The San Antonio City Council held a budget work session on Wednesday, September 16, 2026, beginning at 1:39 PM, to finalize amendments to the proposed FY2027-2028 budget. The session centered on whether to adopt a property tax rate increase, implement across-the-board spending cuts, or a combination of fee increases and targeted reductions. The city manager presented a list of potential amendments totaling $6.1 million over two years, along with revenue adjustments and expense reductions to maintain a balanced budget. No final vote was taken; the city manager committed to preparing a memo reflecting the council's guidance for the following day's budget vote.
Good afternoon. The time is now 139 p.m. on Wednesday, September 16th, 2026 in the City of San Antonio budget work session is called to order. Madam Clerk, please call roll. Councilmember Corr. Councilmember McKee Rodriguez. Councilmember Viegan. Here. Councilmember Munguya. Present. Councilmember Castillo. Here. Councilmember Galvano. Here. Councilmember Aldarete Gavito. Oh, here. Councilmember Mesa Gonzalez. Councilmember Spears. Here. Councilmember White. Mayor Jones. Here, Mayor We have Corm. Great. Thank you. All right. Time is now. Eric, over to you if you want to review the budget amendments as proposed. Thank you, Mayor. So Justina's gonna get a short PowerPoint on the memo that we uh issued you all last uh night. And then uh part two of that are I committed to bringing back to you some of the items in um scenario A that gave me a little bit of pause. Um so we'll present that to you uh this afternoon and then hand it back over to you all for the conversation. Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council. My name is Justina Tate, I'm the assistant city manager, and today, as Eric mentioned, we are uh want to review the proposed or potential amendments that were included in the memo that was sent last night, as well as potential revenue adjustments and expenses to maintain a balanced budget. And finally, we'll go over those uh reductions that are included in uh alternative A that we may reconsider uh if a tax rate is not uh included. A tax rate increase is not included. So, in terms of the potential amendments, there includes eight items for a total of about 6.1 million over two years. This includes restoring the funding for the part-time nutrition site at Darner. This provides for after school challenge for the Southwest independent school districts of about 50,000 each year. It restores tuition reimbursement for city employees, and it also adds 10 uh San Antonio fear-free environment or safe police officers. This would be one safe officer for each council district. Number five restores the San Antonio Education Partnership Scholarships for one semester at about 1.1 million dollars for one in fiscal year 2027. It also restores funding for one position that supports cultural initiatives in the Office of History and Preservation, and restores the funding for the gastronomy program for World Heritage. And finally, through council carry forwards, it's proposed uh to reinstate the funding for DSE SACE, and this would be funded through carry forwards for mayor and city council. So the next two slides will show how we'll uh fund those those additions to the budget. So, first I'll talk about potential revenue increases. So the first would increase the booting fee from $60 to $120, and that would generate about $16,000 over two years. The second is to increase vacant lot and dangerous premise abatement administration administrative fees from $250 to $400, which would generate an additional about $170,000 over the two years. Number three increases parking fines, which generates almost a half a million over two years, and increasing the river barge ticket fees for adult non-residents from 15 to 20 dollars, generating about 2.8 million over two years. The last two are to increase the hazmat fees for retail gas stations from 150 to 173 for those that have 30,000 or less gallons, and from 600 to 690 for those that have more than 30,001 gallons, and this generates about $60,000 over the two years. And finally, uh the non-resident fee for library card would increase the proposed budget, includes a new revenue of $20 per library card for non for non uh city of San Antonio residents.