

I was so curious about why that goal was 43 percent for first quarter.

Are we just projecting over projecting to be completed by the summer?

Also a highlight, but was curious because it's it seems like it would be out by the summer.

Yes, no, we plan to have it open all year round.

So, and that is the first four months that results, so it is a little higher than you know, 33 percent of the way through.

Um, it does include some apps, about a hundred apps applications that were paid with a little bit of carry forward from the prior year that we had in the queue from September.

Um, so we're on track.

We also noticed that in these first four quarters of the year, we are having to pay more in rental assistance and relocation assistance support than we did this time last year.

Um, but we track that.

That's part of how we look at how many applications we can approve per month so that we can continue to have an open year round.

Okay, thanks so much.

Um, I that's another program that we hear great feedback from.

So I think that's five million dollars really worth spent or really well spent.

Um, all right, here are my gross, the streetlight program.

We've been trying to get a presentation for public safety to shift this program from just filling gap to needs, and this month at public safety, it was not the team was not ready to present.

So I'm hoping that DSD will be ready to present for our March meeting so that we can really have a conversation about how we shift street lights.

Because as we saw, apparently district five is already all well lit up based on that analysis.

And so we again going back to what is equity, right?

What is equity look like in terms of making sure there's sufficient street lights around schools, around bus stops versus just we're gonna measure 600 feet.

Um the to council member points, council member white's point on low barrier shelter.

You know, you and I heavily disagree on this because you cannot put a price on a life.

And if we continue just playing whack-a-mole and don't have a solution, we're never gonna get anywhere with our support for our in-house folks.

But I do think there's room to grow, at least from this, based on the numbers I have seen.

I'd like for Mark and the HSSD team to dig down into why we haven't been able to fill all of our beds.

Like that one the goal for the first quarter is 125, but we've had that shelter open for three, maybe two years now.

And so I feel like we should dig down a little bit into what what's missing there.

Well, did I wait till the end of your time?

I'm sorry.

Okay, thanks.

Um, and um, and also just to clarify that point about the 21, the exits, 21 of 35 exits were successful, so it's 60 percent actual successful exit rate.

Yes, there are folks that are staying in a little bit longer, but then I think those are just folks that were giving a space to live that's not on the streets.

Um, but I would like to better understand.

I would like to see all of those beds filled, so you can answer that after.

All right, another grow, the sidewalk program condition assessment.

I have a presentation from 2024 that showed me this beautiful map that we were gonna get to see.

Always have to talk about sidewalks.

The the phase one and phase two, and then phase three.

Phase one was supposed to be done in fiscal year 25, phase two was supposed to be done last year, and then we're supposed to do phase three this year.

And I still haven't been able to see the results.

I have an uh email back from Public Works last July of 2025 that says there were some delays and technical challenges with the data, but I would really love us to press art on getting that data up and ready, even if the whole thing is not done.

I'd like to see at least one and two.

Uh, we just quick update.

We're about a month away from finishing the phase three condition assessment.

Then we'll need to do some data validation, but uh, we should be ready to present results to you by summertime.

Okay, I'm gonna hold you to it, Art.

Um, and then I would agree with uh council member Mungia about the 410 donut being the priority for that.

And I also think if we can double click on around schools and most frequent in bus stops, uh that would be great as well.

Um, and then just about the SP, I was at a neighborhood meeting yesterday, and someone mentioned that someone from city staff said all of our street projects are on time and on budget.

And I thought, oh, and they were like, that's not true.

I think we just have to be careful when we're talking to public about what we're specifically saying, because especially for my downtown neighborhoods, they know that's not true.

They don't see the different buckets of like what's actually struggling and what's not.

So we should just be mindful.

I'm glad that this one is and um hope to continue it seeing to go that way.

All right, from a feedback standpoint, um, for the community survey, I actually agree with the the community engagement piece.

Councilmember Mungia mentioned the town halls, but I would love to see the survey time be extended too.

I feel like I'm trying to get these cards out so fast during that two-week block.

I don't know if it's possible to maybe do all of April for that.

Um, and that way we can get a little bit more input before the actual May session as well.

Um that would be my request there.

As far as the taxpayer impact statement, I think it's a great idea.

I would love to see for us in our budget session what the what we talked about in our last um bond conversation, what the impact would be for 2027.

So if we could say like a uh what that would look like in terms of if we said yes to all the things we discussed in terms of stormwater rates, etc.

Ideally, it would be even greater if we could get all of the taxing entities on board because we're just one small portion of a property owner's tax bill, and if we could get everybody on board so they could see the impact that all of it would have, I think that would be great.

Um, I don't know if that's feasible, but maybe if we lead the way and start it and see if we could um ask folks to get on.

And then lastly, with the TURS conversation, I agree in that these that we need to be strategic in how we're using those dollars.

But I think uh, and I know like council member uh McKee Rodriguez uses inner city tours a lot right now for housing, and it's been really beneficial.

And Councilman Castillo has been using some of hers for the work around the inner west side with Project DC.

I'd love to see us have like a more structured process for how we use our using our tours.

We are having a conversation right now for small scale rehab for the midtown tours and how we could use some dollars from that to incentivize like a really old a lot older buildings to stay naturally affordable for housing, but we don't really have an official process on how we use the tours, it's kind of up to us and city staff, so it might be good to uh for us to formalize that in a specific way.

Uh thank y'all for the presentation.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilwoman Castillo.

Hey Mayor, thank you, Freddie and Justina for the presentation.

Uh, first, I'm supportive of Councilman Mark White's uh taxpayer impact statement, transparency and ensuring that the public has access to information is something that I'll always be supportive of yesterday at the Lone Star Neighborhood Association meeting.

I gave an update on uh the SAW's potential rate adjustment as well as the potential via telecom tax, and um it was really good feedback from the constituents.

However, they asked like what other rate adjustments are we also talking about here.

So I think um this uh uh initiative will help ensure that as there are conversations about increasing fees that the public's well aware of the adjustments that council may be making.

Uh in terms of the tabletop exercise, I think it revealed what we've known, right?

Is that many of our important front-facing departments like mentor health, neighborhood and housing services department are primarily grant funded.

Uh, and this is something that a couple of my colleagues over the last several years have highlighted is the need to shift from relying primarily on grants to the general fund to support these initiatives because of changing administrations.

Uh we know that many of these initiatives are at risk.

Um, so uh again, right, it also highlighted the zip code that we already know, and we see in every study that would be impacted the most, which is 7827, which I share with Dr.

Core.

Uh, we know there's a lot of need uh and a need for investment.

So I just uh of course we'll always highlight the need to shift um where we allocate our general fund dollars to sustain uh the key initiatives of these departments because they primarily support children and seniors uh and so many others.

So just wanted to highlight that key component.

Uh in terms of tours funding, uh, I think Councilman McKee Rodriguez hit it, right?

Um, like the West Side Tours, for example, we don't have much funding.

Uh and you know, if you look early on on the history of the Westside Tours, it was used to initiate market rate development.

Uh however, we've shifted what we've prioritized based off of the board direction uh in terms of what we're investing in.

So uh I I think you know, in terms of city initiated tours where there's no council representation, I would be interested in having uh policy discussion there again.

But these are primarily the tours that we see help facilitate downtown projects that I think there should be one council representation and or a larger conversation.

Um but I do believe the tours that um have been developer initiated or have council representation have robust boards to have that discussion on what the expectations are within that uh designated area.

Um to the mayor's point, I would be supportive of us identifying the ways in which we can support and fill the gap uh with the Medicaid waivers uh if we do see that funding.

Um if we didn't make up for that funding rather.

Uh I did have a question in terms of the hot tax.

If it's not producing as much as anticipated, and with some of the downtown projects like Project Marble and the sports district are relying on the hot tax.

Um, can you help us understand in terms help me understand in terms do we plan to uh potentially tap into the general fund or additional tours to help supplement for that funding structure?

No.

Okay.

I appreciate that clarification.

Uh, in terms of a couple of highlights with um things that are moving along, uh, wanted to commend Debbie, pleased to see that over 200 folks have gone through uh the city's uh municipal archive museum.

So great to see folks are accessing and utilizing that space.

Over 93 families have received assistance through the minor rehab program.

Uh, as already mentioned, with the vacant uh uh concerns that we're having with structures.

Pleased to see that that code officer has made over 71 inspections.

Uh and then grateful that with parks that the Jimmy Flores Park is going to be receiving a shade structure.

Uh in terms of public works and infrastructure, just grateful for James Hall keeping my team updated uh and working through any constituent services cases that we may run into hiccups.

Um, but I am supportive in terms of infrastructure all throughout the city of San Antonio.

Looking at 410, uh, I share district um the the border with district four.

Uh so oftentimes I get invited to site visits in D4, uh, and there is a lot of uh need for support in terms of infrastructure and much more, uh, especially in terms of city facilities, so it would be supportive on how we can recalibrate to ensure that those parts of the city that have uh lack of access to public facilities are being prioritized, and then of course, uh with infrastructure as well.

The same goes with the West End uh community that I share with District One, uh, gone out to neighbors' houses over there, and there's a lot of need in terms of streets, sidewalks, uh, so on and so forth.

So, would be supportive on how we can continue to have a real equity lens uh in terms of infrastructure.

Uh lastly, uh again with the low barrier shelter.

Um, I I appreciate uh the question being answered in terms of why there's uh vacancies, or did Mark if you can share thank you, Councilwoman Morgan Director of the Home Services and Strategy Department.

Actually, we need to update the council on the actual number of people enrolled or served through the low barrier shelter.

Eric mentioned earlier that Strac has a contract with SAMS to pay for the operational part.

And so the number actually is not one ten, it's 183 people that are currently that have been served through the shelter.

Strack is identifying people that are homeless and mentally ill that were showing up in hospital systems now are going over to the shelter itself, which frees up those beds in the hospital system.

It's not impacting our outreach workers' ability to be able to serve people.

We do, councilwoman, we want to drill down into, but just a reminder that uh the engagement process takes a while, but we're trying to understand from engagement through clinical intervention to movement out of shelter, what that process looks like.

So that's why we need access to the data, which is what we're working with close to home on.

But councilwoman, that's what we're looking at right now.

Okay, thank you, Mark.

I was just gonna add there are there are a lot of connections to the last week's beach session regarding the low bearer shelter because that is you know one of the things that that Eric Epley talked about generally on his three-legged stool example was the need for additional uh public psychiatric facilities and bed space.

Um, and and because we don't have that, they are also temporarily utilizing with funding from the hospitals, the other part of that that hotel.

So it's all really connected together, um, including the diversion center.

There's there's no question that uh before we had the low barrier shelter, we didn't have one.

Uh we did a small hotel on the east side of downtown.

It was our first ever, and and we clearly understand the need for it in the community.

It's just how best to do it, what are the best partners, and how do we how do we fund it?

I think to that point, and uh in terms of the need for a psychiatric facility.

I know that's something that the Center for Healthcare Services has proposed, and I've had a conversation with Commissioner uh Grant Moody, who also highlighted that need, and having met with some nurses from the county jail, they've shared the amount of individuals with uh dementia um going into um the Bear County jail, and when they get released, um, there's no services necessary that they're being triaged to, so there's just an increased uh need for psychiatric help.

Uh so I'm hopeful that within the ad hoc committee, we could discuss what additional phases look like beyond geodiversion to also include a psychiatric hospital.

Um some of those people may be ending up at the low barrier shelter on the back on the other side of it.

Yeah, and I think to that point, right?

To Councilman Mulgio's point rather, uh, is that there's not um there's just such a diverse need with individuals going through the process that we can't necessarily put a timeline in our expectation uh that they graduate into um permanent supportive housing or long-term housing.

It's something that we should continue to navigate by a case by case basis.

Those are all my comments.

Thank you, Mayor.

One other thing I just wanted to respond to Councilwoman um the the uh council members on city initiated tours board.

That was an issue that came up when we had that larger tourist conversation, and I think two weeks later we all the city initiated tours all now have council of appointment or council members on the boards.

That's right.

Yeah, councilwoman Spears.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um thank you, Justina and and Troy and Freddie for the presentation and and everyone who participated in the tabletop exercise.

Um a couple of general comments.

Um with respect to CPS and SALS, I think we need to proceed with the audits, the operational efficiencies, and looking at the internal cost controls.

I really think we need to be looking at that again before we start talking about the rate increases because um utility costs are going up.

And in addition, you know, with the federal funding, we do need to be as transparent with our residents as we can, especially if any of our policy decisions are gonna put these federal dollars at risk.

Um we need to be fully transparent about what's at stake and which services are gonna be impacted.

So I'm focusing a lot on how we can right-size departments, aligning our budgets with the actual spending and reducing any vacancy inefficiencies and still maintaining our service levels, anything that's been vacant for a while, then we can see that it's still functioning.

We need to just look at how we can um maybe eliminate those positions.

Um I really want to see our public safety dollars translated into improved response times and measurable crime reduction.

And when we're talking about the economic development, I completely agree with the mayor about seeking the high-paying jobs and um really looking at how we uh can get a real return on investment and change the the landscape of what our community median income really how we can raise that median income.

And I think alongside that we need to be looking at um opportunities with AI inside our operations and then outside in our our private sector as well.

So um those are just a couple general things with regard to the taxpayer impact statement.

I'm look I am fully supportive.

I want to see it be as comprehensive as possible.

I agree we should try to get everyone out there so you can see how this really will impact you as an individual.

Uh so thank you for bringing that forward, Councilman White.

And so, yeah, CPS and SAWs.

When would we be able to get this up and running?

Do we know the taxpayer comments?

So we would this would be uh incorporated into our 2027 budget.

Okay, and we couldn't we could post this online as well.

Okay, okay.

I know my residents would would really like to see that.

Um let me jump over here.

So slide 21.

This continues on that.

I'm glad to see that we're working on the looking at the efficiencies and do duplicative measures.

Let me jump over there too.

Duplication of services.

In the timeline, when are we going to be able to see that reflected?

Where's the time?

That's on 2022.

Is that in May?

So the results of the we could provide some of those in May, as long with the core versus non-core analysis that we're gonna do.

Yeah.

But the final ones would be part of the proposed budget that we would do in August.

So as we did, that's past year, you would see those in the proposed budget.

We actually have a section within the budget document that describes all those CBR um efficiencies that were identified during the process, so we could certainly provide all that.

Okay, that'd be great.

The sooner the better.

Um I completely agree though, too, with Councilman Mungia.

I need as much lead time as possible on the town halls and the work sessions so that their input feels um validated and is validated and reflected in our budget.

So I can agree with that.

I as much lead time as possible is the goal for me, because I do like to get into the budget.

This is our number one priority on council.

So uh that's my feedback on the timeline and the taxpayer impact statement.

I am glad to see in slide 17.

The uh oh no, I'm sorry, slide 19, the the squads going online in July, very supportive of that, as well as the um risk assessment for the firefighters.

That's wonderful.

And let's see.

I I want to reiterate what the mayor said about us getting serious about what we want to do at the state and federal level and our legislative agenda.

I think that's spot on, and I think a lot of opportunity is there, and the sooner we can get our head around it and be first at the table is is what we really need to be focusing on.

Uh with regard to on I skipped one slide 17.

Um we can't we we I want to reiterate what councilwoman Castillo is saying because you know I've talked to Commissioner Moody as well.

There is a real desire by the county to collaborate, and and they have a lot of influence here that we need to to work alongside them.

So I'm glad that that we're tracking on that, and I think that's that's where we need to really be thinking about um impacting that low barrier shelter because while it's the solution right now, it's not a real tenable long-term solution.

And and how do we really impact that vulnerable population in a in the most meaningful way we can.

Uh let me jump over to this.

I do I'm excited to see the core services comparison.

Um it have we identified, I know you mentioned in the tabletop we were looking at specific areas, but have we looked at any impacts on the federal funding for our core services, which are the police and fire, public works, parks, and library.

Have we identified any of that?

Or is there no impact?

In terms of the the federal so the tabletop focused on our social services, um, health human resources.

We have not done that same from and there's no plan to do that.

Not immediately, council, but but but there are two there are two um known uh potential grant opportunities or wards that are impacted.

One is the cops grant that the mayor asked about earlier that we're still in in discussions with DOJ.

And the second is a um is a homeland security grant that we're awaiting further details on.

Okay, I have so many papers.

All right, on the IMP.

I hear what you're saying about the equity.

I would also like to add that we consider as a measure or a metric usage in the impact on community, like how much a roads traveled um matters on how much it impacts the community.

So is that what you meant by the goal and the outcome when you said that?

Eric, sorry.

Well, I I think it I think it depends on how um how the outside assistance we asked for to frame it.

Um we we spent 120 million dollars roughly a year on street maintenance.

Um we have uh the last time we surveyed, we have a higher PCI than uh other comparable cities, uh pavement condition index, and we have a higher goal, but but I think I think it's resetting that goal to something that is um allocated in a way that addresses the need in the community.

Um and and I think the the trick is gonna be in what councilwoman core mentioned is whatever we come up with, how we transition to it.

Um that's gonna be the that's gonna be the trick, I think.

Okay.

Uh I'm gonna jump over.

This is in the actual report.

I had a question about the parking revenue revenues.

It said it was an unfavorable balance due to construction.

Do we have any information on when that will be a non-issue, or we'll bounce back from that?

So that's primarily at the convention center garage, the tower of America parking lot.

And so um, I think part of that was other construction going around with the demolition of the institute.

That's done.

It looks really really nice now, so I think we're gonna see that kind of recover.

Okay.

And one other one other impact is uh the work that's being at the Tower of America's because that that particular garage is is utilized for that as well.

And so as they've as uh as work is being done on the elevators and up at the top, um, they're gonna we're gonna see some impacts on the parking revenue, obviously.

Okay, okay.

And councilwoman, I just wanted to mention that fund does have about a six point three million dollar fund balance.

The the negative or the um we're not meeting our revenue projections, but the fund balance is uh we have a fund balance in that parking fund on the parking okay.

Um I do want to reiterate to this is jumping over to the tabletop, sorry.

Um slide 32.

I did I I liked the results saying that cross sector coordination.

I think I meant to bring that up when we I was talking about um the county.

I think sharing all that data and working with our um community partners and then also the other governmental entities is it's it's clear that's where we need to head at the head at this point because we're gonna have to share resources.

So I want to reiterate my uh support for that.

I'm jumping all over the place.

The last thing I wanted to ask about was the Alamo Dome, wherever it is.

So it said Paul McCartney revenues were less than expected, and we have Bruno Mars coming.

What are we gonna do to help improve that?

And then I'm just not sure.

How do we solicit these concerts and how do we improve or add addition?

Do we need to write letters to the people we want to see coming?

Because I'm happy to do that.

Well, we got Zach Taylor coming in April, so that's Zach Taylor and ACDC, but I'll I'll let Patricia talk about it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Patricia Musquiscanto, director of convention and sports facilities.

So we have a really strong uh 2026 coming up, and it wasn't just Paul McCartney.

Yes, other events underperformed, um, but we have relationships with um some of the major promoters.

Um, and we're we have you know, other than the four concerts in September, we already have SAC Bry uh Brian um in uh March.

We have ACDC in July and others that we're just getting ready to announce as well.

Oh, that's great.

But I I will tell you I'll write letters if you need it.

I think Rick will too.

I'm sorry, Councilman Galvani.

Anyway, that's all I got.

Thank you.

Before I forget, on that point, actually, um when I was in, sorry, ma'am.

If you come back up.

It'd be helpful.

I think all of us get these same questions of why doesn't so and so come here, why doesn't so and so come here?

Some of these artists only go to domed facilities, right?

So us understanding who we're never going to compete for is helpful when we talk to our constituents.

Um what it does then is also help us understand who exactly is our who's the sweet spot, right?

If these all these things operate at a loss, the convention center and the Alamo Dome, what what is manageable and and realistic, I think, in terms of who we shoot for.

Um I think that'd be really really helpful.

Definitely we can provide that.

We can provide that.

Some sometimes you you're exactly right.

Sometimes we I mean we have 64,000 seats in the building, but sometimes the promoter wants a smaller building.

And and regardless of what the revenue deal is that we can offer, sometimes they want uh the frost bank arena because it's 17 or 18,000.

So we'll we'll put that together.

I think that I I get those same questions, so I think it would be helpful for all for for you as well.

Councilmember Mesa Gonzalez.

Thank you.

Thank you to Justina and her team for uh uh providing this presentation.

Um just quickly on the feedback.

Um I'm a supportive of the timeline that was presented, uh, but also here uh feedback from other council members.

Um our residents um all have different ways of of retrieving information, and so what works for for your district, um supportive of making sure that just we um we make those changes in general to that process.

So as far as the feedback for the CCR, I'm supportive of Mark White's uh CCR moving forward.

Um I had a question on I know while the last budget session we made the necessary revenue and expense changes uh to smooth out our fiscal condition at that time.

Um I'm assuming that approach will likely need to be done again as we enter the 2027 budget and 2028 uh plan process this summer.

Is that correct?

Yes, ma'am.

Likely.

Okay, yeah, likely they would the part of the part of the forecast presentation in May is us getting that at that point, we'll have that preliminary information from the appraisal district.

Okay.

Um and we'll be able will be six months into the fiscal year, a little bit more information and then we'll project out for that 28 plan.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um, as far as uh rental and relocation assistance, and supportive of all the uh budget initiative highlights, appreciate uh the breakdown of that.

Um, the rental just a reminder, uh, the rental and relocation assistance.

Um that's related to what emergency situations or when are those funds used?

I can't remember.

Yes, they are for um anyone who's facing a financial burden and behind on rent.

Um, and we prioritize those are in the eviction process, and relocation assistance may be more than a month or two behind rent, so our rental assistance may not help you, so you may need to relocate fully to a new place.

And then that's how long is that uh support for you can get one um time of support once a year.

Okay, you can get up to three months of rental assistance.

Okay, thank you.

Uh let's see on the tabletop exercise.

I just wanted to uh thank you to uh Justina and her uh department for getting that table extra tabletop exercise done.

Also want to shout out to Dr.

Halburn with UT School of Public Health that is a resident in District 8.

We hear from economists all the time, but we don't always get to hear from health economists, so I appreciate that very much.

Um, and so I think I I understand the scenarios and appreciate the recommendations that that came from this.

It reminded me kind of triggered a memory for me during COVID when we uh put a pause on all the committees and focused primarily on homelessness and food insecurity.

Um, that was different because we were getting CARES dollars in and trying to figure out how to allocate those dollars, but still I think um that being said, I think um the team is is ready to to manage that through that, right?

Through those recommendations.

Um, but I did think it was important because we did receive a memo from government affairs department um giving us an update on where those federal dollars were.

Um the residents obviously didn't get that memo, but if we could if there's somebody here, um Sally, or to just provide that kind of a summary of of what you provided us so that the community can hear that.

Thank you, Councilwoman Massas.

Sally Baswutra Director for Government Affairs, you're correct, Councilwoman.

On February 3rd, uh the government affairs team shared a federal budget update with the mayor and council, notifying you that the president had just on that day signed into law five of the most uh important appropriations bills for the city and for this community that included DOT, uh DOD, labor, HHS, and of course, HUD.

Once again, we were very happy to report via that memo that Congress again rejected those reductions that uh normally get recommended through the kickoff of the annual budget process through the president's proposed budget.

Um great to be able to report as well that uh the majority of if not all, I believe, of the top 10 cities budget funding streams that come through the federal government that include the HUD programs like um the CDBG, the home, uh HAPWA, and others received level funding while others saw slight increases, such as uh the WIC as well as uh early head start um and the head start program.

So one year at a time, councilwoman, that process will start all over again, but uh primarily good news all the way around.

Um, I do have to recognize the work and the leadership of the extension of the government affairs team in Washington DC through our federal consultants.

Um, a big shout out to our entire congressional delegation, the senators and our house members.

We have two strong appropriators in our appropriations, House Committee, um, Congressman Henry Quayar and Congressman Tony Gonzalez who have been super helpful in helping us advocate for the city's uh priorities throughout the entire appropriations process.

So good news overall.

Thank you.

Thank you for that, Sally.

And also just on the participants.

Obviously, the nonprofits are the ones that are impacted by this, but based on the goals, um, you know, whether it was nonprofits expressing a desire for more technical assistance.

Who are the folks that do that technical assistance and how do we bring them into the discussion sooner than later?

So they're hearing about what the needs are of these nonprofits as well.

So whether it's like a NALCAB or a LISC fund, um, but those larger nonprofits that have the capacity to I guess to manage uh the recommended next steps, like formalizing this cross-sector impact working group.

Would that be you running that?

Or do you is there a consultant that comes in to help you with that?

No, we would be running it, that would be the idea.

We'd start um reaching out, so uh reached out to the partners uh to start looking who would be interested in becoming as part of that cross-sectional team, and then starting our continuing the work that we started with the um federal tabletop.

Yeah, I think that's where I would just recommend or ask if there's any way to bring in those again, those larger nonprofits that do this type of facilitation to I mean really help you honestly with that process.

So um is that something that we can consider or yes, we can look into that.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Um and also I think I wanted to second uh councilman McKee Rodriguez's point.

Um, I've uh besides any legal commitments.

Um I've heard either general fund dollars or TURS dollars being used to uh fill in those uh cuts that we're getting on the federal side.

What happens internally with departments um when you hear about those cuts coming?

Is that are you looking at the the pro are the programs that the grants fund are they kind of at that point completely cut, or is it just filtering them back down to the kind of core purpose of the grant?

I'm trying to historically it depends.

So I mean it there are there are um there are the the ebb and flow of of grant funding is constant, and and so there have been periods of time where um uh a state or a federal grant goes away or is reduced for whatever reason, and as we determine as part of the proposed budget process, is that something that we need to continue to do?

And if it is, then how do we fund it through the general fund?

Or is that something that we need to uh lessen our footprint in on and make sure that we're focused on what that target population was initially with the grant.

Um so it depends.

But I think that's why I I think there was a lot of value to the tabletop because it took that process that's kind of an internal normal process that happens anyway.

Um, and put it on steroids and said 50% of the money is uh is not coming.

What do we do?

And how do we communicate it and how do we collaborate and and how do we advocate?

So the but um uh Maria was the budget director, Justina was the budget director, Fergus, the budget director.

I worked in budget.

That's constant.

I mean, and and and uh Dr.

Jacobs knows that, and Melody.

Um there are always gonna be funding decisions, and it comes back down to how we started the conversation.

What are the priorities of the council on our goals and our outcomes?

Okay, thank you for that.

Um I don't care uh the point that councilman uh McKee Rodriguez um said related to the TURS and just the efforts that have been made to bring those goals back to center.

Um just want to make sure that we don't lose sight of those goals as we uh continue this conversation.

Uh that's it.

Thank you.

Councilman Glovan.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you to the staff uh for the presentation today and all the the work.

Uh we know, of course, this is difficult financial times, and so I'd appreciate the kind of thorough research that we always are doing and to kind of help prepare us and make it these big decisions that we'll have later on.

Um maybe going a little bit backwards, but um on the budget timeline.

Um I was talking to my team about this earlier today, and I didn't think I'd have too much to say about it, but I think you know, the community input portion, particularly within May and June with the survey.

I'm always interested in seeing other ways that we could do uh even preliminary town halls at the beginning to give residents an opportunity to really dive into like what the budget is versus it being all at once, whether it's one first round of kind of like here's the budget is here's what we normally do, here's those top funded uh programs, um, and maybe offer some kind of participation in a way of showcasing what they want to see as a full group or whatever.

Um I don't know, I just I think it'd be interesting to have the kind of hands-out activities through this process to give residents more of an opportunity to give uh more direct feedback versus maybe one topic that they've been waiting for in September to say, well, here's my one idea, here's my one thought, and then it's moving on.

Um so I think that's something I would be interested in seeing if we could.

Um maybe that's you know, per council district dependent.

Um, but that's something that I think would be really interesting just to give residents a bit more authority in these conversations earlier as well as a bit more hands-on.

Um the taxpayer statement, uh, I'm comfortable with it, of course.

Uh, I think transparency is really key there.

I'm also supportive of what Councilmember Core and Mungia mentioned about kind of detailing out anything that we can about it just because I think it's important for residents to understand what we're talking about here, right?

When we talk about um property taxes shifting or not shifting, that the number may change, but the rate is still the same or whatever it may be.

Um, and if we could ever get all the tax entities, that'd be great.

But even just a note, right?

Of what the percentage are property taxes are on our entire bill, right?

If it's you know just a small percentage, then it's important for residents to know that it's maybe not always us that's doing the big push on their on their bills.

Um I think that would just be helpful context for residents to review it and understand what it looks like uh on our end.

On the tabletop, uh very appreciative of the work that went on there.

I think it's really important that we're always looking at ways that we can continue to invest in our public health, um, our human services, and all these different things that we often talk about in the community health committee.

And I think it'd be, you know, we've been going through a lot of that that as well with the Medicaid uh waiver, and so excited to see or share the sentiment of making sure that that's wrapped up in any kind of follow-up conversations within the tabletops or future tabletop.

Um if we can get an update on that either to the community health committee and or uh to council prior to budget, the next budget conversation, I think that'd be helpful to kind of talk about just like where the staffing capacity could go, where uh programs would go.

Well, there's already kind of detailed like they wouldn't be here, um, but where they could potentially be salvaged or be placed in somewhere else externally from the city.

Um that's something that we are always kind of talking about at the community health committee about even oral health programming, right?

Who else does this right now?

Where do those uh participants go off to, um, once they receive services from us, is there somebody else?

Because I think I think that's the ultimate crux with all this that I was gonna get to a little bit later, but when we talk about just what ways that our budget, particularly in these moments um when we're facing some real real struggles here, um the conversation around, well, maybe we're not investing much here, maybe we're investing too much here, how can we scale back?

My constant concern is that if we scale back too far, who else does it?

And if it's nobody, then what?

The program's completely gone, kids don't get dental care, homeless services aren't provided, people don't have a home to go to, and the issues exacerbate.

And so it's all you know, and that's always a conversation that we have about whose real authority is it to address those issues.

But I think we need to just be honest about that, and something that residents often ask as well about well, you know, I wish the city would do this, and we go into I seen that this nonprofit do it, and the nonprofit will say we only have capacity for this much.

And so someone has to do it.

I think that's where the public uh public entities do come in, right?

That's where our tax dollars do go into to things that serve public goods at a larger scale.

Um just I'll leave that where it is, I think at the moment.

But um, one of the big questions I just wanted to ask was um on reserves, I don't remember what slide it was.

There was a couple slides regarding leading to the use of our reserves.

My big question that was just like what are the parameters for utilizing that to fill any budget gaps?

Um yeah, I'll just leave the question there in a broad statement.

So, as part of our financial policies, we have a 15% budget budgeted reserve that we adhere to, and we never we don't dip into that 15%.

Well, what you have seen in two-year balance budgets, where we'll use anything over that that additional reserves helps us to balance anything over the 15% will help us to balance 2027.

Okay, I see.

Councilman, just and just some additional context.

Um when COVID occurred and we needed to cut reduce our budget because of the free fall that was occurring in the spring, uh, we eliminated 180 million dollars of expense out of the budget and didn't touch the reserve.

The reserve is there not to fill budget gaps, it's there to provide um the financial stability of of um of the organization.

Um it is also a one-time dollar.

So if you took a dollar out of that and plugged a uh a budget gap, you you're you're spending that dollar and it's gone.

Um and then thirdly, why uh short of uh something bigger than COVID, um cities are very careful about the utilization of those dollars because that impacts things like bond ratings and interest rates and other things.

Um cities are very careful about the utilization of those dollars because that impacts things like bond ratings and interest rates and other things.

We're probably on the low end.

Um and the next time we do get our ratings report, look at the rating reports that the three rating agencies do for us.

Um we make up for it with our financial policies.

Um you know, if anything, probably one of the things that we need to do, and we I mentioned this last summer, is that it's time to probably look at that reserve policy and figure out where we need to be over the next uh five, eight, ten years.

I appreciate that.

I mean, I think I I often think about the programs right within Health and Human Services and if there are ways that we can plug in and keep staff on board, but of course that's a reoccurring cost, right?

So for the reserves may not be the best place for it, but something that I just was interested in seeing what the parameters are, and so that's helpful to know.

Um do we have any anticipation?

I know it's still early on about the trend lines that we're seeing already with any sales tax decreases, hot uh decreases about any changes to the proposed budget that we reviewed last summer.

Um we think will happen.

Or is it still consistent with what we talked about last summer?

So as far as sales tax goes and hot taxes, we will continue to monitor those.

And when we come back in May, if those revenues continue to uh decline or or not meet expectation, we'll propose um um things that we can do to mitigate and and cut on the expense side if we need to do that.

Do we also have the mid-year budget adjustment that will happen in mid-May?

That if we need to make any changes to the budget, we can use that as a as the uh the mechanism to do that.

You got it.

So nothing anticipated yet.

Yeah, and in short, the the sales taxes is well, we were we were really conservative.

Um I think it was two percent, two percent growth.

Yeah, currently it's too what where we ended up in 25, it's 2.4% growth to make the 26 budget.

And and we've we've continued to see uh through the first quarter challenges with sales tax.

Um CPS is a little bit above, and that's why we're about even in the general fund.

Um I've asked the the budget office and the finance department to go back and look through of the sectors of sales tax.

What's driving some of the changes?

Is it retail?

Is it um commercial?

Is it um industrial?

Is it construction to see where those trend lines are at?

Um but but that's something we're gonna need to continue to monitor, and when we come back in the mid-year and set the mid-year budget, we'll have better information.

Got it.

Okay, that's helpful.

I would be interested in seeing similar to the way we had the bond conversation about what the potential uh options are for changing funding sources, changing revenue sources, um, whether it's fees or it's different kinds of revenues that we have here, and seeing not only can we get to a level that maybe uh keep some of the grant funded programs available, but also what uh how we could serve our community in a bigger way, right?

When I think about stand up SA in particular, and this is a specific program, right?

But I think about overall, and we talk about our budget.

If we get some options similar to the way we talked about in the bond program that kind of shows different cases, maybe this particular program not only is funded back to where it's at now with the grant, but also how it can reach all edges of 410.

Okay.

Um I think that's a program I always talk about with residents, and it's really exciting to see all the support and good work they do there.

So many other programs too, but they're so limited because of staff, of course, uh capacity because of funding capacity, and so just kind of understanding that to give us our own options as well about not only cuts, but also what kind of places can we fund things and what that would look like.

Because I think I hear some some residents, and it's typically residents who you know are a bit more tuned in, but they'll say, you know, well, how much does it really cost the resident uh if we were to expand this program to its max capacity as possible, well, quote unquote max capacity, right?

Where every neighbor has a community center nearby them or whatever it is.

Um I think that's always something that I'm interested in seeing just so that we have those options versus saying, well, the one cent tax increase or maybe the one shift in someone's person, well, you just can't do that at all.

Um still makes you uncomfortable to think about it fully, but I think it's just it helps us kind of gauge the reality of what it could look like and what we could also deliver in terms of services, not just where we're at, but even maybe bolder services than uh before.

Thank you, Mayor.

That's all my comments for now.

Council member Viegeran confirming your not wanting to come in on the first round.

Councilmember White.

Yeah, briefly.

Um first, I just want to clarify my numbers on the on the um low barrier shelter.

It's 10,909 a person is what we're on track for.

If we only have a 10% success ratio, um, then it's 109,000 a person, and then obviously a 20% success ratio, 54,500.

Um, but I think councilman Mungia makes a great point.

Like, what is what is right here?

What what sort of metrics do we need to look at here to determine if we are having success through the low barrier program?

And um and and what is success?

Because I I'm not sure, I'm not sure we've defined that either.

So again, I I welcome the discussion, Eric, on if this this low barrier program is something we should move forward on.

Um, with respect to the taxpayer impact statement, again, thank you to all my colleagues for supporting that.

Um, Eric, in terms of getting an ordinance up to the dias um for a for a vote, when do you think the best time would be for that?

So, Councilman, I was thinking that um that we're uh proposed that the the mid-year budget ordinance is on May 14th, we would do it on May 14th separate item, but that way all the budget stuff is together, it'll be right after the property tax statements are out, so that might be helpful for the public to know as well.

That that sounds that sounds good to me.

Um finally, I'll just say on on the issue of uh the federal cuts.

Number one, I think my my colleague uh councilwoman Spears makes a great point.

Why why didn't we look at the effects of the cuts on public safety, public works, parks, etc.

So I do think that should be looked at.

Uh but I will say, as a as a general feeling on this, I think it would be a um a real mistake if we say, hey, all of a sudden we're not getting money from the federal government, we need to take from our general fund um to cover these areas.

I mean, we we have um so many core needs that we're already fulfilling with our general fund dollars, and and and we we cannot just say that we're gonna throw some of those to the side because the federal government is no longer giving us money in certain areas, so I think it'd be a big mistake to do so.

Councilmember Spears.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um so I would agree that we do need to just start looking at our legislative agenda and our um creative ways we can approach any gaps here for these different services that are would maybe not be considered the core services.

I don't think I mean I would hate to see them fall away, but it is it's difficult to for me to justify using the general fund for all of it.

But um, I think we have real opportunity at the legislative agenda and other creative measures in our private sector to um address those issues.

And I inadvertently forgot to shout out that the airport's on budget.

So good job.

Hey, Seuss and Jeff, we really appreciate that.

So thank you.

That's all.

Sorry.

Councilmember Galvan.

Just have one quick thing.

I know we talked about infrastructure equity as well, and so I'm very supportive of that, making sure that we are really serving the communities that have long been neglected or have uh not had the full service that they've uh needed uh for a long time, in particular with infrastructure.

One thing I did want to note though, with the this is just a detail that we can hash out as we create this kind of new process that we how we deliver our infrastructure was I know within of course within 410, I fully support making sure that we have the infrastructure there, particularly the basic infrastructure that hasn't been there full stop.

But I also want to make sure that we're able to still do the work with pedestrian safety outside 410, given a lot of the uh streets and roads out there were once part of market roads, uh, so that a lot of them are still 40, 45 miles an hour, uh, and we still see a significant amount of the high injury uh network being along those lines, and particularly in district six.

I mean, our major arterials, Calabra, Grissom, uh, Wiseman, um, even military out further, uh, Marbach outside of 410, Pretranko, all those places have significantly high uh pedestrian safety issues.

Um, and so I just wanted to keep those in mind as we go through that, but that can be a different conversation.

Just wanted to lay it out there.

Thanks.

Councilmember Cor.

Thanks, Mayor.

I just had a couple of additions that I wanted to add.

I actually um thank you.

I think it was um Councilmember Spider Spears that called out the parking fund balance, and I'm excited to hear that because one thing that I think we should look at is changing downtown Tuesdays to downtown Thursdays.

So I have requested um what the cost would be for that.

I know CC Doe is working on trying to figure out how much that would impact our budget.

So I'm glad to see that there's a little bit of fund balance there.

If I could get that number so we could explore with our partners, that would be awesome.

Um, and then also one other cost that I would like to see if someone from I'm not sure if this is probably solid waste, but it's street sweeping.

How if we could get a cost for how much sweet sweep sweeping would c would be if we did it on a regular cadence, that would be important.

Or is that public works?

Well, you could get it to me after our um I wanted to highlight one other thing from the budget that I found out this week.

I highlighted a public safety, but we have an integrated community service office that's led by Maria Vargas, and we increased one position in her office this year, and I had no idea how robust of a data scientist team that she had.

So I'm really excited.

Maria's heard me say it like four times this week.

But I'm really excited to see uh that partnership.

And I know this was something that Councilmember Kujigas is off, but he really pushed for growth in this department too.

So I'm excited to see that.

And then the last thing on hot, I did get a chance to discuss this briefly with Visit SA.

And I know it was mentioned that you know this was uh a trend that we saw across cities.

But one of the things that they booked heavily in October through December was medical conferences, and normally they use 85% of their room blocks, but because of travel changes, because of tariffs, because of a lot of headwinds that they were facing, they only got 58% of attendees to attend.

And so there's a lot of things that affect.

We talked about this at the Greater SATX presentation last week about how when these these things happen in a national level, they affect our ability to get international travelers.

And so that was a one big dip for them.

And then they also saw a decline in folks that are booked with a per diem government rate.

They saw that decrease too.

And so all of that to say there's ripple effects to when you just decide one day you're gonna increase tariffs across the world.

So uh important election that's starting, just wanted to make a plug for early voting because it's already begun, and just if you're listening, please go out and vote since it's already started.

Thanks, Mayor.

Has everyone spoken who'd like to speak on this topic?

Okay, great.

Um there was um in the big book of the adopted budget, a couple of sheets that I want to um encourage my colleagues to look at.

One of them is the summary of um all tax supported funds.

So what it does is as you've heard me say, it's not just kind of what we cut, but understanding what we're foregoing.

There's a really helpful list of things that helps us understand where that almost 20% of our property tax that we forego, what that is comprised of, right?

Um Eric uh said he would provide that broken out by what is kind of required by state.

But then what that does is help us understand where we have some leeway, right?

If we wanted to play with um play with some of those numbers, how we could additionally, um, if you haven't um already don't have easy access to it, we'll have that sheet that lists those things that are currently identified to close the 142 million dollar gap.

You'll see what those are.

Um, and then you'll see, frankly, how deep you have to cut if you actually wanted to add another 8 million to cover the Medicaid 1115 waivers.

Um, I want to um the the tabletop exercise, and again, thank you, Justina, um, to that group, and I'm I'm grateful that that brain trust is gonna continue and and help us think through this, think through some of these things.

Um, because as Sally rightly mentioned, uh the department most of the departments are fully funded.

Um, however, as we look at the implementation of the one big beautiful bill, the way in which our community members actually access those programs is going to be much different.

Um, whether you're talking about Medicaid, whether you're talking about some of the work requirements, SNAP, etc.

So we will see changes in need as a result of the implementation of that bill, which will begin in earnest as we go down this um go into this year.

And so, as Councilman Galvan mentioned, it exactly was the point of, you know, is there somebody else?

And oftentimes the answer is no, right?

Oftentimes the answer is no.

And if you haven't had a chance to look at some of the recommendations in here, they lay out again, um, you know, if we lost half of this, what is the impact, and then what is the recommendation?

I know some folks are are very hesitant to say, well, we wouldn't use general fund money in that.

Actually, that is the exact opposite of what our public health official says that we need to do.

For example, um, the general, for example, if we lost money on on testing on TB, we would focus all of that on syphilis and things like gonorrhea, chlamydia, latent syphilis, those things, 18,000 folks in our community we would not test.

So they actually make a recommendation, the general fund would be prioritized to continue TB services at the current levels and reduce low impact services to include administrative and operational support services across the department.

I say all that because the point of the exercise was really to help us understand what assumptions we're making and where in fact our professionals recognize that it is in the interest of public safety and public health that some of these have to be taken out of the general fund because of one, uh the lack of redundancy in our community and the threat to public health if we don't address it.

So if you haven't already, please look, um, please look at this.

There's also some other things that I think are worth some of us understanding because the impacts of them go beyond the budget year, right?

When you're looking at uh potential cuts to the healthy start program, um, as uh as the report points out, one of the things we would prioritize we would stop doing actually uh we would the program would no longer continue a fatherhood initiative.

Um when we think so.

I I know sometimes we try to draw a really dark and clear line between our public health and our public safety.

Um but some of these things become public safety issues, right?

The longer they're um not addressed on top of the economic uncertainty and instability that contributes, as we know, to public safety um challenges in our community.

So if you haven't had a chance, uh take a take a deeper dive into that because there are absolutely um uh recommendations that would impact our our general fund and things we may need to consider as some of these other social programs are need to be implemented in a different way.

Okay.

Um part, Justina, you you hit it on the head, but I want to make sure when we're looking at this, it's not just the communities that would be impacted, but making sure that it's also the community members that would help us fund some of these things.

So what I'd like us to do is make sure we bring together the Area Foundation and Cronky group and some of the others that that help to help them kind of wrap their heads around what we're seeing, our understanding of risks and uh and how we may be able to um how we may need their help moving forward in that regard.

Um, Eric, I'm gonna I'll I'll follow up um separately regarding some of the things I think there's a couple of big ticket items that we really want to make sure we have a good understanding of where we are versus where we want to be, whether that's kind of sidewalks, pavement, streets, so some of those things that we can be looking at in the next um couple of weeks or so.

That's so we're ready for that um May engagement as as quickly as possible.

Okay.

Okay.

Barring any final comments around the table.

Great.

Um, we do have public comments, um, folks, so but the time is now 3 31 and this meeting is adjourned.