InfuseSA’s Top Ten Concerns about San Antonio’s Budget

Child’s play?

Here are our Top 10 concerns about the City of San Antonio’s proposed budget: 

  • $10 million for the Edwards Aquifer Protection Program

The sales tax that used to fund this now goes to the Ready to Work (RtW) program.  To compound matters, funding it has been moved to the city’s credit card balance.

Going from a dedicated source to another drain on property tax payers is not a prudent direction. 

  • Weatherization instead of rebates

Many on the council support this use of the $75 million CPS surplus.  Some have suggested it would allow the city to control residents’ thermostats.

To be sure, many of us employ that system, but we do so voluntarily.  Strings-attached like these hook people on government dependence.

  • $3.6 million to hire 50 police officers

The catch?  It’s federal grant money.  38 would be hired without Uncle Sam.  Why should non-San Antonians fund the other 12 cops?  Why should we fund theirs?

This ‘free’ money feeds endless government spending.  It’s what enabled local governments to crack down on citizens when the coronavirus hit. 

  • “The budget reduces the City’s property tax rate by 1.67 cents.”

How can the city raise exemptions, cut the rate, but taxes still go up?  Inflation!  That translates into soaring property appraisals on the local level. 

If their “no new taxes” mantra from the spring’s bond drive meant anything, they would cut the rate over 13%.    

  • “The City of San Antonio continues to strive to be an ‘employer of choice’”

No private sector company should have to compete with CoSA, whose “budget increases the entry wage from $15.60 to $17.50.”

Not only does this signal a bloated government.  It also means citizens are paying yet again for CoSA’s persistence at keepings things shut down as long as they could early in the pandemic.    

  • “City Response to COVID-19”

Citizens must push back on the “negative economic impact of COVID-19”/“exacerbated by the pandemic” narrative. 

Aside from the health implications, we’ll never know what impact the virus itself had.  Scared or authoritarian politicians and bureaucrats dropped the hammer on society before we could find out. 

  • Performance measures and funding levels

“Attendance at cultural events” is estimated to be roughly the same as in 2021, but funding rises by almost $4 million (51%)?  The Department of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) gets a 73% hike to $3.1 million?

Does this budget count as a “city practice” that citizens can report as “waste, fraud and abuse” to the DEI?  That would be a worthy metric by which to base its performance.

  • Animal Care Services

Residents have expressed alarm at the increasing number of dog packs.  Some no doubt made up the 88,000 calls to 311 this year.  How many also counted as service requests that were closed with no action taken?

Part of the 15% bump to $21 million ACS requests is for a $1.2 million metal pole barn to house animals for transport programs.  If they hire no more animal control officers, how will these packs get there?

  • Low-hanging fruit adds up

We spend $12,500 to chat with other governments about how to “advance opportunities for all,” $50,000 on a 20-year old program for “the development of high-speed intercity” monorail, and $25,000 for a national conversation on transportation.

Almost $2 million is devoted to various “economic” outcomes.  How many more of these knicks to the taxpayer could be cut so we can handle our own “economic development”?

So said a councilman when questioned about it at a budget townhall.  To an extent, he had a point.  Like RtW, Pre-K 4 SA was passed by voters. 

However, would they approve it today knowing it spends almost 3-times as much per student as NISD does?  What about the missed-targets and growing welfare payments of the plodding RtW? 

Leaders should know the likelihood of government programs turning out this way before selling such snake oil to voters.

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