On Wednesday, August 26, 2026, at 2:01 p.m., the City of San Antonio City Council convened a budget work session to review proposed fiscal year 2027 budgets for the Convention & Sports Facilities, Arts & Culture, Visit San Antonio, and Airports departments. The meeting lasted until 5:10 p.m. and featured presentations by department directors, followed by questions and discussion from council members. No formal votes were taken; the session was informational in advance of budget adoption.
Good afternoon. The time is now 2 01 p.m. on Wednesday, August 26, 2026, and the City of San Antonio budget work session is called to order. Madam Clerk, please call roll. Councilmember Corps. Councilmember Mickey Rodriguez. Present. Councilmember Via Gran. Councilmember Mungia. Councilmember Castillo. Councilmember Galvan. Here. Councilmember Alarete Gavito. Councilmember Mesa Gonzalez. Councilmember Spears. Councilmember White. Mayor Jones. Here. Mayor we have corn. Great. Thanks, Madam Clerk. So today we'll be reviewing the following departments convention and sports facilities. Visit San Antonio Arts and Culture as well as the airport. Maria, over to you. Thank you, Mayor. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. As you mentioned, Mayor, we have four presentations today. I would recommend we take them all together as a group and then open it up for questions. So if you're good with that, we'll we'll start with our convention and sports facilities, and uh our director, Patricia Cantor Musquis will start the presentation. Good afternoon, Mayor and uh City Council. Uh once again, I'm Patricia Musquis Cantor. I'm the director of convention and sports facilities department. Thank you for your time as I present my department's FY27 proposed budget. Today I will cover uh the Hotel Occupancy Tax Fund, our department facilities and proposed budget, contract compliance and monitoring enhancements for our department, major capital planning for the convention center in Alamo Dome, as well as contract extensions for Visit San Antonio, the tourism public improvement district, and WOOF Stadium. This uh first slide shows the current hotel occupancy tax rate in San Antonio of 17 percent. This tax breaks down into three parts. Six percent goes to the state, two percent to Bear County, and nine percent goes to the city. Of the city's portion, two percent pays for capital projects and debt service at the convention center. The remaining seven percent supports eligible tourism-related activities and contributes, 15 percent to the arts and culture department, 15 percent to history and preservation, 35 percent to visit San Antonio, and up to 35 percent to support our convention facilities in fiscal year 27, hotel occupancy tax collections are projected at 109.4 million dollars. This is about a 20 percent increase since 2018. Our fiscal 26 collections look slightly higher only because they include about uh two million in back taxes. With that funding context, this next slide shows the facilities under our direction. The CSEF department oversees the operations of the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, the Alamo Dome, and the Carver Center. We also manage the leases for Nelson Wood Stadium and Toyota Field. These facilities are more than just venues, they are major economic drivers for San Antonio's 23.4 billion tourism and hospitality industry. For example, the 2025 Men's Final Four had an um had an economic, an estimated economic impact of over 440 million dollars. Thanks in part to her great convention center, the U.S. News and World Report, also named San Antonio as the ninth best conference city in the nation this year. The Alamo Dome is booming as well.