City Council - Regular Meeting

Telling you everything's gonna be okay.

Believe in his thoughts. I sit with the stillness. I'm hearing his voice.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon. If my colleagues can please make their way to their seats expeditiously. The time is now 02:10 p. M. On Wednesday, 04/29/2026, and the city of San Antonio is called to order. Madam Clerk, please call roll.

Council member Pour. Present. Council member Villegron. Here. Council member Munguilla. Present. Council member Castillo. Here. Council member Galvan.

Here.

Council member Albrecht Cabito? Here. Council member Mesa Gonzales? Here. Council member Spears? Here. Council member White is here virtually?

Here.

Mayor Jones? Mayor pro tem McKee Rodriguez?

Present.

Mayor pro tem, we have quorum.

Wonderful. This meeting we will hear well, first off, thank you all for being here today. This meeting we will hear two briefings and discuss them separately. The first is the Human and Homeless Services strategy Services and strategy consolidated funding process. Eric, do you wanna get us started?

Yes sir, thank you. Good afternoon mayor and council. So the first briefing is a post solicitation briefing on our delegate agency process. If you recall we had a lot of conversation as part of last year's budget and a pre solicitation with the council. In this year's budget, agencies are funded for only partial part of the year.

So the RFP solicitation you'll get an update on today. It will eventually recommend funding for the rest of the fiscal year from June 1 to the end of the fiscal year. Fiscal year '27, pending council allocation of funds through the '27 budget. And then an extension period afterwards. The request for proposals was issued on December 1 and closed at the January. Mel and Justine will walk through the post solicitation. We had a number of outside groups that were involved in the scoring and the review. And I will turn it over to Mel to walk us through the presentation.

Good afternoon, mayor pro tem and council members. So I'm Melody Woosley, human services director. And this is a joint process, and so Patrick Steck, Homeless Services and Strategy Assistant Director, is also here to provide detail on homeless service recommendations. This presentation provides a briefing on those funding recommendations that Eric mentioned, and I will start by saying that we received an unprecedented number of really good and thoughtful proposals for very important community services. A 125 proposals were submitted by 72 different agencies requesting more than 55,600,000, nearly three times the amount of funding that's available.

Human Services and Homeless Services appreciate how much time and effort that agencies put into crafting their applications. We are excited to recommend new programs and services that will help us achieve our goals, but given the funding available and the amount requested, there are also currently funded programs that are not recommended or they are recommended for reduced amounts. You have a binder that provides additional detail regarding RFP responses, including recommendations by priority area. A five year funding history and program descriptions. The QR code that's on the back of your binder, right

there,

sort of unlocks the dashboard for performance of consolidated agency funding. So, this afternoon, I will provide a brief background on the process, consolidated funding process, review the available budget for consolidated funding, information on the solicitation and evaluation processes, funding recommendations, and conclude with next steps. The funding pool invests in community based services that support human and homeless services programs and priorities. The fiscal year twenty six adopted budget included twelve month contracts for designated programs and eight month contract renewals to competitively awarded programs. In October, I provided a pre solicitation briefing to gather counsel feedback on a revised funding strategy.

We issued the fiscal year twenty six and '27 requests for proposals on December 1. The RFP closed on January 26, and we evaluated proposals through February and March. And so, the '26 adopted budget includes 24,500,000 in total for consolidated funding. I will quickly walk through how that funding is used. First, the 20,000,000 is general fund and 4,500,000 is grant funding, primarily from specific homelessness services.

Throughout the adopted budget, city council designated twelve month awards to eight agencies totaling 10,300,000 to ensure that continued support for critical services in the community. The funding pool was also reduced by a total of $741,000, 500,000 based on a history of under spending by agencies, and 241,000 from budget amendments. After designating agencies and applying reductions, 14,200,000 remained for essential and discretionary awards in fiscal year twenty six. Almost 10,000,000 was allocated for those eight month contract extensions, and the reserve balance of 4,300,000 is intended to be awarded through this solicitation. Next week's A session item requests council approval of sixteen month contracts for the period 06/01/2026 through 09/30/2027.

Designated funding awards are not part of this RFP and will be considered in the 2027 budget process. And so, based on council's policy direction last year, the process focuses on three main pillars. Clearly defining designated and competitive funding to enhance strategic alignment, categorizing essential services that directly support city programs, and discretionary services that align with city priorities, but are not tied to city programs. The RFP also requested city funded programs prioritize referrals from city initiatives such as Next Level Youth Opportunity Program or city council offices. We also diversified engagement strategies to use existing feedback such as the SA Speak Up budget survey, gather more information from and feedback from non profit partners, and continue to strengthen our work with other local funders.

We also simplified this process to improve access and transparency by standardizing performance metrics along funding priorities and across funders where possible. Reducing the number of metrics collected to capture the most important data in the simplest way possible. We don't need to ask agencies to submit two or three different reports to two or three different entities for the same program. And updating RFP scoring to include points for programs demonstrating sustainability, collaboration, and return on investment. And so, just briefly at the October briefing last year, you heard from the Kronkowski Foundation about the important work that is in progress with community funders to align investments including City of San Antonio investments towards collective impact.

We continue to participate with local funders including Kronkoski, San Antonio Area Foundation and the United Way to move towards streamlined processes, common reporting, indicator dashboards that reflect collective outcomes, and shared training to help partner agencies build capacity. And so, table shows the amount of funding that's available for fiscal year twenty six and fiscal year twenty seven. Consolidated funding compared to 2025 levels. And it's organized by designated essential and discretionary programs. Overall, the table is showing the impact of changes to designated awards, and that included the Family Violence Prevention Services moving from competitive to designated, the applied reductions and small increases to grant funding.

For FY 2027, proposed contract awards are contingent upon city council approval of the fiscal twenty seven adopted budget. There we go. So, this is a high profile solicitation process and we are recommending $19,100,000 in awards for sixteen month contract terms. This includes the $4,300,000 held in reserve, plus the 14,800,000 estimated for fiscal year 2027. And, I hate to be repetitive, but this is subject to city council adoption of the fiscal year twenty twenty seven budget.

Human Services and Homeless Services and Strategy, in coordination with finance, held one pre submittal conference and three training and technical assistance workshops. We received 125 proposals from 72 agencies requesting over 55,000,000. Finance and the city auditor's office conducted due diligence reviews with no material findings identified. Staff recommendations, if approved, would award funding to 81 programs. 55 are currently funded, plus 26 new programs.

13 programs funded in twenty twenty six budget are not recommended, including seven programs that did not apply. And so, proposals were reviewed and scored by nine different evaluation panels with 50 reviewers. The majority, 62%, were external and the others were city staff from human services, homeless services, health parks, and integrated community safety office. External reviewers included individuals with lived experience, and representatives from boards and commissions, other government organizations like Adult Protective Services, educational institutions, colleges, universities and school districts, non profits such as LISC and Centro, and community funders, United Way and Workforce Solutions Alamo. Direction to panel members before they did their proposal reviews emphasized that they should focus on programs, alignment with city priorities, and on purchasing services in areas of identified need rather than funding agencies.

Total proposal scoring was 100 points, and included points the points for sustainability, collaboration, and ROI, And an additional 10 points for the local preference program was included this year. Over the next four slides, I will summarize recommendations for each priority category, including both essential and discretionary programs. Funding recommendations also include new programs and agencies who have never been funded or have not been funded for a number of years. For example, American Indians in Texas, Texas Diaper Bank, Lighthouse for the Blind, Children's Shelter, House of Neighborly Services, and San Antonio Youth Centers. So, a total of 6,500,000 is recommended for sixteen month awards to fund 39 children and youth services programs.

In fiscal '25, funded programs provided services to almost 14,000 children, youth, and their families. These programs support City of San Antonio initiatives, including the Domestic Violence Collaborative's referrals for child abuse prevention. And education, training, soft skills, and counseling for opportunity youth at next level. As well as caregiver respite, parent education, and supportive services for at risk and special needs and medically challenged children. Out of school time programming for children and youth, mentoring and paid internships to prevent school dropout, and career exploration, college, and military readiness.

1,800,000 is recommended for 14 programs from 12 agencies in the strengthening families category. In 2025, programs in this area provided services to over 13,000 households and individuals. Recommended programs directly support city initiatives, including domestic violence collaborative referrals for crisis intervention, financial empowerment centers offering free one on one financial counseling, and volunteer income tax assistance. In addition, the Integrated Community Safety Office Violent Crime Reduction Plan is also included. 3,100,000 is recommended to support senior independence.

Through the RFP, Human Services specifically sought proposals to provide programming in city operated senior centers. 13 programs are recommended for funding to provide activities and education at the centers and supportive services for members and their caregivers. In fiscal year twenty five, 11,600 older adults participated in classes held by the agencies, including fitness and arts, technology, education, monthly food commodity programs, and referral services for members who may need to transition out of senior centers. And, we are also requesting council approval of a sixteen month contract with Beale House Arts in the amount of $100,000 to maintain arts programming provided at our centers. Beale House did not apply for funding, and no agencies submitted a proposal through the RFP to provide arts classes.

Homeless Services and Strategy Department is recommending 6,700,000 to 15 programs. This is from 10 agencies for services that support the goal of ending homelessness. Almost 11,000 individuals were served through these programs in fiscal year twenty five. Recommended programs support city initiatives and community wide strategies to address homelessness in our community. Services for chronic homeless are prioritized, but recommendations also support services for homeless youth, families, veterans, and those living with HIV AIDS.

These services include prevention and rental assistance, basic needs such as showers and meals, emergency shelter and rapid rehousing, and street outreach with case management and supportive services. And looking ahead to the fiscal year twenty nine and thirty consolidated funding cycle and subject to city council direction, we will explore outsourcing of discretionary contracts to an external funder to manage the process, which would include selection, monitoring, and fiscal oversight. Based on initial assessment, potential benefits could include leveraging our local philanthropy network, greater clarity of the funding landscape to avoid duplication, and consolidated application and reporting processes for funding for funded agencies. Potential considerations may include higher administrative costs to manage and monitor contracts, which would or could decrease the amount of funding available to purchase services. And, the city may have less control over investment decisions.

And so, our next step is to bring recommendations for essential and discretionary competitive contracts forward to city council for consideration next week. Pending approval, human services and homeless strategy and services will negotiate and execute sixteen month contracts with fiscal year twenty seven funding subject to city council adoption of the budget. Contracts would begin on June 1 and go through 09/30/2027. And fiscal year twenty twenty eight funding renewal would be subject to performance, funding availability, and city council approval. That concludes my presentation and Patrick and I are happy to answer your questions regarding this process.

Thank you Melody for the presentation. I'm eager to see that we are finally at this point. I know for many of the organizations in audience and those watching and who have been engaged in this process, I know that for a number of our partners and organizations that provide very necessary and vital services, the funding landscape is very challenging. And that's in part, I imagine, one of the reasons we receive such a large number of quality applications. As an educator, one of the investments for next fiscal year that makes me proudest is our investment of over $5,000,000 in opportunity youth, 1,200,000 in youth dropout prevention, and almost $1,000,000 in college, career, and military readiness.

When we invest early in youth, I'm certain that we'll find out that years down the line we are saving millions in the need for services. By investing in youth, we're proactively addressing future poverty rates, education attainment levels, domestic violence, crime, homelessness, and so much more. And so, for all the organizations who were ultimately chosen, thank you for your service and congratulations on this selection. For the organizations who were not chosen, please know that we value your efforts and the work that you do in our city and we hope that as opportunities become available in the future that you maintain that desire to partner and work with us. The need is absolutely greater than the resources that we have available to us.

And so, as we navigate this budget deficit over the next several years, one of my personal goals will be to preserve funding for our non profits who we know provide services that we as a city don't always have the capacity to, but are also absolutely necessary to achieving our broader goal of a much more prosperous city. Shifting my hat back to District 2, I am interested in as much data that you can provide on services provided within District 2 and for each of the council districts I imagine as well that information will be helpful for each organizations who are selected for awards. Do we have an idea of how quickly you might be able to provide that information?

So through the RFPs we did collect data on by council district number of people served. But given the number of applications and the amount, we're gonna need to go we can we can add all of that up, but it it won't be as high. So we need to go back and negotiate the contracts. This is how much you're receiving, what's the change to the number of people you'll serve. But just looking at it briefly, I can tell you that it looked like District 2 is about 10 of the proposed clients.

Through negotiations, we would be asking agencies to make sure they're serving those areas of needs that are identified in the proposal. And so that may change some of those percentages.

Thank you. I appreciate that and I appreciate you having that 10% number at least somewhat ready even if it's not a 100% accurate. When I think of 10% I think of an equal share of the pie and that doesn't quite read as equity to me especially when my team and I are fielding calls and we understand the need that exists in District 2 and in many of our inner city districts is much greater than maybe 10%. And so, I want to ensure that we're viewing all of our investments through a lens of equity and I'd like to convey to all of the awardees and to you certainly as as you navigate those contracts that the communities that are most in need are the ones who are being served wherever they may be in our city. We don't want to see any communities left behind and I know for for sure what has been conveyed over the years to me is that District 2 is left behind in these investments and is not always at the forefront of the minds of some of our leaders.

So moving on to other questions, one of my requests was that we utilize these funds to help us achieve our crime prevention goals And, I saw that mentioned in one of the the latter slides. I'd like to know how we plan to work with these organizations as we move towards phase three of our violent crime prevention plan. Will organizations be expected to reserve funds for their involvement as needed within certain hot spots? What would that look like?

They'll certainly be asked to prioritize them and I think Maria Vargas is here. Do you want to speak to how you want to how you plan to do that?

Good afternoon. Maria Vargas, director of Integrated Community Safety. One of the primary reasons we're looking to leverage this consolidated funding process is for phase three focused deterrence, which looks to conduct outreach to violent offenders in the community. So these are individuals who have criminal histories for violent offenses. And what we're looking to do is what some in criminology refer to as pulling levers.

Which is where you essentially offer the individual two options. If they continue to commit offenses in the community, whether they are violent or petty, we look to intervene with law enforcement and let them know that it's not going to be lenient punishment, that we are scrutinizing their activity and that we do intend to provide per criminal justice procedures with the DA the appropriate but swift punishment for those crimes. But that they have the option to take a service or a variety of services. And so these delegate agencies can provide those services with us. So whether it's education and employment opportunities, meeting basic needs, which oftentimes is the case such as housing stability, immediate food or family needs like diapers or child care or transportation so that they can go to those GED classes or those courses to get certificates for employment.

Or if it's something like mental health counseling, is something that's also a common need with these individuals who not only may be offenders or perpetrators of violent crime, but often victims of violent crime themselves. So mental health counseling or even physical medical needs. And so the spectrum of services is quite broad, as you just heard. And so these agencies can help us to provide those services based on that individual circumstance, so that they have an opportunity to choose a different path.

Thank you. That is, I'll say that is very pleasing to me to hear. And so, I do want to make sure that everything that I heard remains true throughout the entire process and that as we prepare and finalize those contracts that SAPD and the Office of Integrated Community Safety is engaged to ensure that these organizations effectively help us address our violent crime program. But, yeah, that's wonderful. Can you please run back slide 15 for me? What originally caught me by surprise, this is an area that counsel is being asked to provide feedback. Are you hoping for this feedback today or in a future at a future meeting? It will not this one. One it was the one that was just up.

They brought it up and I changed it. So what was the question?

I'm

sorry. The question is, is this feedback that you're looking for today or is this feedback that you're looking you'll be looking for in a future meeting?

This is something we would do over the next couple of years to prepare for fiscal year 2930. And we would look for council feedback today or next week at a session on whether you want us to do that.

Can you describe in, I guess in effect what the difference would would be between what we do now and what we would be doing here?

So the difference would be what we would recommend is only outsourcing the discretionary portion. So that's about 5 and, 4 and a half million. Those are the programs that are meeting city and community priorities, but aren't necessarily tied to our individual programs like ICSO, violence prevention, or next level youth opportunity, or our senior centers. We would recommend keeping those in house so that we can have more control over how they're working along with our programs. But discretionary, like I said, is not tied to current programs and so it could be worked into another local funder's process.

Sourcing a pool of funding for another for an outside entity to allocate those funds.

Right. Right. And potentially so United Way is an example. They also serve fund programs that serve youth, safety net, family strengthening. So there's a lot of similarities, and they would I potentially integrate those funds with the process they're already running.

Councilman, just the council talked a little bit about this last year both during budget and during the presolicitation. I don't think it would be as easy as just let somebody else allocate it. I mean we would have city funds. There would be the benefit of having a community effort, whether that's with Kronkowski or United Way or these other funders. I guess part of the conversation that some of the council members had last week, or last year, and it makes sense in my mind.

If we participated, these are the things we would tell them we want to achieve, right? These are the things that are important. These are our five priorities. It wouldn't be as easy as just allocate our dollars and let us not go. So we'd have to give some, I think it would make sense for the council to weigh in and give directions and spending priorities.

It would just be maybe saving on some of the administrative overhead, both here and at the other funders. I think other funders probably find themselves in a position where we're all funding agencies. And sometimes the question is are we funding the same thing for the same agencies? So how do we de conflict that? I think we would have, if we went down that path in 2029, it would have to be with a lot of guidance from the council and the city.

Thank you. I have a few reservations about that concept, but if we did take that path forward, what I would imagine, I would like to see is that of course we do have that conversation as a council about what our priorities are, how we expect that money is spent, and what goals we're hoping to achieve through it, and that we have measurable we have ways to hold that agency accountable to achieving those goals. I would love to begin council discussion, but no one is signed up in the queue. Council member Adorete Carita.

Thank you chair. Thank you Melody for this presentation and I definitely want to commend the work of DHS and all the nonprofits in in the community. Prior to me serving on council, was a nonprofit executive director, so I I understand the grind extremely well. And and I do want to say that the the nonprofits in our community, it goes without saying, they impact so many lives in the city of San Antonio. So thank you so much for all of your work.

That being said, know, I know that I have been vocal in that, you know, our our city budget is not meant to be all things to all people, we have to focus on our core services. You know, right now I have a project in District 7 of a stretch of sidewalk that has been promised to residents for years now, and we're $4,000,000 short. And I mean the the this stretch of road is extremely high traffic, actually we just got an image from a resident yesterday about a four car pile up right there, right. And so you know, you just have these stretches of roads and broken sidewalks that we all have in our in our districts. And and those are services, sidewalks are is infrastructure that residents expect the city to solve for.

And so, you know, we can outsource police. We can outsource firefighters, so those are those are again core services that the city needs to solve for. And so, tough decisions have to be made because we are coming up on a budget deficit and we cannot, our budget cannot solve all things to all people. I would challenge us that this is the time to get innovative, right? I mean, in times of of of hardships, this is the time to think differently.

And so, you know, I've had many conversations with different nonprofits who have come by our office and and have put that challenge in front of them of, like, how can we think differently? Because there is no doubt that the work is important, it's just about the funding sources that people are getting it from. So there was a couple questions, Melody, that I I did have on oh god. On slide five, city council policy direction. I know that we had talked about this in the past, but, you know, there were some other ideas that we talked about, and I'd love to hear what y'all's recommendations are in terms of sunsetting some of these non profits.

I think as a non profit executive director, it's extremely important to have clear expectations, and so if they know, hey, the city can fund if I'm gonna go in for city funding, maybe they fund me 60% the first year, 40% the next year, 20% this year after and then I'm done. Have we done

anything or do we have any proposed recommendations on that? We have looked at that in the past and recently also talked about what those options could look like. And so we can put that together and provide that follow-up before a session next week.

Perfect. Yeah that's definitely something I would like for us to look at. Again to, so that way we are setting the proper expectations with with our non profits because we all have extremely tough decisions to make as we're preparing for this budget deficit. And so I think working with our partners as far in advance as possible is is is something that would be helpful. Sure. On slide number five, under strategic alignment, it says prioritize essential programs supporting council priorities and city programs. So where do where do we see those council priorities and city programs that were mentioned?

So it's it's the things where we have strategic plans. So there's a strategic plan to end homelessness, there's strategic senior services plan, there's the violence prevention plan now. So those are the kind of things that we're trying to support. In addition, we operate programs ourselves like Next Level Opportunity Youth Center and our comprehensive seniors centers is probably the best example. If we don't have agencies Mhmm. We don't have activities in the center, if we don't have those programs.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely like to see, you know, the plans that we're trying to align these nonprofits to, just so that we all are very clear on on how on the buckets that they fall into. Because, you know, again, for instance, you know, I'm seeing like SAMSAT.

SAMSAT, the science San Antonio Museum of Science and Technology, they do great work. But, you know, when I'm seeing that in, you know, family violence work, you know, I'm I'm kind of scratching my head a little bit on on why we're awarding funding that way. And and also too, I'm curious about for some of our nonprofits, if they do have other options for fund for funding sources, how are we kind of pushing them to look at those other options, you know. Again, these are all very difficult conversations, but but I think that as far in advance as we can have those conversations, the more helpful it is, not only for us, as we have to make tough decisions on core services, but also for them so that they can have those those expectations. Do and thank you for the breakdown of of the agency summary, how much we're giving them.

One of the other questions I had is that, you know, like, for instance, and this is not an I'm just using it as an example. Like, communities in schools does amazing work. Mhmm. But we see two big chunks of money in two different buckets, a $300,000 allocation and a $200,000 allocation. So half 1,000,000 for that program. Can you explain to me like why why we we broke that down? Sure. So

the larger contract supports the next level opportunity center. They provide the coaching, mentoring, soft skills training, counseling services for youth who go through that program. Goodwill is the other agency that we contract with to provide education and workforce coaching The at the other program CIS has is school based. And so that program is helping out risk youth prevent dropout. Okay. So even though

we see their total of close to half 1,000,000, they're just applying for different buckets.

Different different programs and services.

Okay. Got it. Got it. Is it possible for us to see and and I'm not sure if we asked this on the application, because I do think all the applications are public. Mhmm. I don't know if there's a breakdown here. But I'm curious, for these nonprofits, how much of their funding is going to help San Antonians, and how many San Antonians? So for you know, there has to be a ratio there for how much we're giving them and how many people are actually taking advantage of the service.

Right. So we so when we fund an agency, they report monthly on who they're serving, districts one through 10. Mhmm. If they are serving anyone outside the city of San Antonio, they report that as well. Okay. It's generally a very small percentage. For example, our senior centers are we're funded by the federal government for meals to serve Bexar County. Mhmm. So, will have more Bexar County, balance of Bexar folks there. Mhmm. But, for the for the most part, the agencies are serving districts one through 10.

Okay. Yeah. It it and you know, it'd be interesting to see, especially as our our funds are gonna get tighter, to see, you know, if we're funding them x x amount, how how many they're serving with that. And and I don't think that's the only KPI we should be looking at, but but I think it is an important data point so that we can see as our funds are getting tighter, where we're getting the most bang for our buck. Right. Because, you know, I'm not sure we're able to sustain all the nonprofits, you know. So so if we could look at that ratio that would that would be helpful.

Sure. And that's a measure that we track with every single I

was gonna say I'm sure you'll have the data. It's just putting it together so that way we can look at that. Let me see. I we did get some feedback, and it's and it's it's not negative feedback, it's just a it's just a place of not knowing about the after school challenge, I see that they're designated a pretty significant award. We have heard some mixed reviews, and so are they able to present to us in a b session or or a different or in community health or whatever, just so that way we can fully understand their impact.

I think that'd be a good idea.

Perfect. Thank you. I need the requirements. Give Give me one second. One of the things, you know, that I do think is important is that a lot of these programs that are being funded to help with youth education, obviously youth education is extremely important, and we know that our public education system is extremely underfunded by the state, But I think that there's a case to be made on why we need to be putting youth education on the city of San Antonio's legislative agenda.

Because it's like the state's not paying for it, and so it all falls on us. And so when it falls on us, then we can't pay for sidewalks that residents want, or we can't pay for enough ACS patrol officers to prevent dog attacks, right? And so I do think that we need to start getting extremely aggressive on pushing this at the state level, So that way, I mean, again, residents are demanding ACS officers. They're demanding sidewalks. And so those are the things that we we need to prioritize. Thank you. Those are my comments. Thanks.

Thank you. Council member Mesa Gonzalez followed by council member White.

Thank you, mayor Pro Tem. Thank you to Melody and your team for providing this input. I'm supportive of of our funding our delegate agencies and appreciate the slide six on the community funders alignment because I just think it's crucial that we are aligning with those folks doing this day in and day out, whether it's United Way or Krumkowski. And so I'm glad to see that there was alignment there. I had a couple of just questions on the, to clarify, I might have missed this, but the 4,000,000, is that on the federal grants? That's part of that?

There's $24,000,000 numbers you're seeing. So one

Or can you clarify how much of it is in federal grants?

It's 4,500,000.

4.5. And what Well, that's state

and federal, but most is federal.

And can you provide some examples of what that goes towards?

So the state dollars come from TDHCA, the homeless services and shelter program. And that's about $280,000. The rest of it is federal grants through HUD, housing opportunities for persons with AIDS. Okay. And emergency solutions grant which primarily funds emergency shelter. Okay. And,

the I'm glad to see the children and youth success, especially that college career and military readiness. I think we've obviously as a city invested in pre k, we've invested in ready to work and Alamo promise, and so that college and career military readiness readiness is in the middle there. So I'm glad to see that in there. And on the and our largest bucket is in ending homelessness. I guess for all of the buckets, can you prioritize I guess how do we prioritize within those buckets?

So on October 15 when I did the pre solicitation we talked about you know based on FY '25 this was the percent of the total pool that went into each bucket. Homelessness has been the highest and part of that is because if you add in the designated agencies, Haven for Hope has a a very large allocation. So about half of it ends up being homelessness. The, it, and that's just been based on council priority and, and goal setting.

But within that homelessness, ending homelessness 6.73. Mhmm. And we have homeless youth, families, chronic homelessness. What's the priority within those? Who's getting the most? Does that mean?

I'll let Patrick give you a little more.

I guess for all of them I'd ask that.

Sure. And

so in the homeless bucket the discretionary spending's about 5,100,000 and most of that is the 4 and a half in federal grants. Okay. Federal and state grants. So we do follow the first is the grant regulations. So what they can be used on. Much of that's for people with HIV and AIDS, the HOPWA grant. But then within the emergency solutions grant that Mel mentioned, our priority is driven by our strategic plan to the earlier point with a strong emphasis on chronic homelessness. Okay. And then families and youth as well, but the strongest emphasis being on chronic homelessness. Those are the folks that we see on the streets the longest.

Okay, thank you so much. And, on I appreciate the theater classes for the senior independence. We know at Bob Ross Senior Center, what is it, seniors in play. I mean, that is just the folks light up in those classes and it's just if you ever need to feel good one day just drop into one of those classes because I'm telling you it'll make you feel good because our seniors really enjoy that time and to bond with folks, to interact, it really does help. As

far

as on slide 15 on the outsourcing, I mentioned this in B session when we talked about this, and I thought it was important to utilize our philanthropic partners in this way. And so I would be supportive of exploring outsourcing these discretionary funds. And I know other cities do this. United Way, I don't know if you guys have this information on, but I remember asking United Way too at the time, you know, hey do you all do this in other cities? And I seem to believe that they did. I don't know if you have any background on how they provide the services in other municipalities.

I know there are a couple of cities and I want to say Baltimore is one of them, but I don't have a lot of information on it. That would certainly be part of any review of outsourcing, would be benchmarking and comparing. But other cities do

do this, correct?

I think I think so, yes. Okay. So

Okay. Those are all my questions. Thank you.

Mhmm.

Thank you council member councilman White.

Thank you mayor pro tem. Wanna thank Melody for the presentation and say at at the outset, again, I think all of these organizations that receive funding are they serve a a great purpose. There's obviously a lot of folks in need, and and I understand the value in these programs. That said, I do think $20,000,000 coming from the general fund for these delicate agencies is is too much, especially considering the, the public safety, the infrastructure, and economic development needs that, that our city has. Specifically related to economic development, I think many of us recently got to meet with that group who's providing some guidance to the city on how we can do things better from an economic development perspective.

And at the end of my meeting with them, I I said, what, you know, what what can we do better? And they told me, you guys have to allocate more resources to economic development. And I would say that that's exactly right. And, you know, when we look at spending $20,000,000 from our general fund here, when we could add a few more million dollars to economic development, create jobs, and things like that for some of our residents, I think that would, help with, you know, a lot of the needs that, that we see and that we're talking about today, providing jobs for our citizens, you know, could help alleviate some of some of those requests down the road. With with that said, couple of of comments here.

It looks like the presentation showed 26 new programs from 22 agencies while cutting 13 currently funded programs. So are the new programs replacing services of those other 13, expanding the services, and and and what's sort of the thought here in in adding additional, you know, additional programs, especially in this deficit environment?

So, we stick to the city's procurement process, and we have evaluators that score proposals, they rank the proposals, and we stay very close to that ranking in order to make funding recommendations. And so, some cases, you're going to have proposals from someone new that is stronger than a proposal from someone who's been funded for ten or fifteen years. And so, that's how we ended up with that many new agencies.

And so, are the new agencies, the services they're providing, replacing the services provided by those 13 that we're cutting?

So if we're talking about essential programs that are supporting city initiatives, you're not gonna see as many new programs. So, Goodwill and Communities and Schools with Next Level, as an example, they've done a great job, they're funded again to continue doing that work because they're very ingrained in the work that we're doing. Most of the new programs will be part of the discretionary funding, and so they're not necessarily replacing one for one. I will say we had a lot of proposals for parenting education, so if we look at it that way, there or are parenting programs that are being replaced by new programs.

On slide five, I saw the 50% match requirements listed as a continuing policy. What percentage of the currently funded agencies are meeting that percentage, what happens if they don't?

The delegate agencies that are in this process, a 100% are meeting. It it we have very few agencies that are even close to 50% of their budget coming from the city. Most of them are well over $1,000,000.

And if they don't meet the 50% match, what happens?

So, we would not reimburse them for the programs, for the work they're doing. They don't have to have the match on day one, but they have to show us when they're invoicing that they're meeting the match. And we would only pay up to the amount of match that they provide.

Alright. My thank you for that. My last question is the timeline states, FY twenty eight renewal based on funding availability and performance. Performance really isn't defined anywhere here in the presentation. Guess, is that on a contract by contract basis? And and what what metrics are we are we looking at for these for these agencies to hit?

So it is somewhat on a contract by contract basis. We part of the work we've been doing is trying to standardize. So for example, if we have several programs that are providing parent education, they would have similar metrics going forward. And we would ask them to report those same things so that we can compare the performance and also have a better idea of, you know, of how much is being done, what are the outcomes that are being performed for the category of funding. But some of the programs are unique, they don't necessarily fit into a certain bucket.

Let's see.

Who measures the performance and what would trigger nonrenewal or mid contract clawback?

So, they set goals at the beginning of the contract. If they're not meeting their goals, we do quarterly we get monthly reports, we do verification to make sure that the numbers they're reporting are really happening. We look at quarterly, you know, we do more analysis so that we know if they're on target or not. If they're not on target, maybe they're falling below 80% of what they've set as a goal, then we ask them to do corrective action plans and we continue to monitor through the fiscal year. So, as we go into the next year to make recommendations, we would have agencies that we would recommend not funding if their performance hasn't improved.

But we also provide a lot of technical assistance to help them get back on track.

All right, that's all I have. Thank you for that.

Sure.

Thank you. Council member Kour followed by council member Villa Grond.

Thank you, mayor Pro Tem. Thank you all so much. I wanna start off by thanking all the nonprofits that are here for the work that you guys do. I can't say enough how important it is, and I think it's really important for us to remember that we're never going to reach the targets that we have set for our communities without partnership and support with you guys. So I want you to know that in District 1, you have a committed person to making sure that you guys are adequately taken care of as we go through these tough times so that we can continue to service all of our students because particularly, you guys know my background with kiddos, that the more wraparound services we can provide, the less we'll have to be spending money on officers ten years from now because we'll be providing preventative support for them.

All that to say I love all of our nonprofits. I just have some questions on how decisions were made and kind of what I've been digging into the applications. I wanna thank you all for the time and effort you put into these applications. They were all very thorough. I spent the most amount of time in the college and military readiness applications, and I mean, you guys are doing a great job in determining how we can actually track measures for where students are going and some of our programs in particular.

So that being said, though, I do have several questions on and I'm sorry. I said I was gonna get you guys this beforehand, and I didn't, so I'm sorry. Okay. So from the rubrics, how do we translate from the rubric score that they got to what they are actually being funded?

So that that part of that is How they ranked. You know, generally the higher ranking agencies, we were at least trying to fund at level funding. If they were previously receiving a contract. For the new programs, we have most of them at $50,000 which is our minimum funding amount and it gives us the chance to see, especially new agencies, their capacity and and work with them on any concerns about financials or match or anything else. So that's that is that has been our starting amount.

Although some of them ask for significantly more than that. Yeah.

It it doesn't fully translate, and I don't like, you know, for example, girl scouts, I love the girl scouts, but their funding amount, they were ranked tenth out of thirteenth, and their funding amount is the third highest. And so, understand some of them are new, but I just do we take into consideration, like, to what was being asked, like, of kids served, where they're serving them? So, that and how does that math play into the amounts?

So, as far as math, it's really more about sitting down, talking to the panelists, what did they like about the proposal, what part of the program really appealed to them, And then, you know, we are also looking at budgets, thinking, you know, wow, that's way too much administrative costs. We want to see things more focused on services. And so a good example is Oates. Oates asked for a significant amount of money and about 44% when we looked at the budget was administrative and non instructional. And so we reduced the amount that they were funded previously to fund only what we felt was appropriate.

They also had asked to for funding for centers that were not operated by the city, and so we removed that as well.

Got it. So I guess my thought is, like, if we're thinking about our strategy and we're saying college readiness college and military readiness is our strategy, what is our goal that we wanna see? Right? So college and military readiness is affected by all spectrums, right, by by all up until the point where you are at that. So you could be doing pre k work that could be supporting college and military readiness, and you could be doing direct college coaching.

So what do we think about if this is our goal, what is the target that we want in this goal, and then how can we fund accordingly within that kind of strategy to say we're pushing, we're hoping that this percentage in this area will get direct support versus this amount of this funding is for preliminary support.

We have breakdowns of how much is going to dropout, how much is going to college readiness. We stuck pretty closely to that based on previous year's funding. But the, you know, the big categories were it was a priority to stay focused on, so when there was funding for children and youth, and within that we have dropout and military readiness, or college career and military readiness. We we didn't say, okay, these kindergarten readiness contracts will also support economic development. We stuck to what was asked for in the RFP, which listed under college and career readiness, mentoring, counseling, those types of programs that first help students graduate and then help them move on.

Yeah. I guess I'm saying like are we using a goal driven strategy where we're thinking this is our goal and this is how we're providing funding to attract attack that goal?

Yes. We have our have long term outcomes that we're trying to achieve.

What's the one for college and career readiness? Do you know?

Let's see. So for example, college and career readiness, you know, we are the things that are reported to us and that we're asking for to meet our goals is the percent reporting increased interest in attending college, following a particular career path, or enlisting in the military, attending post secondary education. And so, we're asking programs to track the work they're doing to the point where they know if people had if the program has actually worked and people have actually entered college or entered the military.

Because the the things that they are reporting back on the performance metrics are different for each. So, for example, Girl Scouts is that pre and post survey, but for Boys and Girls Club, they have additional students who are in their senior year of high school, students increase in interest, so they have different respondents in that performance metrics than others do. So, when are they submitting what they want to track, or are you guys saying this is what we want you to track?

It's a negotiation. So, they will start submitting what they want to track. And we sit down with them, you know, with every agency and say, well that's not, that doesn't really fit our plan. But I'll let Jessica talk about it more.

So just to add, councilwoman, so we use a results based accountability method that's similar to the method that United Way uses. So we have long term outcomes, as Mel mentioned, in the college career military readiness, that 70% of students in the the high schools graduate determined to be college career and military ready. What we then do are are identify proxy measures. So we had agencies propose. But again, looking at what we're funding, the type of services, we're gonna standardize that across agencies. So they're really telling us how their services tie to that long term outcome, that community indicator.

Yeah. I guess that for the future, what I'm looking for is like, okay. This is our long term outcome. These are our proxy measures. This is how these dollars we predict are going to affect them. So, a little bit closer of a correlation to the impact of what this funding is doing and what we are projecting to serve in terms of the number of kids, and so how we can increase that number, like a little bit more clarity on that metrics. And then the last thing I'll ask about this, and I know I am I'm already pretty much out of time, but do we know why Urban Champions didn't get their local preference program points?

Actually don't know, but we will follow-up on that and include it in in follow-up information.

Okay. Both them and students of service on the final matrix says zero for local preference points, and if Urban Champions got that, they're they were ranked 12 and they would have moved up to nine. And so they're an example of an organization that I think is doing like very specific targeted college readiness work in the summer. So that's kind of the thing I was trying to understand where like they're an organization doing immediate work for kids graduating, and some of these other ones are doing like, we're doing a session in early on, and so how do we determine what is more pointed and what is truly going to address that goal that we have for college and career readiness.

Got it.

Okay, I'll buzz back in for a second. We're

you. Councilmember Viegron?

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Melanie, and Human Services for your work to do. This is always I don't know if you're always first in the budget to go forward, but this is always the hard part. We know we face deficit. We know we have to make some hard choices for you to begin in terms of delegate agencies. Like Ruben or Justina, I don't even know. What is the city of San Antonio budget overall?

Good afternoon council one council. The total city budget is about $4,000,000,000.

$4,000,000,000. Is that $4,000,000,000? What percentage is the what is it? 24,500,000 that we're talking about today?

Oh, it's less

than 1%.

Less than 1%. Thank you. So, my big question This is necessary. We should be at 2%. We should be at 5%.

Any conversation had that we should take this money and put it somewhere else is not even worth debate. This is less than 1% of our budget. To back to our residents who pay taxes, if not through property taxes, through sales tax that worked in our cities, that take our buses, that shop here. So, I'm just It just kind of makes my skin crawl when people say we shouldn't be doing this because we should and we should be doing more of this. Melody, the fact that you have to come and you have to cut some groups that we know are working really hard to serve our community.

And I want to thank all of the nonprofits that are here. I want to thank the faith based groups that are serving with our community that aren't here, that do this without the accolades, that do this without the city help because our applications are just too long. Thank you. Thank you for being here and for coming here today and face some very difficulties because while we have Texas has one of the largest GDPs, we're still waiting for our money for 2026 to come back to us. So as we have this conversation, I understand you had to make some difficult choices.

I go back and forth on whether or not we need to get a third agency to help. As we've discussed and I've seen the groups, I do have questions, but, you know, mainly the question is what we need in terms of our delegate agencies immediately now because of the economic crisis we're in? And I know everyone's like, well, not everyone, but, you know, yes, let's ask the college and military and career readiness. We are actually at war, so I don't know how many kids actually want to go into the military right now. College, it is just getting more expensive.

Are we starting with the college readiness of our Alamo community colleges? There's just a lot of uncertainty going on. So, of course, my focus is going to be, while I want all of these agencies to continue, perhaps we need to focus on our kinder readiness and making sure that we're strengthening the families and that the parents have the programs out there that are helping with the children. Because one thing we do know for a fact is that childcare is We are facing these childcare deserts. Anybody that has a program, and mentioned before Urban Champions, as I know they do after school because they're dealing with kids in soccer.

So maybe we kind of look at that. So I think right now as we move forward looking at what immediate needs we see within the next two years as we are in this unpredictable era. The other thing is businesses as chair of economic workforce development, as chair of audit, talking with businesses and communities, they want to come to a city that they feel safe and accepted at. And part of that is having a variety of programs for their children and their parents and the different generations. And I think the city is working on that.

So, I really am encouraged about what you're doing. I think we need this is gonna be something where we periodically need to do and I appreciate that you're trying to get all the specifics, but and I notice it may change in terms of what our delegate agencies need to do. So, being in constant communication about what we're seeing is the impact as we go through the current economic crisis we have. I do not envy you or your job. Thank you so much for making the cuts that you have, but less than 1% of our budget goes back to help actual programming residents.

That is not acceptable. We should be at 1%, two percent, 5% at least, but we're not there. And, yes, we need to be committed to bring better business, better economy, better growth, but we only do that if this is a city that people feel welcomed at and that doesn't happen by cutting our delegate agencies. So thank you for the presentation. I look forward to hearing more and discussing this during budget.

Thank you. Councillor Member Castillo followed by Councillor Member Spears.

Thank you mayor Pro Tem and thank you Melody for the presentation. Just this morning, I was listening to a sermon which highlighted the power of the person in the purse and how budgets aren't neutral documents. They represent principles and values, and it's how you spend those dollars. When we talk about priorities, when I think about the budget town halls that we have in District 5 in particular, and when we dig into the weeds, when we hear District 5 residents prioritize public safety, community investment, and what that looks like to them. It looks like the work that many of these delicate agencies do in the services that they provide.

And when we dig into the weeds, for example, for children and youth success, strengthening families, what comes to mind, and I was pleased to see, particularly for opportunity youth was Christmas ministries. It's a nonprofit out in District 1, had an opportunity to go visit with Nino and to see the work that they're doing. Not only do they provide resources for at risk youth, but for adults that have been formerly incarcerated, as well as providing support to the families of incarcerated individuals. And they are partners with Ready to Work. Right?

So when we talk about workforce development, many of these nonprofits are working with our community members to get them back on track, get a skill, get a trade, and and earn money sometimes with some of the trade programs while they learn. So I I I hear the priority of of workforce development, but many of these delegate agencies are that vehicle to that workforce development opportunity. So I wanted to highlight that nonprofit in particular, but also how they provide support for at risk youth. Again, they were able to give us a tour. This was about a year and a half ago of the services that they provide to youth, how they have restored education, also housed at the time they had them housed there in their nonprofit as well.

But again, right, the goal when we talk about public safety is ensuring that folks do not reoffend. And that's why I value the work of Maria because, again, it's not just about the incarceration piece. Well, it may be important depending on what the offense is, but it's about how do we get these folks not to commit the same crime again to where community members aren't worried about public safety in their community. But it takes a holistic approach in terms of of how we get there. So again, did have one question particularly with next level opportunity. Can you share, is there a wait list for that program? And if so, what does that typically look like?

The wait list right now is two months. Two months. Yes.

Yeah. And I think in terms of investment, this is a program that has great impact that goes beyond several council districts. And again, it goes back to ensuring that we invest in our youth and our future workforce. So I I would be hopeful that we can work towards increasing the funding to address that wait list because I believe it's every year there's a wait list to participate in next level. And again, that also has a workforce component as well.

And and going back to Christmas ministries, do we know if that was the full amount that they applied for? And if if if it what if it wasn't rather, what was the total amount that they were seeking?

We'll look that up real quick, but I can tell you, I think any agency received the amount they applied for. This So was awarded 50,000. Okay. Do you know the amount? We're looking. Wonderful. We'll get it for you.

Okay. And then I I think offline leading up to the next briefing under a session, I'd like to understand which select agencies, the total amount they applied, and how much they are awarded so that we I just can see those numbers. But in short, I I think this is a bucket that we should be looking to increase support for, particularly when we look at the numbers of disengaged at risk youth, and again connecting that to that is our future workforce. And if we want to look at economic development and incentivizing businesses, encouraging them to invest in San Antonio, it requires us investing in our workforce. And again, by proxy, these delicate agencies are going above and beyond with that work, and often working, doing much with very little.

And that doesn't mean that we should accept that, and we should be increasing their their funding and support. But in short, I just appreciate the work of all the delicate agencies, whether it's senior independence, ending homelessness, youth, and success or strengthening families, this is where we should be increasing funding and delegating much of our resources. Again, if we want to chip away at those public safety issues, our our dropout rates, so on and so forth, this is where the work is. Thank you, mayor.

Just answer real quick. The Chrysalis had applied for about a million dollars, a little over. And if you look at tab five in the binder, that shows all of the agencies that are funded, the amount they requested, and the number of proposals. Thanks.

Thank you. Council member Spears.

Thank you, mayor pro tem. Thank you for the presentation. I just I just had a couple of questions about on on I guess it was in the backup. Can you tell me how we're gonna continue with communication and coordination since the American GI Forum isn't focusing on homelessness anymore and being absorbed by SAM ministries, how we're gonna make sure they're taken care of?

So we have not funded American GI Forum for several years now through this through this process or through our department. We are recommending SAM ministries for funding for rapid rehousing services, as well as outreach services and services to people with HIV AIDS.

So they've been handling that for them for a while or they've been under Sam Ministries for a while?

No. They're two separate agencies working closely with with each other and with us in the homeless response system.

Okay. Can you also then tell me, I saw we're still funding American gateways. What is What are we doing for them? Where What's the funding going towards?

So American Gateways was the only agency that applied to provide legal services, but we are only funding their Know Your Rights education work and defense services for people with legal status. So we after after last year's budget was adopted, we ended the funding of deportation and detainment services, legal services, and only allowed know your rights and legal services for residents with legal status.

Okay. Thank you. I mean, I think there's no question that many of these services are providing much needed programming, and But local government really has a very, very specific roles and core services have to come first because, you know, at the end of the day, this isn't personal, it is strictly business. And we've got to make sure that we're meeting those core services. I wanna echo what councilwoman Adriatica Vito said about meeting those first, and and I agree also with the looking at that sunsetting approach.

I wonder if we ask how much What percentage of the delegate agency overall budgets are coming from our tax dollars, from the tax dollars? Do we ask that question?

So they provide a program and an agency budget with their application and then also with their contracts. So we can look at, know, all of that up and understand how much is coming from federal government, how much from state government, local government, philanthropy, fundraising. So we ask for those large categories, so we can provide that.

Can provide that. And so I would hope we were would be considering the the groups that are able to sustain themselves, and that we're more enhancing their programs, so that we can see them continue to grow and and receive support out in the community and and the other funding buckets that are available to them so that it's less and less reliant on tax dollars. Because, you know, our budget's tight and we do have to cut back in in things that we can't do everything, we just can't do it all, so it has to be core services. And I'm not saying, I think a lot of these are gonna meet that benchmark, it's just, you know, where do Where are some of these agencies crossing over and doing the same kind of work, and really should be consolidating down into one? I'd like to really understand that better.

I mean, you could dive so deep into this, which I guess is why you want to get the outsourcing piece there, which I had some questions on that too. That's slide 15. Right? So you're you're wanting that. Well, are they also going to help assess ways we can, you know, start to scale back tax dollars when they're looking at that? Because I see they are gonna be able to look at duplicative services and

Right. And, I mean, to clarify, we're not necessarily recommending that we do this. It's just we're rec we're asking if council wants us to explore it.

What does that mean though, when you wanna explore it?

So there's been discussion about possibly outsourcing the program, and that's that's happened a couple of different times. So we put it out there as as something that council can give us direction on. So if you would like us to, you know, dive deeper into that for the next cycle, we can we can do that at your direction.

Okay. I'm curious about it. I could be potentially be supportive of that. You know, I And I know, like, you talk about senior services and and what that does for our senior centers, and and I mean, I'm supportive and understand that. It's just, you know, again, it's hard it's hard for me to say, yeah, we'll use I just really want to be accountable and transparent on how these dollars are being used, and make sure we're being efficient, and that they're meeting core services, and, you know, how it's being used within different departments.

I'd like to see us rewarding those those agencies that are coordinating their effort, really showing an understanding that this is, at the end of the day, tax dollars. And so those are the kinds of things I'm looking for and can be supportive of, but I do think that's a is a great idea that that Councilwoman Adriatica Vito was talking about, is the sun setting of some of these agencies and really focusing on our core services. And, you know, a lot of these fall within that that, I believe. So I do thank you for your for your presentation.

So

thank you. Thank you, mayor Perdin.

Thank you, council member council member Mogia followed by council member Galvan.

Thank you very much. Melody, earlier you talked about, one of the arts folks, that does artwork in the senior centers. What was it called? Built House Arts. So they did not apply and are gonna receive some funding based on the services we're kinda needing from them?

Yes. It's pretty the arts and crafts classes are pretty popular in the senior centers. So either that's an option is for council to go ahead and approve that contract.

No. Yeah.

But we

wanted to be upfront that Yeah. They didn't apply and not just slap them into the process.

I think it's very important that every senior center has artwork posted by seniors. I think it's very, very valuable to the seniors. Is that the only nonprofit that is gonna get funding that did not apply for funding? Yes. Okay. And in the course of working with some of these nonprofits, have we gotten to the discussion or asked them what would happen? Should city funding for their nonprofit be sunsetted?

I mean, we hear from the nonprofits. We know the impact of loss of funding based on the measures or the outcomes and the performance metrics they report. We know, okay, this agency has a goal of serving 500 students, and those 500 students might not be served.

But the other

side of that is, you know, they would look for funding somewhere else.

Mhmm. But they probably do that now already.

Yes.

So if they haven't gotten funding from somewhere else, I'm sure having their local municipality strip away funding probably won't help them get funding from other places.

That's a good point.

Do you find that to be pretty accurate with your work with nonprofits?

Yeah. Think a lot of funders when we issue RFPs, we ask for information on past performance. And, you know, if you're reporting that you weren't funded due to performance issues, yes, that would impact.

I think some of the national, you know, endowments or things of that nature aren't gonna be look at the budget meeting and see that the city had some budget shortfalls and they decided to take away funding. I think they're just gonna see the city stop supporting a nonprofit for a very important issue in the community. So I think that has a net negative effect. I think it can have a domino effect that we don't don't know that we would see that here. Right? We cannot we we can't forecast that. So the recommended budget for fiscal year twenty seven for these is is what again? I'm sorry.

14 is 14.9.

And fiscal year twenty six was 24.5?

Oh, no. That the 24,000,000 is the total funding pool, and that includes the agencies, about $10,000,000 for designated funding to agencies. So when you strip that off, you have

So is it roughly equal from last fiscal year that you're proposing for '27?

It is from if you look at fiscal year twenty five, it is less because of the $500,000 reduction for historical underspending.

Mhmm.

That's a permanent reduction.

Okay. And those folks that were going to get that funding, they're not able they're not really applying for something similar to for the funding they were getting from that 500,000?

It it it's not tied to a certain sector or category or agency. It's Mhmm. A drop in the pool. And so when we make the funding decisions, there's less money.

Okay. So there's going to be less money in '27 than there was before?

In '25. So it'll be actually a little more money in '27 from '26. Okay. Because the '26 reduction also included those one time budget amendments that were reduced from the reserve.

Okay. And going into '27, remind me again what was your reserve amount?

There's no reserve amount for '27, but the total pool is estimated to be 24,400,000.

Okay. Gotcha. And another question, I was looking at some of the backups. Did every nonprofit who's getting awarded score higher than those that did not? So is there anyone who scored higher than somebody who's getting money that is not getting money?

So there are a few that were skipped. And that was because well, so with Restore Education, they applied, their applications were generally in the mid range, but Ready to Work provides a significant amount of funding to Restore Education. And since we're encouraging our programs and our own programs to enroll people who are interested in furthering education in Ready to Work, they should have access to restore education through Ready to Work.

Okay. So maybe in the backup memo you sent us, you can put each of those nonprofits that scored higher that are not getting funding and and the reason why that is. We just wanna make sure that, you know, in theory, it sounds good on paper that they should be getting money from this other program that we're delegating. But, yes, you know, sometimes that doesn't happen. So that would be helpful to add that into that. Can do that. Excellent. And then real quick, I saw that I think on one of the backups you provided here, those agencies that did not get funding, one of them was South San ISD?

That actually was a design is a designated agency. Probably shouldn't be on the list.

Yeah. Noticed it was zero all

the way through and then

it yeah.

They declined their contract Yeah. Early in the fiscal year '26. Okay. And so we didn't include them for '27.

And why

would why did they deny the contract again?

I think they just decided they weren't getting a a I mean, it was less than a $100,000, I think. And Okay. Felt like it wasn't worth the

Gotcha.

The work.

Mhmm. Which are the four ISDs that are getting the after school challenge?

It's San Antonio ISD, Edgewood ISD, Harlandale, and Southwest.

And are those going to be roughly the same amount that they got in the prior year?

Yes.

Okay. Excellent. Thank you, Melody. Appreciate that. You know, I'll just say that since we're on the subject of sunsetting and taking away funding from people, You know, I think it it's difficult to relate this to an infrastructure a piece of infrastructure that doesn't currently exist.

So there's plenty of streets in my neighborhood that don't have sidewalks. And, while I'm sure people would like to have them, you can have a sidewalk. But if it's gonna be at the expense of somebody trying to get help from the rape crisis center or American Indians in Texas not being able to teach their, you know, good parenting, good fatherhood classes, or folks not able to get help through the Beat AIDS Coalition or children not getting services through the Child's Bereavement Center of South Texas or kids not being able to go after school programs at communities and schools. You know, people who are unhoused not able to get Ministries help, which is, by the way, I think the number one and number two budget survey priority was homelessness homelessness surveys. You know, that's that's quite different than not having a sidewalk or wishing you did have a sidewalk to get to somewhere.

So I just want to say that that is quite different. And I think, you know, we can see on the paper what that cut would look like, but the the net result and the results for five, ten years after substantial cuts to these programs would be pretty detrimental. And I think it would have to really primarily affect kids living inside four ten, if I can imagine where the services are going and who is benefiting from that. That's probably most of us up here who have people and residents in Fort Tim. So I just wanna add that piece. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Councilmember Galvan.

Thank you, mayor pro tem. And thank you, Melody, for the presentation and for all the work on the back end too with staff to make this presentation as well as conducting this work every single day. Of course, thanks to the nonprofit who are here and all the folks who are watching at home or from work. Really appreciate all the work you do every day, day in and day out for our community, whether it's our youngest children or our oldest folks in our community or our adults who may need some extra support here and there as life continues to change for all of us. We know the work that you all do is incredibly important.

And I think it's, you know, incumbent upon us to find ways to continue to support the kind of grassroots organizations that are here in our community doing this work day in and day out to communities that otherwise, you know, may not have trust with other entities. But the work that you've done so far and for so long has enabled that trust to be able to get the support when it comes to educational needs and support or for workforce development or for reentering life after being incarcerated or any other kinds of support that that all of our nonprofits provide. So I just wanted to say that, and I really appreciate our continued efforts in supporting many of these nonprofits here in our community. And while I know, of course, we are having our own budget conversation later this year and we continue to kinda talk about them through our conversations here on council. I don't think these should be looked at as for the first to go.

It's easy to say that when they're external partners, and of course, there's always critiques that we can have on our folks that we're supporting and figuring out how can we make the best alignment there as possible to meet the goals that we have here. Those, I think, are regular conversations to have. But I think being too hasty on saying we're gonna pull the plug in a lot of these programmings that's gonna be too impactful to our community and detrimental to them in a time where we're seeing our economy continue to shift in a direction that is very harmful for the folks who are often the ones being served by these nonprofits is just probably not the right path to go, least I don't I don't believe so. This conversation also reminds you a little bit about the education opportunities committee and even community health committee conversations we have often about many of the organizations and many of the work many much of the work that is done in this kind of space in social services and how many of my council members and I are trying to figure out how can we best fund these programs to make sure they're getting the best impact possible, whether it's for oral health for our kids to be able to focus at school or it's finding ways to support our libraries and certain ways to support the school nearby them so we can help the literacy rate both inside of school and outside of the school.

Because we know that there's our partners in our community that are doing this work that cannot do it all. And while we can't do it all, we can try to figure out a way to it together to where we reach the best impact possible. There are thousands and thousands of kids who are impacted by our asthma programs, by our oral health care programs, by our STD prevention programs, by all kinds of different programs that are both health department as well as many of the nonprofits here that our human services department supports. And so I think we just have to continue finding ways to how do we scale them up. And I think that's something that I heard from a couple of my colleagues a bit about understanding the kind of larger tracking with this.

Of course, I know we put a lot of a lot of requests on our our folks that we fund to figure out what kind of work that we're doing there and how it's moving the needle. But I think figuring out a little bit more or doing a bit more digging into that kind of outcome tracking that I believe councilor McCormack kind of talking a bit about. Let's see how does that direct dollar amount really impact x many families, students, etcetera, and get them to the best outcome possible, whether it's moving them out of a range of poverty or getting them into a safer place to live in our community or whatever it may be and understanding what that looks like at scale. Right? And I think we can continue to shift our priorities here and there with different nonprofits that we're funding based on that.

So you can see that that real return on investment on that. We've now housed as many people. We've now done this much support that ultimately supports our public safety or our health or our well-being here in our community. So that I mean, that's continuous work that I think can happen. And I think it's absolutely necessary so we can figure out where our where our dollars are going as best as possible.

And I guess it leads to me to the slide fifteen one as you look at the outsourcing of some of the discretionary funding. I know it's only one part of our our focus here. But I wanted to ask Melody, is what's the I mean, understand the considerations here when we talk about making sure there's a streamlined process here for all the folks to be able to apply to. I think that makes a lot of sense to make it as easy as possible, having one agency kind of doing that collecting and monitoring. How much of an administrative burden is it on us to do that kind of communication with the Area Foundation or United Way or other folks?

Is it in terms of time? Is it in terms of like different priorities on what we're looking at there between the two or the multiple entities that we're coordinating with? Or I guess can you walk me through what that current coordination looks like now?

Sure. We work with those core funders, Area Foundation, Kronkowski, United Way, even H E B Foundation. So there's a number of funders that are part of a funders group and we participate in those work groups. So we're pretty connected to them. The most overlap, well overlap's not the right word, but the closest we come is mirroring United Way.

Similar funded programs, not always necessarily the same program, but we might be working with the same agencies. So it's important for us to be there, and we're gonna be there anyway. Right.

Yeah. And so I guess that's my my concern, or maybe not concern, but just my my questioning along this one is if that communication is already happening, what what's missing from that that's I know we're looking to see if we're kinda double dipping in some way or whatever it may be. Are we not getting that information now? Or what what is the what is the breakdown in communication in terms of being able to see, okay we funded x group and so did this agency, but we funded them for these things within their program. I'm just trying to understand a bit more about what

the So you know they're engaged in asset mapping so that we have a better understanding of what Kronkowski funds, what United Way funds, what Area Foundation funds, what we fund, and all of the other organizations were involved in discussions about how we align metrics. So, you know, back to we don't need to ask, if if we're funding the same program, we don't they don't need to have three different reports. So that's really the goal is trying to bring those things together.

And that makes sense, Also getting away from the three applications as well that are all lengthy and maybe had different questions or just kind of form of formatted questions, but similar questioning. Then I guess my question is, is that not possible to do in house already with our partners? Or is it preferred to do it externally?

Think we don't know yet Okay. Until we walk, you know, walk through it. But we absolutely do that in house now. So that is, that's part of our funding process for the whole pool. Yeah. Is to have those conversations. The funders participate on our panels and our reviews, in our community feedback, we participate in theirs so that we're all seeing what each other is doing. So that, like I said, will continue regardless of whether we outsource or not. It doesn't change that

Got it. And I guess my I get concerned when I see the considerations portion of SciFit team. We'd look at the less control over investment and the kind of decreased responsiveness with priorities. Of course, I think those things can be worked out. But it does make me a bit nervous about how much it's gonna take on our end to continue kind of trying to figure out, okay, are we getting all the information we need? Are we still able to track it? When we could do hopefully the alternative, at least I believe, to bring to be the kind of facilitator, to be the table, and have folks come around towards us and be able to be able to maintain that. And I I don't know if it's maybe comes down to budgeting within our own budget about like who's able to do that. Do we know how many staff typically administer discretionary funds in this way from city staff?

I don't have a breakdown between all of the contracts and just discretionary, but we could we can take a stab at that. But it's it's a lot of people, and we have contract officers and fiscal people are involved.

Right.

When we do the process, the city attorney's office procurement, all of those groups are involved. What we would have to figure out is do we, are what, we going to expect the same level of monitoring and fiscal oversight that we provide? And if that's the case, then their, I think administrative rate might tend to be higher than ours. So that's an important comparison that we would take a look at.

Yeah. I think it'd be helpful for any kind of follow-up conversation or memos here and stuff like that with just understanding a bit more about, you know, how many folks are engaged here, whether it's on the city side to understand the full cost of it. Because if that's, I think, the ultimate Right. Point here. That'd be good for us to know a little bit more, at least for me.

And we've

we've done that calculations. So

Okay.

So, yeah. We know what we spend. Yeah.

Just to give you some context. So we did look at how much it takes for us to administer the entire program. So both discretionary, essential, and consolidated. So there's about 16. It it equates to about 16 full time equivalent positions. Positions and it's about $1,500,000 that we spend on it. So it's about 5% of the of the total delegate agency budget.

Is it 5% of the total delegate agency funding? Mhmm. Correct. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much for that. I think that was my main question there. Just trying to understand a bit more about that option. I'll have to get back to you about what my full thought is. I mean, I'm still leaning more towards keeping it in house just because I think it's helpful to have it all lined up. But thank you so much for answering the question today. Thank you very much time.

Thank you. Any further comments, question, feedback? Councilmember Kore.

Thank you. Just a couple more things that I'd like to request prior to y'all coming back to a session. So one, in the domestic violence prevention, if y'all can explain to me in the rubric the difference between Bexar County Family Justice Center and for her was a point two in points. So at five was 90.8 and at six was 90.6. So for point two of a point for point two points to not get any funding, I just like to better understand.

I know their request was, I just looked at the request, it was 220,000 to serve 324 people in sorry, 360 people in counseling and support services that they provide. And then on the other hand, we are funding Catholic charities for their grace counseling program, and it's they requested more for less people. So I'm just trying to better understand how that determination was made. Because I think you had mentioned that the application was I don't know what was there was I know it was mentioned in my briefing, but I forgot what the thought behind that was. And then in the other category for dropout prevention, if I could better understand why RISE Recovery, which is a direct service provider for dropout prevention, wasn't included or what for their funding as well.

And I think that was it. There was maybe one other one that oh, and the other one was Empowerhouse SA. Their funding was dropped, but they're also doing direct work for social emotional learning in schools at Tafoya. They're actually in SAISD schools. So for me, I'd like to in partnering with Maria's point on like which places we're going to be able to give recommendations to, I feel like Empowerhouse would be a good one because they're in schools doing social emotional learning work, and they call them like peace rooms that they develop at schools, and so I think we should take that into consideration as we are also providing this funding to say like which ones are going to be able to be providing a direct support for our kids in terms of our big goals.

And then just on all of the conversation about where we should be providing our funding and if 1% of our budget should go to this, I think this is why the conversation we're having at Educational Opportunities Committee is so important regarding data and showing how the data makes a difference. When we just kind of when we don't have clear goals and targets set aside and show the correlation between this is where Guardian House is doing work and as a result, is the impact that we see when we can't clearly show that to the community, the community doesn't see the value in the input. So the reason why we ask for better tracking and for being able to overlay what we're providing is so that we can sell the work and make a case for it. We haven't really done a lot with data since, you know, we stopped funding SA 2020 and we used to have citywide metrics, and I know our partnership isn't in the budget proposal this year because they're not providing direct services, but we can lean on them for data support, and especially in the college and military readiness because we want people to be tracking where their kids are going, because we can show more clearly the correlating factor between going to their program and then graduating and then making it into whichever opportunity they make it into.

But if we can't show that, which we, I think, have a deficit in right now, it's hard to communicate to folks how less than 1% of our budget is making an even bigger impact. And so I think that would help better give us the tools that we need to continue to get to what Councilman Villagran was saying 5%. Right? How do we show the long term impact of a kid being in a mentorship program preventing them from being in our criminal justice system, and what the value in the difference in cost of those investing in the mentorship versus having to put someone in jail for x amount of years. Okay.

I'm done with my rant there. And for outsourcing, I mean, this is a lot of work, and the stuff that I even just asked you is a lot of work. Right? How do you make these nuances and decisions? And so, I mean, if you guys feel like this is something that we could use help with in an external group that is more aligning on funding, and how do we make sure our core programs are getting our programs in our community are getting funded. I mean, I'm all for finding us the best way to get to the right solution to really track our priorities in a way that is communicated back to us, so I can better defend what the decisions that we're making. Thanks, Mayor Patim.

Thank you. Any other questions, comments, thoughts to share? Okay, I'll close out by thanking everyone for a very robust and lively discussion. I know it's been mentioned a few times that we value the work of our partners past, present, and future. Even those who we haven't entered into contracts with, I can't tell you how many organizations we've worked with who have provided services with a great sense of urgency and a quick turnaround time when a constituent has reached out to our office with an emergency.

As you are navigating fiscal challenges, we are as well and so how we navigate that challenge is going to say a lot about us and our values and a few weeks ago we had a conversation about police hiring and since I've been in office we've hired over 200 police officers to improve our response to crime. We've also invested hundreds of millions of dollars into services for our residents most in need and most at risk and a large portion of that was ARPA funding. Because of that we've seen a reduction in crime. If we cut funding for our nonprofits we will see desperation rise, we will see youth dropout rates rise, we will see theft rise, we will see bad decisions and risky behavior rise, we'll see violence rise, we'll see homelessness rise, and we will see crime, violent and non violent rise. So we're already reaching that point where these organizations are losing funding and will have to reduce their services one way or another.

And though we won't be able to fund all things, should mitigate these losses as much as we can. And so, I would advise my colleagues to not focus on a single tree at the expense of the forest. You and Eric did you wanna summarize what you heard today?

Yeah just real quick. We were intending on based on today's conversation bringing it to full council next week. We may push it back one more week because there are a number of follow-up items given that we post for the agenda tonight. I wanna make sure we have time to circle back with the council members and get those questions. We'll push it back to the second week in May and get you all the follow-up.

The second item, mayor pro tem, is a presentation on VISTA San Antonio and the Tourism Public Improvement District. Both Mario Bass, the President and CEO of VISTA San Antonio, as well as Patricia Muzquist Kontoor, our Convention Center Director, will kinda walk through the elements of our agreement. That agreement expires later on this year. The VISTA San Antonio has transitioned in 2016 into what they exist as today as VISTA San Antonio. We will need to renew the agreement with Antonio this year, but it allows us to continue to build upon the success and leverage and their expertise and the established industry relationships that are very important to not only the city but our city's economy.

And so we're gonna talk through some of the basic elements and kinda where they're at in terms of their strategic plan. And then Patricia will wrap it up with a couple of additional points. We're looking for some kind of feedback from you all. I do intend or anticipate and intend to bring back a negotiated agreement as part of the proposed budget. So a lot of that work will be done during the summer. Of course most of it, if not all of it, is tied to dollars and the hotel occupancy tax. Wanted to get this item in front of you all to get some feedback.

You. And thank you for being here. I want to acknowledge we have public comment at 05:00. So I know you only have about 12 to 14 slides. If as quickly as you can, I would

Yes, sir? Appreciate for that long. Thank you. Thank you city council members and staff. It is an honor to represent business San Antonio and to speak to the importance of tourism to our city's economy and quality of life.

Since our establishment in 2016, Business San Antonio has remained focused on one clear mission, driving meaningful economic impact to our city, and for nearly a decade, that is exactly what we have done. These numbers before you are more than just metrics, they represent opportunity, they represent small businesses that are growing, jobs that are being created across all 10 council districts, and a cultural economy that continues to thrive. Tourism strengthens the quality of life our residents experience every day, from our arts and culture to our culinary and entertainment offerings. It also delivers real financial relief to our residents, offsetting more than a thousand dollars annually and taxes for the average household. This is the impact of one San Antonio's largest and most important industries and one that Vista San Antonio is proud to lead.

That brings us to a very important question, what role specifically does Vista San Antonio play in delivering these results? The answer is clear in the outcomes. Over the past nine years, Vista San Antonio has generated $7,600,000,000 in total economic impact. That represents a 25 to one return on investment for the city through our convention sales, marketing and public relations efforts. In close partnership with the convention center team, we serve as the primary driver of major convention business helping position the center at or near capacity while generating record revenues.

Our convention sales team also supports hotel citywide connecting them with group businesses that fills rooms and drive spending across our community. On the marketing side, Visit San Antonio is the only org organization dedicated to promoting our city to both leisure travelers and meeting planners at scale. Through advanced data and technology, we can now directly measure the impact of our campaigns tracking more than 6,000,000 visitors influenced by our efforts in recent years. Our team also drives the national and global visibility of San Antonio through strategic media placement. That New York Times story about San Antonio being the must visit spring break destination, well that would be visit San Antonio.

The recent USA Today award of the San Antonio Riverwalk is the number one riverwalk in the country as if there's any other riverwalk in the country. That's a result of our VSA pitch. When CBS News features San Antonio's Day of the Dead, also a product of Vista San Antonio's work. Together, these efforts in sales, marketing, and communications have delivered $7,600,000,000 in cumulative economic impact for our city. Those efforts represent only part of what business San Antonio delivers however.

Once a meeting or a convention is secured, our destination experience team works closely with planners to connect them with local businesses, ensuring that the economic impact reaches deep into our community. Our leisure department expands access to San Antonio by ensuring our hotels and attractions and experiences are bookable across all global travel platforms. We work hand in hand with the airport team to demonstrate demand and support the growth of new and existing air service. In 2021, we have also taken on the responsibility of producing major Riverwalk events, further elevating one of our city's most iconic assets. This contract assignment resulting from the Riverwalk Association merging the two business San Antonio will now be formally part of our master agreement with the city.

And as a leader and a voice of San Antonio's tourism industry, we also work day in and day out as you and your staff well know to advocate for our industry, our members, our colleagues to local, state, and federal governments. Simply put, when tourism is strong, San Antonio is strong. That is where we are today. Now let us take a look ahead, what's next in the decade. San Antonio's tourism landscape has evolved significantly, particularly over the past five years.

The good news is visitation is projected to continue to stay steady in growth as we expand and elevate our global story. With transformative investments at the Alamo, hemisphere, downtown, and of course our airport, the outlook for the next several years, is very, very strong. These efforts underscore an important truth, tourism is indeed a team sport. Our success is driven by coordinated investments from partners across the city including the airport, UTSA, greater SATX, just to name a few, and of course our growing industry base. At the same time, we must remain clear eyed about emerging challenges and we have plenty of them.

Economic and political headwinds may impact travel demand and shifts in federal research funding are already affecting attendance amongst key medical and scientific meetings. Competition is also intensifying as destinations across the country continue to invest in new facilities and experiences. I'll touch more on that in just a moment. In addition to the physical convention center needs staying top of mind for meeting planners is also very, very critical. In response, our convention sales team has been realigned geographically, allowing us to broaden our reach and secure larger, more diverse group business.

On the leisure side, we continue to lead by inspiring travel across our core drive markets and prioritize domestic and international audiences. This approach is working. During the most recent spring break, San Antonio ranked first in hotel occupancy amongst Texas markets outperforming the state average and drawing strong visitation from key regional cities. The regional market remains our foundation with 79% of our visitors coming from Texas and neighboring states. These travelers drive consistent weekend and short term demand.

At the same time, we're seeing a structural shift in lodging preferences. Short term rentals have grown from less than 1% of demand at 62,000 room nights of demand in 2016 to nearly 1,100,000 in 2025 making up 10% of our total lodging forecast. This trend is driven largely by leisure travelers particularly, particularly younger visitors and larger groups seeking space, flexibility, and neighborhood experiences. While this reflects national trends, it has a disproportionate impact on San Antonio given our high concentration of leisure travel. Addressing this shift and driving hotel stays will be a key area of focus moving forward.

At the same time, we must continue to expand beyond our regional base by growing higher yield domestic and international markets, including our top international source market, Mexico, as well as Canada, The UK, Germany, and China. These visitors indeed do stay longer, plan further in advance and are less affected by seasonality. As promised, I will briefly adjust the challenges in our convention business. The 2016 transformation of the convention center greatly improved functionality and flow allowing us to better serve meeting planners and attendees. That investment has been successful.

In fact, it has been so successful that many of our long standing clients are now outgrowing our facility. As attendance grows, we face a real risk of losing these, those conventions to other cities that can accommodate their needs. While our sales team continues to deliver strong booking results and fill future dates, our competitors are expanding and increasing their capacity. As seen on the convention center pace outlook on the screen, we're doing well through 2030 when Austin and Dallas begin opening their shiny new convention centers and attracting greater percentage of meetings. The the reality is clear.

We're reaching the limits of our current space. To remain competitive and protect the economic impact that conventions bring to our hotels, small businesses, and local workforce, expanding the convention center is not an option. It is necessary. Though the convention center expansion is not explicitly a part of our visit San Antonio contract, it is important for you to be aware that without it, the growth of San Antonio's meetings and conventions output will be significantly constrained. As you have heard from me today and from previous meetings, Vista San Antonio is prepared and ready to continue bringing tourism dollars and other benefits to our community.

My thanks in advance for your consideration of renewing Visit San Antonio's partnership with the city of San Antonio. Now at this time, I'd like to follow-up on T Pit. 2016 feels like a lifetime ago, sure does. But let us remember that when business San Antonio transitioned to a private model, the goal was very clear, move faster and diversify funding beyond the hotel occupancy tax. Today, HOT supports 68% of our total funding budget making private funding essential to compete with markets like Houston, Dallas and New Orleans.

Since branching off from the city, we delivered on that promise utilizing diverse avenues including our membership program and other revenue sourcing and the creation and management of the tourism public improvement district also known as TPID. TPID is a private sector tool led by our hotel partners designed to supplement not replace hot funding. Visit San Antonio executes the program with the city oversight through annual hearings and service plan approval. This tool has been critical to our success without TPID in fact, San Antonio would not been able to host a massive economy driving events such as the twenty twenty three IPW, which was a huge success. The twenty twenty four and twenty twenty five CEVEN conferences and the upcoming meeting professionals international world education congress taking place this June.

The TPID service plan and state law ensures accountability, clearly defining how funds are used and guaranteeing they remain incremental to existing hot efforts and it's working. TPIT is delivering a minimum of a seven to one return on investment, most oftentimes much higher than that. As we look to, toward the reauthorization, our focus is competitiveness. Adjusting the assessment to 2% aligns to San Antonio with other major Texas cities, strengthening T Pit creates a dual benefit. It fuels aggressive sales and marketing while also growing hot revenues that support city services and community priorities.

Finally, increased flexibility between marketing and sales will allow us to respond in real time capturing new business and maximizing economic impact for San Antonio. Today marks a very important first step as Vista San Antonio concentrates or it continues working in partnership with council and city staff toward our contract renewal. We hope this presentation provide a clear insight into the impact of our work driven by a dedicated team committed to ensuring San Antonio is recognized and valued through the world while we deliver meaningful economic benefit to our community. We look forward to the upcoming T PID reauthorization process beginning with a, petition collection in May and visit San Antonio contract vote in September. And with that said, I'm pleased to turn it over to my colleague Patricio Musquiz Gantor to finish the rest of our presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you Mario. Again, Patricia Musquis Cantore, I'm the director of the convention and sports facilities department. As the department responsible for monitoring the agreement with Visit San Antonio, wanna start talking about the importance of this partnership. It has been nearly ten years since the creation of Visit San Antonio as a non profit. In establishing Visit San Antonio, the city not only recognized the critical role that tourism and hospitality play in San Antonio's vitality, but also the role that Visit San Antonio has in driving that related revenue.

That importance has only grown over the past decade. As the current contract approaches its expiration, our focus must be on continuing this partnership in a way that strengthens its impact. Visit San Antonio's efforts directly promote tourism, impact lodging, and generate hotel occupancy tax collections that support important city services from arts and culture, to historic preservation, to our convention and sports facilities. Monitoring and growing hotel occupancy tax collections is essential for the city's financial health. When occupancy and collections rise, the city is better positioned to fund vital tourism initiatives and fund facility projects.

Just as importantly, this revenue stream helps reduce the burden on local residents by shifting some of the cost to visitors who benefit from these services. When we examine the hotel occupancy tax collections over the last seven years, we see that the San Antonio market has navigated a turbulent path. Pre pandemic, the city enjoyed healthy hot collections, By the height of the global travel restrictions, hotel occupancy collections declined sharply. Then, fueled by pent up demand, the market rebounded in 2023. A closer look at this data also reveals that collections from short term rentals have provided an important dividend.

Over the past three years, collections from traditional hotel demand have held steady at about 95,000,000, while collections from short term rentals have climbed 4,400,000 between 2023 and last year. Another contributor that to strong tax collections, though not visible in this chart, has been the growth in the average daily hotel rate in Metro San Antonio. Since 2018, it has risen from a 115 per night to nearly a 120, a 132 in 2025. Because traditional hotel demand delivers the greatest economic benefit to the community from supporting local jobs, restaurants, retail businesses, and transportation services, strengthening hotel demand must remain a central part of Visit San Antonio's mandate moving forward. That mission becomes even more important when we consider the competitive environment around us.

Cities such as Austin, Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth are collectively investing more than $7,000,000,000 in the transformation of their convention centers. It has become an arms race and for good reason. Group business currently produces greater economic impact because attendees stay multiple days and spend throughout the community. Moreover, in periods when leisure demand softens, the group business at the convention center can stabilize hotel occupancy, sustain employment, and protect local revenue streams. However, it is important to note that we are currently, the convention center is currently operating at maximum capacity and are limited to accommodate more events and conventions.

That is why the expansion of the convention center is so important. An update to the feasibility study for the expansion is currently underway and results will be brought before city council in September. While our immediate goal is to see these agreements extended, the broader objective is to ensure San Antonio remains a premier global leisure and meetings destination. To accomplish that, we believe that the next contract should place greater emphasis on increasing hotel occupancy tax collections, expand economic impact, and enhance performance metrics. As well as create a stronger customer client process to attract, retain, and support events.

Taken together, these efforts will position the city in even greater success in future years. Lastly, moving forward, we have some important next steps. Beginning next month, visit San Antonio, as Mario said, be gathering petitions while completed petitions are planned to be submitted to the city clerk in August. Then in September, as he mentioned also, we will return with a comprehensive visit San Antonio package for your consideration. But before that process begins, we would welcome any of your feedback. This concludes our presentation. Thank you for the opportunity to present this briefing to you today, and we welcome any questions that you may have for us. Thank you.

Thank you both for the presentation and most of my comments will be with regard to Visit San Antonio and the contract. Thank you for all the work that you do to tell the story of San Antonio and all of the the diverse communities that, make San Antonio the beautiful city that it is. I'm honored to serve as a board member and look forward to opportunities for more in-depth, engagement about how we can boost tourism and travel to share our community with the world. I understand the fear that other cities in Texas are opening new convention centers, so I want to convey two things. One is we obviously have Project Marvel which is beyond the Spurs Arena.

It also includes improvements to the convention center, we've communicated as a priority to varying degrees, each of us. We're planning it, we're working it. It may not be moving as quickly as everyone would like, but I do imagine that once construction is underway, we're going to experience a lot of inconveniences and we'll be limited in the events we can do and the scale that we can do and how productive the convention center can be, and so I need you to be preparing for that right now. There are things we can do beyond the issue of the convention center, and I see you've listed on one of the slides goals to protect our market share, expand our reach across The United States, and bolster our influence in international markets. To that end, I would love to encourage expansion into untapped markets.

Think black tourists, LGBTQ plus tourists, other minority groups. We are a community with something for everyone and I know that we can be creative in how we more effectively and expansively that goal. I'd love to see much like we have sister cities across the globe. I'd love to explore partnerships with cities even within The United States known for their tourism and figure out how we might best build relationships and mutual partnerships. I'll give an example.

What would it look like to coordinate with leaders in a state like Hawaii? There is a strong military presence. They have over 10 military bases and hundreds of thousands of people connected to the military, and they could connect to us as a military city USA. And they're also a state that is economically driven by tourism. So how can we benefit one another in that way?

What does our presence in their airport look like and vice versa? How do we connect with these types of communities in new way in new and creative ways? I also look forward to working with you as chair of the intergovernmental relations committee to advocate in Austin against legislation that will hurt tourism in Texas and especially in San Antonio every year, whether it's an unreliable grid or it attacks on the LGBTQ plus community or the killing of black and brown people by police, the deregulation of guns coupled with rises in gun violence and school shootings or increased ICE presence, people are making the active decision to avoid Texas for their own safety, and that impacts us as a city. And so I look forward to working with you to advocate against very harmful legislation and then also for legislation that's gonna bolster tourism and, engagement with our city. On that note, we'll begin council discussion, starting with council member White.

Thanks, mayor pro tem. On VSA, Mario, we we talked about this the other day. My my point here is that people come to San Antonio by themselves because we're close, because they know about the Riverwalk, because they know about the Alamo, etcetera. I'm simply interested in how we show that BSA's work is directly leading to, there's a direct link between that work and dollars being spent here in our city. You walked me through the other day that's that slide with the 7,600,000,000.

Right? And I guess that's that's still, y'all's take on on direct impact of of VSA's work. Right?

Most likely understated because the only thing that's worked into those figures are a direct correlation to someone who's putting a head in a bed. Right? So that's that's probably understated based on the fact that you really can't track that when you're doing television, billboards, things of that sort. So it's it's a pretty simple math calculation.

Yeah. So so a conservative number is what you're saying.

Yep.

And then, again, the reason this is important because when you're looking at a at a contract of this size and when we're talking about 30 plus million dollars a year and then ten year contract, you know, it's hundreds of millions of dollars that's that's at play here. I think it's important that we can verify that the city is is getting its its bang for its buck. And so on that note, in sort of along the same the same lines as as what I just talked about on the 7,600,000,000, I know performance metrics were added to the contract several years ago. What are some of these metrics and has BSA been meeting them?

If if I can address actually the, visitation that's already coming, right, before I get into that just briefly. We we are very fortunate. We have 45,000,000 Texans in the surrounding area that considered San Antonio their second home, and and we're blessed to have that. But it should also be noted, these groups that come and visit, in 2025 alone, almost 50% of them are new to the city of San Antonio. Never been here, first time to experience our city.

That's a growth of 74% from 2022 when we started to track new business coming to the city. So, yes, we're blessed to have a customer base that continues to visit, but we also are very active in pursuing those groups that are are new, to the city of San Antonio. In terms

of And let me let me if I can jump in there. So bunch of new folks coming here from around the state. What about from from around The United States?

Yep. No. That's that's all a part of that visitation. Right? That's 70 Okay. 70 to 80% of our visitation though is locally right through, which is, you know, during these economic times of uncertainty, we're blessed to have. Right? They might not be jumping on an airplane due to the cost. Yes. Gas is very high, but still, they are coming because driving to San Antonio within two to three hours makes fiscal sense for them to do.

So, again, we're very blessed with that. In terms of the metrics, we are a metric heavy organization. We have a total of 30 plus metrics that we report out to the city of San Antonio quarterly. All around, room nights, number of events booked, economic impact, jobs, that are associated with our industry, as well as, that portion with the convention center, but also those metrics throughout the city of San Antonio leads created and that's just on the group side. There's metrics that are associated with the marketing, our marketing efforts such as engagement, impressions, things of that sort, which lead to that visitation number that we talked about earlier.

In addition to, the reality is our performance is very much predicated on hot tax collections. Our budget is based on up to 35% of hot tax collection, so it behooves us to make sure that that is strong and and and impactful for the city of San Antonio.

Let let me ask you this. I was recently in Boerne and met with some members of the Boerne city council, and we got to talking about a regional approach to attracting people to to our area. Boerne, Fredericksburg, San Antonio, New Braunfels. Is there any thought that, you know, if we when we do our marketing, we bring somebody down, you know, they could visit Fredericksburg and then also make a day trip, to San Antonio and and kind of everybody wins in that scenario. Are there any talks like that going on with some of these surrounding cities?

Our focus with this San Antonio is a 100% focused on San Antonio. It doesn't mean that travelers don't come and go to the hill country, right, for those offerings, which is fine as long as they're staying in San Antonio. So we ensure that our marketing unmistakably San Antonio is focused on on that closure ratio. God love the hill country, but again, hyper focused on city.

No. A 100 a 100%. We obviously want them them here in our city, but attracting them, to the region one one way or another, I think, you know, potentially looking at at any collaboration with with surrounding cities may may pay some dividends, here here for us.

It can. It it it and you're you're right. When the again, with the visitors coming to San Antonio, they're doing all the things that they have here, but they they will make a a day trip. I would I would prefer it to be a day trip if they are going into the hill country and not staying overnight. Right? I want the heads and beds and the hot tax collection here. But, yes, that is another resource that a visitor would look at.

Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Question on the convention center.

Yes,

sir. I'm with you. We we we gotta get this thing we gotta get this thing done, and and I hear you on how important it is to to to the city and to who we can bring here. In the, I'll say, unlikely event that it were to not happen, what would be our backup plan?

I'd rather not focus on that backup plan. The the reality is is this. The slide that I showed you is not based on assumptions. Build it and they will come, right? We've talked about if you add another 200,000 square feet to the convention center that there's a billion dollars of estimated economic impact, another 94 groups that we would be able to go after, which is great.

Somewhere between one to 94 at Vista San Antonio, we would be charged with booking. And there's closure ratios, we typically close on about 50% of the total lead volume that comes into our funnel. But we're not even talking about that. That slide is purely what's happening to our group pace today, based on these other cities selling into their convention centers today that open up in thirty, thirty one, thirty two. And that's a seismic shift where we're holding our own in the short term up until 2029 and then that chart inverses.

I would argue, councilman, that that chart would be grounds for we don't have an we don't have an option here. New beats old, we know we're at capacity in terms of occupancy at the convention center, for the economic health of this city and certainly our industry that that convention center expansion needs to happen.

Okay. Real quick, last question, T PID. Is there a cap on how much of that can be spent and and who oversees that?

So yes, both the hot tech collections as well as T PID, there are state statutes, that are very much prescribed, on how that can be spent. If you're okay, I'd like to call up Scott Joslove, the president and CEO of Texas Hotel Lodging Association, just to really walk through some of the details on that because it's nuanced. Well,

I may leave that up to to the mayor pro tem because I know we're short on time, Mario.

You got it.

Maybe you and I can just, go over that or or we could get a one pager on on how that works as a follow-up. I know we have an exec session and public comment coming up, and I don't wanna keep the public waiting. So maybe that's the best way to do it.

You got it. We do have a board of directors, a 14 person board of directors, hoteliers that manage the oversight of the strategies and tactics that are utilized with that funding.

Okay. That's good enough for now. Thanks mayor pro tem.

Thank you. Council member Aldo Etihuito.

Thank you mayor pro tem. Thank you for this presentation. We know that obviously tourism is such an important part of our local economy, so it's important that we invest in the sector's growth. So thank you for all that you all have been doing. You know as councilman White had mentioned and also that you all mentioned, I mean we we have to invest in in our in our convention center because it's important that we don't get left behind.

You were mentioning the drop that we're we're fixing to see in 2029 if we don't do something about it. So yeah, it's extremely important that we invest as needed so that way we're, like I said, we're not left behind. So the feasibility study on the convention center, that's still targeted to be presented in September. Right?

That is my understanding. Okay. Yes.

Alright. Good. One of the things that I wanted us to to talk about today is that we're seeing these articles about, like, the Thompson Hotel closing and and hotel occupancy rates being really high. Can you help us understand that?

Absolutely. So the the good news is you're right councilwoman. If you read the newspapers or anything in the in the news as of late, as it pertains specifically to hotel demand occupancy, you would think we're in the middle of our own mini pandemic, and it's only affecting San Antonio, and that is not the case. Much to Patricio's slide about hot tax collection continuing to increase, what we're facing is that visitation visitors are just lodging differently. That number that I gave in the presentation, even if you move it up, in 2019, we had 400,000 room nights of short term rental demand.

People staying in short term rentals, 400,000 room nights in total. Fast forward to 2025, we have 1,100,000. That exact number has moved out of hotels. Mhmm. It's almost, if you look at the the math on it, it's almost identical to to the to the exact number. So, they're coming here. The good news is they're coming here. They're just lodging and staying differently.

Yeah.

So I'm I'm encouraged by that. Mhmm. With that being said, we still need a at business San Antonio, need to drive hotel demand. And the fastest way that we know how to do it, the fastest way I know how to do that is through group. Right? God love the 45,000,000 visitors that we have in our backyard, but leisure travel can be fickle based on the economy, based on the weather, based on all the reasons why we may or may not take a trip. But, a group customer is coming because there's a contract in place. So, we wanna get more group and certainly that convention center expansion discussion is a part of that.

Yeah. That's extremely insightful. Thank you. Because, know, and and I'm I'm glad to know that you all are still tracking how many visitors are coming to San Antonio, and and that we know that they are still coming, but that they're staying different. So it just sounds like we need to put in some work, like like you're mentioning, rates or other other ways that we can get them to to stay in hotels. But, you know, we all know headlines can sometimes be misleading. So thank you for for that important context. Because Thank I think I think it's important.

Same thing happened with taxis, right, when Uber came on the scene. Yeah. Taxi cab drivers were why are all the visitors? They're here. They're just not in your vehicle. Yeah. Right? So the industry changes and moves like all other industries. But yes, ma'am.

Awesome. Well, thank you. And thank you all for all the the great work y'all do. Thank you.

Thank you. Council member council member Villagran followed by council member Spears.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I want to thank you for the presentation, Mario. You can have a seat. I'll just say a few words. As many of you know, I am I do sit on the board with Councilman Nikki Rodriguez. It's fun times there. I visit San Antonio. I was on staff with Visit San Antonio pre pandemic. Lost my job because of the pandemic and so I'm really glad to see the slide with the numbers and where we come back to.

Patricia, I think you're doing a great job filling that convention center and the dome as we move forward. But we understand that these times are very uncertain as we talked about earlier and it's just very difficult to get people over here. And as many of you all know, it is the jet lag. I was in Dubrovnik in Croatia. They get something like 80,000 visitors a day on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Never have I been so grateful not to be on on a border port town Because that is just a lot of people to manoeuvre. But looking at that and seeing what they're doing and then seeing how San Antonio is managing our tourism and how we get people here is it's good questions to ask and see how how do we do this and how do we do this well. And I think with the current team we have here at Visit San Antonio, we have a team that is doing the work. Once the city department, now they can move faster, they can be more efficient, they have their own team and we don't have to sign off on everything. So I look forward to continuing that model and moving forward with you guys.

And as stated before, but your number one client is the city of San Antonio. And as a board member, I often remind them of that, so you all don't have to worry. And when when we talk about plan b or option b, that means trying to get money from the county. And Eric's not here, but he would be making a face right now. So we're gonna stick with the city of San Antonio and how we're working and what we do.

And I do want to just give acknowledgement. Scott Joslove is here from the Texas Housing Hotel and Lodging Association, so if you all do have any questions about how this money comes down, that's why he's here. Scott, thank you for coming and being available to answer questions. A number of council board members have been here and were here. Taryn from Elsewhere and Elsewhere two is here. Michelle Madsen from San Antonio Hotel and Lodging Association. Deborah Amawali Jarman from SA CAM was here. I don't know if she still is. And Don Ann Ladios, I believe, was here from Texas Restaurant Association. And if I missed any other board members, raise your hand.

Not you, Jalen. I oh. Oh, Crystal. Well, of of course, there's a number of city staff that sit on the board. And I think Shannon is here too, and they all serve.

And we work together to make sure that we bring the world to San Antonio. In this current climate, world is we will the world that we need to focus on is The United States, and then trying to get our friends from Canada and Mexico to continue to come here. Again, being overseas globally, the appetite to come over to The States isn't it just isn't there, y'all. They're not clamoring to come here and that's unfortunate and it'll I'm hoping it'll change, but as of right now, that's not how it is. So I think it's important that we focus on that drive market.

I think it's important that when we talk about the hill country and our and our cities to the South, that they understand they can be members of Visit San Antonio and and be part of that and pay a membership fee and and get people up there or do the the day trips and that's where we wanna kind of build those bonds. But the priority right now is what we mainly use is the heads and beds. And so we do wanna get those conventions in. We do wanna help our hotel providers with the T PID to motivate and get those small groups in, whether it's a family reunion, a wedding, an association a smaller association group, this is what we need to focus on and get them to the hotels. I think I'm positive like Councilman McKee Rodriguez that even though maybe downtown might be a little difficult to navigate, we have some really great hotels with great venue spaces by SeaWorld, by Fiesta Texas that we can put people in.

So making sure we look at that for the future. And then I don't want to forget Andy Heron, I believe he's here from T Pit. There you are, Andy. And that T Pit is why we want to do that because these are the and what I love about T Pit is it's not necessarily Visit San Antonio staff, it is the city's group it is the hotel's groups that are doing the group sales. So this stuff that the city can't do, this is really what Visit San Antonio does and the complexities of that, it really makes it easier when we contract out for this.

So I look forward to this. I look forward to to being creative and I I challenge my council members that these are the opportunities where you can get creative and think of tours and think of of ways to highlight your district and maybe bring a community. It's a great community meeting. We have Riverside that did their little arts and culture art deco thing that I think they sent some influencers out to take photos and stuff. So this is what you can do in your district too as we talk about elevating and telling the story with San Antonio.

So one thing I do have one question in terms of short term rentals, Mario. As we move forward with as we move forward and talk about short term rentals, does Visit San Antonio have a plan in terms of to kind of talk about the struggles that we're going to see with the hotels saying too many short term rentals and then on the other hand I have residents that are saying I don't want any more short term rentals in my neighborhood either.

So they are a part of the lodging landscape right now, right? Okay. Our mission and you mentioned it clearly is to bring the world to San Antonio and by the numbers with visitation continuing to increase, as well as all the other metrics we're doing that. I don't know if the consumer is going to change, but in terms of right, a family of five choosing to stay in a 300 square foot hotel room or each person gets their room, I don't know if that'll ever change. But I think that's where it's critical to the success of the city is growing that group demand.

And again, I'll stop here with that plug for the convention center expansion. But that's really the path to getting more heads in bed specifically in the hotels.

Yeah. And and what I'd like, Mario, you to think about and and maybe Michelle and Scott as we move forward is we're gonna need to go into the communities, in some of our areas in and around downtown because what we're seeing is it's not a home like in the commercials where it's like, oh, let's have a home where everybody gets their own room. It really is a casita or a room. And so we really need to get that short term rental kind of under control and in the neighbourhoods adjoining the downtown area and the river area. And we may need your help to go in and talk to the community in terms of if you're looking at turning a piece of your property into short term rentals or what our market can bear.

Because a home with five bedrooms, great. That's gonna be possibly in the King William. That's gonna be possibly in District 8. It is not gonna be on on Lorraine Street in on the South Side Of San Antonio. It's gonna be one room if if they're doing a short term rental there. So I think we need to have that conversation and how we tell our neighbors what to report and and if they're going to do that, how how do they invest in a short term rental.

Sometimes, simply the tipping point of of demand supply and demand, right, might might end up there. Yeah.

So thank thank you, and thank you, mayor pro tem.

Thank you. Council member Spears followed by council member Mesa Gonzalez.

Thank you, mayor pro tem. Thank you for the presentation. You said one of my favorite words, airport. So how critical is a functional airport with plenty of air service availability to what you're doing, and then how closely do you work together?

It's super critical. Right? One of the things that visitors look for, whether on the leisure side, certainly on the group side, is that air connectivity. Right? As critical as a convention center expansion.

So extremely excited by the investment that the city is making into this airport. It's going be a game changer for us, to say the least, when we're out there pitching to these, respective groups about visiting San Antonio well into the future, the airport comes up. So we have a strong speaking point to be able to sell. We work very closely in terms of the air development, working with Jesus, Saenz and his team in terms of determining the routes that have the greatest impact, that have the greatest opportunity for flights to be filled, to go after those, to continue to get those direct flights here. We work hand in hand with them very closely.

That's great.

Part of our mission.

Yeah. I'm happy to hear that. Let me ask you this. On slide eight, about the TPG, can you articulate in simple terms what the average increase will be on an average nightly hotel stay?

Thank you. Taking it from that 1.25 assessment up to 2% will not be a competitive disadvantage for us at all. The rest of the state, aside from Dallas, is already at the maximum 17% in total taxes, that's allowable allowable by the state, you're probably talking about maybe another 50¢ on a $200 room rate.

That's Yeah. That's very important to note because, you know, you hear percentages and people get they have a skewed sense of what that could mean, but 50¢ is tangible.

It is. So

I appreciate that.

Our our hotel owners, our hotel GMs, when we go out for that petition, one needs 60 a minimum of 60% of their approval on that. So we've already been having those discussions. And along with Visit San Antonio, we do not it's just not a competitive disadvantage at all.

Do you have an idea of how much additional revenue you anticipate to

We do. We're anticipating that going from that 1.25 to 2% will provide another 6,000,000 of estimated sales and marketing dollars to sell the entire destination.

That's great. Yep. That's significant.

We have that.

Then, I had a question on slide six. Can you speak to the Protect San Antonio's regional visitor market share a little bit more?

Absolutely. You know, one of the challenges for an organization like VISTA San Antonio, when you have so many members, a little over 900, and obviously we we sell and market the city at scale, is that if you're not careful, you could become a jack of all trades, a master of none. And the best thing we can do for this city is be hyper focused on selling and marketing the destination. Part of that is ensuring that we own our own backyard. That regional drive market for us is super critical.

And as of late coming out of COVID, certainly our competitor cities have noticed that that's also a sweet spot. And from a leisure standpoint have gone aggressively after that. So, again, are hyper focused on San Antonio as your second home, or there's something different about San Antonio, and it's not just the Riverwalk and the Alamo, and we're blessed to have many of those assets here, but it's really about our people. But, yeah.

Thank you for that. I'll just say, you know, there's no place like home. And, but we are seeing in today's market that that home is often someone else's. But I agree that to stay competitive, we do have to push people back into the hotel and convention space. So expanding our convention center, I think, is completely necessary and not optional.

I I think our economic development and tourism are intrinsically linked. I saw that in my in my traveling to Taiwan. But it's important for attracting employers, including Fortune 500 companies. Driving that consistent business travel here, I mean, I I understand that we We're competing with our other large markets on corporate travelers. And so I would encourage all of us on the council to look for opportunities to collaborate and integrate into the groups that do come here that we might have a link with.

And to the extent we can find out more from y'all about who's coming and when and how we can maybe go, you know, roll out the red carpet in some way as as representatives for the city to maybe drive economic development here when they're here visiting us and seeing how fantastic San Antonio is. I think that's opportunity for us too. And, you know, our There's also something to be said about sports diplomacy, so I'm happy to see that as we move forward with these big projects we're doing with the baseball and basketball, that I think that will help drive us even more, and this is just an extension of that. So I think, you know, it's gonna take a lot of coordination to close this gap with the convention recruitment given what everyone else is already investing. We're kinda We gotta hurry and do it quickly.

So I feel that sense of urgency. And, you know, we've gotta lean into I always say, you know, instead of getting nervous about trends that we see, we have to lean into it and be pragmatic about it and find our way to take the opportunity that's before us. So I'm glad to see y'all doing that. So I'm supportive of that. I'm supportive of everything y'all are doing and I think you're really important to the future of San Antonio. So thank you

very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Council member Mesa Gonzalez followed by council member Kour.

Thank you mayor Pro Tem. Thank you for the presentation. Just a couple of questions. I clearly, I think tourism continues to play a vital role in our economy, and so I appreciate the slides on the on the data, on the job creation, and the economic impact. I think that's important for us to just remember. And, what are there is Texas cities are moving forward on that similar proposal of the 2% increase?

So currently so currently all Texas cities are at the 2%. Okay. Dallas is the only one that isn't at the maximum of 17 in terms of total taxes which is allowable by the state. Okay. But, everybody's at a 2%.

Okay. So, we're one of the

Wait, yeah. So, when we when the TPIP was created, great question. When the TPIP was created for San Antonio, let's call it 1718, Dallas was the only other city that had a T Pit. So, we went in at a 1.25. So, we're we're conservative. We wanted to make sure and be cognizant that it wasn't a competitive disadvantage to bringing business, specifically group business, to the city of San Antonio, and leisure, I guess, for that matter. Now, T pits are widespread. Name a city. They have a T pit. It seems to be the case. So, now, at the going up to that 2%, we're just now playing catch up in in that regards.

Got it. Okay. Thank you. And, can you clarify how the T PID funds are allocated versus the hot tax funds?

In in which way?

Just to make sure there's no duplication in those.

Yeah. Fair question. So, the T PID was never set up as a replacement for the hot tax collections. Our our owners, our hotel owners, our hotel GMs, the expectancy with the T PID and signing up any hotel with a 100 rooms or greater that that signs a petition, their expectation is it's there to supplement the hot tax collections and to bolster the sales and marketing efforts that are associated with the current hot tax collections and our business San Antonio budget.

Great. Thank you. And, you know, obviously tourism is a major economic driver, but how are we ensuring and I'm glad there is a district eight representative on your board with elsewhere too. But how are we making sure that it's felt in all of the 10 districts and not just downtown? Or is that even the right way to think of tourism?

It is. Okay. We're we're very cognizant. If you look at our visit San Antonio website and we talk about all the neighborhoods, all 10 districts. But certainly, and as it pertains to T PID, it is a 40 person board that's made up by two zones.

Zone 1, which is essentially the Central business district of San Antonio, and then outside of that. So, on that board, we have representation from Zone 2, those that sit outside of downtown. And, they are helping drive the strategy and tactics that we would put forth as an organization to impact them. So, there's representation in making sure. There's times where an opportunity comes through like anything where it's a convention center based opportunity and and downtown's gonna benefit. But, then there's large city wise that push out into the outer core of downtown that that T PID funding also helps get here.

Okay. Great. And on the the Airbnb's, you know, as we we know we've got hotels that are being built. We just there was an article about the JW maybe taking over the IBC

Yes.

Bank. Right? So how are we how are maybe this is offline, but how are how is the industry kind of rethinking how they're building these hotels considering what folks are looking for now with, you know, Airbnb's and Yeah. Is there a different way that they're

Well, I I think I think it's two things. We know visitation's coming. Right? Besides 2025 where we took a dip certainly in hotel demand or just visit, you know, hotel occupancy demand, certainly start, short term rentals took a hit also. But the rest of the country did.

Right? Everything happened. Economic uncertainty, tariffs, international sentiment. With that being said, you continue to see hotel development being here in the city, and I can assure you there's not a hotel developer who's doing it, with the thoughts of losing money. They understand investment that the city continues to make into the airport, into the sports and entertainment district, and the convention center expansion that would help drive that group demand.

A lot of that is factored into the development that you're seeing. Offerings at the hotels, know each hotel is different based on different business models and P and L statements, but they are ultimately charged with trying to figure out what is the guest experience that's important to them, to their customer segment, right? Not every hotel is all things to all people. So each one has a specific luxury hotel, has amenities that are specific to drive that visitor to their destination.

Who manages the city pass?

City pass. Great question. Have to get back to you.

I'm I didn't know if

you guys did that.

Definitely not on visits on the side.

I'm a huge fan of city passes whenever we travel. So

So we do one we do do one on the group side. Okay. Right? For our group customer. So group customer comes in, we'll reach out our destination experience team, we'll reach out to all the participating entities on the Riverwalk and say, hey, we have 18,000 Texas high school coaches coming in. Do you wanna offer a discount of some sort? So, definitely on the group side, we are a part of that conversation.

Okay. Alright. Thank you so much.

Thank you, council member council member Kour, followed by council member Castillo.

Thank you so much, mayor pro tem, and thank you all for all those that have been spending your afternoon with us. Hopefully, you've been able to multitask for some of it. But we wanna really appreciate the work that you guys are doing for our downtown economy, which is to Councilman Mensah Gonzales' point, really our overall economy because it does impact so many of the other communities in our city and how we especially as a World Heritage Site with our missions, we know that they're also going to different parts of the city when they're here, we love to be able to show off. I also want to say that I think the growth in the work in our collaboration efforts working with the city and VisitSA has been greatly improved in the three years that I've been in office, and I am noticing a trend with my partnerships with some folks, and that leadership truly does matter. And I said this at ribbon cutting a couple weeks ago, and it really does impact how we collaborate together.

And I think the willingness to have tough conversations with us is important because we want to be involved and we want to ask the hard questions. And so we appreciate that working relationship that you have created, Mario. I have a couple questions on the some of the questions that council member White was talking about, and I was wondering if you could go to the economic impact slide.

There you go.

This, yeah.

Oh, it's really hard, apologies. Sorry.

On this slide, can you, like, roughly just explain so I'm assuming every time a leisure trip is booked, you have an estimate for that amount that that leisure trip would contribute to the economy.

That's that's correct. And or group.

And or group. Yeah. And so is that estimate different for each for the time of year or do you kinda use like a baseline estimate throughout the year?

It's baseline. Right? It's if if there's any variations to that it's more in the segmentation. The leisure traveler travels differently stays a certain amount of time three and a half days spends a little bit differently than the international traveler who tends to spend more time here spends longer, less less affected by seasonality.

And so that is broken up into different segments that you

It is. So and this is independently done. This isn't done by VISTA San Antonio. We provide some of the data, but then it's given to Trinity University's economic department who provide that information that has been doing so It's for at least 10

the next slide that I'm looking at. And then for the total total yeah total events booked, How do you also segment that out based on how long the event is, etcetera?

That that so what we do is we run any of our events that are booked through Destination International's economic event calculator, and it will plug in all the information. Right? Number of attendees, how long they're staying, all that information, it'll generate the economic impact on it. And

this is 2025 or is it fiscal year '20 or what is that?

If you go to this slide there, that is twenty four's data. It's always a year in in in the rear in the rearview mirror because it takes a year for that information.

So this doesn't include the final four?

This does not include the final four.

I'd be curious to see if we could

Actually actually, I take that back. It does. It does include the final four.

Okay.

It does.

So We

did get that data already.

Yeah. I was just kind of wondering how that made an impact just because we have the CEO of SA Sports here, and we know that we are getting our volleyball championship coming up in which we have I know council member Mickey Rodriguez is one of his team members has been really heavily involved in working on making sure we get some low cost tickets for that. But anyways, wanted to see what the impact of the Alamo Dome because we talked about the convention center. You for everything that you're doing over there. But I also wanna see, like, how the Alamo Dome also makes an impact on some of these totals.

Certainly, there's there's a lot of money in sports and and thank you to the efforts of San Antonio Sports. Jenny and her team would do an incredible job of of being the keeper of that, right, for the city of San Antonio and for our destination. Along those lines, even for the Alamodome, the concerts that they have been, Patrice and her team have been getting from Bad Bunny to Bruno Mars coming up, that concert, that concert lineup, it it drives demand. You're starting to see folks that will come in for that concert and and put a head in a bed, which we're excited to see. So a strong concert lineup in the fall is good for lodging.

We definitely felt that with Shakira on the reverse. Okay. So the question that the next question that I was going to ask was, this is an amazing is there a way to quantify the increase in ticket? It'll be a one for one?

Well, at a minimum, right? T pit is required to provide a seven to one return at a minimum. More oftentimes than not, it's it's in the double digits statewide and utilizing TPET funding to help with the hosting of you could do an estimate.

If it goes through to see like a before like a one to one improvement for amount of dollars spent to the actual output and also is closed if we are able to move forward. What does that do to economic impact in the community?

So currently the Plant Center would still be open. Okay. You're adding to the convention center. We wouldn't do a model like Austin where you shut down any portion of it. Would there be a disruption or a possible disruption to group attendance? Absolutely. Group customer would be concerned about noise and all that and we would work through that with the convention center team. But it'd be a lot less impactful than if you were just shutting it down.

Okay. So we were trying to figure out what conventions were coming up. My my brother-in-law is in Euro. It's this weekend, and I just looked up convention calendar. Do we input do we send them the information?

I have to take a look at it. Yeah. Y'all do. Okay.

You sent them the information? So, I mean, we have a lot of conventions coming up in the next several months and people that are gonna be there. And so the thought that I had, because I was actually talking, how do we communicate out which conventions? Like, do you have a monthly newsletter that you're saying, like, these are this is who's in town?

This This is San Antonio.

You guys do that?

Yes. So we are a membership model. Right? So we're an experienced team in our membership out to any of the small any of the Riverwalk, Hey Wendy's. You might wanna maybe stay open later, offer a lunch special, do something of of that sort. So, yeah.

Be on that list.

We can? Absolutely. I

just wanna see what's I wanna see who's in town.

She brought up a really good point. It would be great to have y'all come see a large convention center load in, load out, so you can understand with your own eyes this whole discussion of of occupancy and being maxed out, and what happens when you have two groups that are trying to load into our car and commit you to that.

Okay. Awesome. Thank you. And then I was going to say one last thing, and I just forgot. The oh, I do remember.

The one thing that I've asked is there's a lot that's upcoming for changes with Marvel or sports entertainment district because everyone hates the term Marvel. But the one thing that I've asked for whatever funding is increased, how can we continue to put some of it back? Like, we've talked about creative ways to give funds for artists to participate in the new doing art in the new spaces, if there's any way to add funding for our local micro mobility options or our shuttles and trolleys to see how we can get people. We've already been partnering to do some of that when the conventions are here, but just different ways where we can use whatever dollars are possible because I know they all have strict ties to figure out how do we invest some of that back into our locals so they feel the benefits too. Like, understand it's a long it's an economic benefit to our whole city through our budgets and through all the the revenue that we get, but tangibly, how can we allow our small businesses to feel the same benefit that those and I know it sometimes comes back to engagement, we've talked about this on, like, who's engaging and who's putting in the effort, but even just thinking about, like, art and architectural perspectives, and how do we make sure we can fill the spaces with color as much as possible and useful information.

The only one thing I'll end with is in the convention center if we put up more I remember where I was visiting recently, but showing exactly how to get what what's happening, how to get around, and more clear signage, I think, would be really helpful too around the convention center.

We're excited to have Crystal with Departments of Arts and Culture on our board of directors, which opens up a whole another avenue to this conversation, which is great.

Alright. Thank you

so much for your work. Thank you, mayor pro tem.

Thank you. Council member Castillo followed by council member Galvan.

Thank you, mayor, and thank you, Mario, the presentation. I really appreciated our one on one, and Justin as well, for walking us through many of the initiatives that you all have been tackling. Grateful for my colleagues who serve on the board, and many of my questions have been answered in our one on one, as well as through council discussion. I did want to take an opportunity to highlight the work in partnership with having Crystal Jones on the board in terms of how can we highlight and elevate local artists. I was reminded of a conversation I had within the first month of being in office about four years ago with the coalition of west side artists who felt that there was a lot of opportunity to get plugged into the work that Visit San Antonio was doing.

So just grateful, of course, with the leadership of both of you all that we're now going to to to have those conversations about how we can invest in local artists in telling the story of the city of San Antonio. In addition to that, grateful for the work and you bringing that to my attention in terms of the convention center and the need for growth and expansion. And what I shared with Mario was having worked in the service industry downtown, it's the college games that bring in the large tippers. Right? But it's the conventions as well.

And there's the interconnectedness as as we talk about the role of hospitality in the city of San Antonio. It's it's the the conventions that are brought here that then go into the pockets of the servers, the hostess, the housekeepers, so on and so forth. So just wanted to highlight the role and impact that you all have in that greater economy, especially within the hospitality industry. I'm looking forward to the tour and of course showing you all around District 5, and I know you're very familiar with it, but just to highlight some of those community gems. And lastly, just wanted to highlight, I appreciate you and Alex Lopez in terms of talking about how we can work with boxing promoters, for example, to showcase the history of how many world champions we have, how many boxing gyms in close proximity to downtown, but also how we can tell that story and of course bring some of those large scale events that can go from twelve to fourteen days to the city of San Antonio and hopefully connecting them to hotels.

I said lastly, but lastly, I appreciate you providing context in terms of the short term rentals and the overall impact that has with hotel occupancy, and it reminded me of the conversation around short term rental fees. I think there's opportunity for us to reevaluate what that looks like because we do have some of the lowest fees in the state of Texas. And I know in District 5, similar to what councilwoman Biedron mentioned, there's there's concern in D 5 in Southtown in particular about how we're removing long term housing options for short term rentals. And I think seeing the connection and how it's impacting hotel occupancy warrants us revisiting that conversation. But those are all my comments. Thank you again, Mariano. Thank you, Cynthia, as well. Thank you.

Thank you, council member. Council member Galvan.

Thank you, mayor pro tem, and thank you for the presentation and the conversation today related to business in Antonio and overall tourism here in

our

city. I know you talked a little bit about the, of course, the requirement for 60% of the folks who are part of the TPAD to approve this. What have the conversations been like? I know you said you're already having some of them. Has there been any concerns about it? Has there been any excitement or requests already for this kind of to take place? What's kind of been some of the conversations with hotels? By

and large, our hotel owners and general managers and the TPIP board certainly as well as San Antonio Hotel Lodging Association, they they understand the competitive state we're in and not only as an industry but certainly our state of Texas. So they know that this is necessary to keep us competitive. So again the competitive no competitive concerns about that increase.

Got it.

It's something that we need to move forward with, yeah.

Okay. Well, great. Do you have any data on which hotels, part of the T PID, have requested the individual hotel incentive? Course, within Zone 1 and Zone 2. And then how often they typically request that?

So, We have a running list of those. And essentially, a hotel can apply for up to $75,000 to be applied to get a group to come to their specific property. That fund or that incentive is paid directly to the customer. Okay. Not to not back to the hotel. So we do have a running list of who those hotels are.

Okay. That'd

great. And they're in both zones, Zone 1 and Zone 2.

Okay. I'm just really interested to see what the map looks like there, as well as how often certain parts or certain hotels or, sorry, certain customers request that and where they end up going. Yeah. And I know, of course, the return has to be seven to one, and so I'm interested on that one too of the results of without incentive plus incentive, and just what that kind of looks like. Beyond that, I know we talked a bit about this in the kind of conversation around downtown versus the the full footprint of the city. What kind of strategies, if any, are being implemented on these kind of micro level tourism markets? Looking at, of course, downtown strategies versus one fifty one and SeaWorld strategies versus airport strategies. What kind of things are done through the TIPID for each of these kind of smaller areas?

So again, we're very fortunate to have representation from both outside. Right? So, our TIPET board is extremely engaged, very vocal about ensuring that the funding is good for the entire city as a whole. But obviously they also represent their zones. So the sales and marketing efforts as we go through them and we vet, we go okay that's good there.

What else are we doing? We annually set up a strategic strategic plans and actions associated with how you're going to execute on that funding and drive visitation to the city of San Antonio. So through those annual sessions, summer retreats, we're able to vet out, okay, how is this all gonna play out and be to the benefit of all hotels throughout the city.

Okay. Well, great. And maybe we can talk a bit more offline on that too about the kind of of course, I'm selfishly looking at 151 in SeaWorld in my part of the district or part of the and wondering a little bit about what has that been looking like. Of course, I've heard different things from different folks in the area about the kind of general concerns about hotel and lodging, the state of it nationally, right, not just in that particular area. But I was thinking a bit more too, are there any kind of needs there that would be helpful to ensure that more folks are heading that direction, whether it's groups or just getting heads in beds regardless? I understand maybe if it's infrastructure needs or transit needs, etcetera. Being able to understand that and seeing what that impact could then be in getting more out that way would be interesting, just for me personally. Yeah. No, for sure.

Team sport. Yeah. Tourism is a team sport.

And then I think on a similar note on hotel occupancy, of course, I know we talked a little bit about this already. But understanding a bit more, are there what are the primary reasons that we're seeing kind of hotel occupancy dips over the past couple of years? Is it primarily economic reasons, political reasons, or are there local needs here and there?

So the hotel occupancy dip is, again, if you look at it, is a shift just straight out into short term rentals.

Okay.

It's like the exact number. It's interesting when you really get into the data and it's a direct correlation. Now what happened in '25 happened everywhere. The entire Right. Country felt that impact whether you're in Orlando, Texas, wherever it was. And that had to do with the economic uncertainty. Certainly, tariffs play into that conversation. Government funding is a huge piece of that. If you look at the recent articles that have come out, they're talking about hotel demand that decreased in the fourth quarter of last year, October through December. And if you just look at the data, you're like, man, nobody came and we have a major problem here in San Antonio.

That wasn't the reality. The reality is we had multiple medical groups that were lined up back to back. In fact, in July '25, as you looked at the fourth quarter, we were thinking we're going to be up at least two to 3% in overall revenue based on it. Medical groups tend to spend more pay higher rates all those things. Those groups typically pick up about 85% of the room block when they come to the city. They ended up picking up 50% of their room block. A lot of that had to do with government funding. Right? They just didn't have the funding for students to attend whatever the case may be and we saw that. But it wasn't that people weren't didn't want to be in San Antonio.

It's just we were a product of what was happening in the the rest of the economy.