City Council - workshop

On Wednesday, September 9th, 2026 in the city of San Antonio, budget work session is called to order. Madam Clerk, please call roll.

Council Member Cora. Council Member McGee-Rodriguez.

Present.

Council Member Villagran. Here. Council Member Munguia. Present. Council Member Castillo. Here. Council Member Galvan.

Here.

Council Member Alderete-Gavito. Here. Council Member Mesa-Gonzalez. Council Member Speers. Council Member White. Mayor Jones.

Here.

Mayor, we have quorum.

Great. Thank you. This afternoon, we'll review the San Antonio Public Library, Parks and Rec, economic development, and solid waste management budgets. Eric, over to you.

Thank you, Mayor. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. So, yes, we'll start off with parks, then move into economic development and solid waste, and then wrap up with the library. And we do have a member of the library board here as well who will be providing some remarks. So I'll turn it over to Homer to kick us off.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Homer Garcia III, Parks Director. I want to thank City Manager Walsh, the entire executive leadership team, Freddie, his entire budget team. It's certainly been a collaborative process throughout to get us to this point, so I appreciate the opportunity to present the proposed 2027 parks budget. I also want to highlight, I do have some team members with me here today, both of our assistant directors, Melinda Cerda and Nikki Ramos. well as some members of our senior leadership team are with us and then several are listening so I'll go ahead and proceed with really just an overview the department we will outline the proposed budget which does include revenue enhancements some program changes our initiatives and key programs and then provide a summary and some priorities as we look ahead to driving forward our work plan over the next 12 months For the work that we do, we are primarily organized across three pillars, if you will. If you think of operations and maintenance focused on keeping our parks safe, clean, ready for public use, that's what that team does. It is comprised of skilled trades, park sanitation, our urban tree canopy, which is really critical here the last several days. Additionally, we have our recreation and community engagement team. That houses all of our recreation centers. We have 30 facilities, fitness, aquatics. We just wrapped up pool season, so it was a very busy time of year for the Parks Department. And then lastly, our support services. That is the director's office, our fiscal team, contract services and accreditation and data governance you can see just a sampling of the vastness of our park system to provide some additional context we have more than seventeen thousand two hundred acres of public green space and that comprises of 278 parks and as well as more than 100 miles of Greenway trails. It's not all inclusive, but it gives you an idea of just the breadth of what we do daily. We are an accredited park agency. We were really proud to achieve that mark in our first attempt back in 2022. We are the second largest accredited park agency in the country. And then we also have, and really what leads our work daily, is making sure that our staff have the resources, the training, and safety first always. If we're not taking care of our team, then they're not gonna meet the needs of the community. So the proposed budget is $120.4 million across all funds. That is in large part supported by the general fund at $71.1 million. That is a slight increase over the current year, which I will highlight later in the presentation, tied to our growing park system and mandates. Of course, our restricted funds is a little over $29 million. That is primarily the environmental fund, which I will also highlight later. but it also includes our tree canopy preservation and mitigation fund, city cemeteries, and then capital projects. We do have a capital project team, while capital delivery focuses on delivering the bond. We do have some projects that we drive forward as well, so that is coming in at just under $20 million, and it does include the Edwards Aquifer Protection Program. And then, of course, a few grants there totaling just over $120 million. And I want to highlight for anyone who's trying to do a crosswalk from our funds listed on the left to the pie chart on the right, the pie chart on the right is our program inventory. So when we talk about a program itself, it's supported sometimes by more than one fund. So if you see a few differences, that's the reason for that. The proposed budget does include several revenue enhancements, which we anticipate to come in right at just under $445,000. Several of these were selected because they hadn't been updated in a while, which we can see evidence there. Most of them were last updated in 2013, a few much later than that. And some popular amenities are our gyms, sports fields, and our mass pavilions. I want to talk about our mass pavilions for a second. It is currently a tiered rate system, so we effectively brought that forward into this recommendation. The rates are up to 400 individuals, then there's a middle tier up to 1,000 and anything over 1,000. Those larger events, over 1,000, are often ticketed, gated admission, and when we look at what the impact is, you see it's not driving much of the anticipated increased revenue, and that's because over 90% of the reservations of those facilities are in that lower tier category. And then I do want to talk a moment about sports fields. That you will see as the largest driver, which I think equates to about 60% of the 445,000. And that's representative of 91 sports fields historically that are very popular for reservation. We also have nearly 60 fields that are available for use by the community, do not require reservation, and often are not. So again, we also wanted to make sure that what we were doing was considerate of not only cost recovery, but looking at some benchmarking with other cities, Austin, Dallas, for example. And to give you an example, for them, when you look at sports fields, their hourly rate is anywhere from 25 to north of $60 an hour. Additionally, the parks environmental fee is a proposed increase of a quarter which would generate two million dollars in revenue. As a reminder, this fee was first introduced, the parks environmental fee on CPS bills back in 2014. So with this proposed budget, that would be a quarter increase bringing it to $2.25 with a revenue of two million dollars. The proposed budget also has just over between reductions and transfers and some efficiencies totaling 3.2 million dollars and I'll walk everyone through that. Last year when I was speaking through our proposed budget we had just completed the comprehensive budget review process but that work has continued and when we look at line items that are historically used or not There was a capacity of $217,000 that is part of the proposed budget that would effectively go away. Additionally, we've continued to look at the classes that we offer and this eliminates a vacant recreation specialist with associated temp salaries relative to that programming. So together that's $325,000. Additionally, we have several transfers of positions between funds. and probably the cleanest way to look at that is the several positions are supported currently in the general fund that qualify for other funds and so you see an example of in this instance we would have 12 positions that are supported by the general fund moving into the environmental fund we can see movement of three positions into the tree canopy preservation mitigation fund and then also two positions into capital management services. As I indicated, we work closely with capital delivery. We do drive forward, however, some of the bond program. And then lastly, I'm going to highlight on the next slide proposed reductions totaling just over $400,000. The beginning with $200,000 a decrease to the Botanical Garden. This is tied to a lease agreement we have with the Botanical Garden Society, which council approved in October of 2010. In 2019, the society moved to fully operating The Botanical Garden, which is a city-owned asset under a lease and so this would reduce that funding by $200,000 Additionally, there are three vacant positions that would with adoption of the budget go away This is totally nearly two hundred and ten thousand dollars it is an equipment operator and a marketing specialist, and a building maintenance supervisor. Those positions have been vacant. We've gotten through this year absorbing those tasks within the team. So at the end of the day, minimal impact to service delivery and the work that we do. I mentioned earlier growth in the general fund, $1.1 million. That's eight positions, primarily skilled trades and park sanitation to accommodate nine miles of Greenway Trail. We see some highlights there along Bidal Creek and then the collaborative lotus connector but also want to highlight some things that really are going to drive I think people to our parks and so I know last week Mike Shannon had presented the budget for capital delivery department we also will be opening a new splash pad at Woodlawn Lake Park We have the Casiano project is also going to wrap up this coming fiscal year. So it's not only a brand new pool, but it's a splash pad to boot. And so there's some significant things that are happening over the next 12 months that are really going to bring the community out, which we're excited and appreciate the additional resources to make sure those things are operating the way that they should be. This year's proposed FY27 budget includes $10.4 million to program our tree canopy preservation mitigation fund. And just a quick reset, this is driven by UDC Chapter 35, and the way it works is development services, they issue the permits. They drive whether people are going to pay into the fund or mitigate as part of the project on site. So they take care of the front end of it, but on the back end, we program those dollars. And you see that here in fiscal year 27, we will get more than 13,700 trees planted and adopted. A very popular program for us continues to be tree adoptions and giveaways, right at 9,000. And then last year I had talked about how we were working through our queue for getting residential trees planted into the program. Under that program, citizens have the opportunity, and it's voluntary, but they have an opportunity to select a native shade tree, receive utility locates, have the tree installed on their property, all at their convenience. So whether that's now or later, that is something that they're able to do. So we've planted all those and we're targeting to continue to do that program right at 2,000 trees. I also wanna highlight quickly, a year ago I was asked about what the survival rate, how do we know these trees that were planting or surviving. So what we did in year one is very critical for that tree surviving. We went back and looked at everything planted in 2025 and did a sample rather. So and what we got was now a baseline. So we know that 81% of our trees planted through this program in 2025 are surviving, which is right at industry standard or maybe slightly above. We will continue to monitor and assess these going forward with new trees planted under the residential tree planting program. I also had the same question relative to tree adoption. So we do collect information. We were able to push a link, a survey text out to everyone that received a tree since 2024. It was self declaration reporting, but there 89% had reported that their tree is still surviving and so really excited to do that we will continue that outreach and engagement also want to highlight we have still as part of our baseline oakwood replacement program genesis of that was the CCR a year ago from district 7 and so that there has been an uptake for that that continues and then lastly as you see we are on the backside of the 22 bond we are leveraging this fund with other capital projects and so a little over 600 trees will get into the ground. The Edwards Aquifer Protection Program is a signature initiative for the city of San Antonio and is one I'm asked often about. I'd like to just thank the Conservation Advisory Board that provides us guidance on how and where we program these dollars. It is a voluntary participation program that has been in place since 2000, and we can see the evolution of funding. $325 million from 2000 to 2023 was sales tax funded, and then that funding moved to the Municipal Facilities Corporation, which by design is intended to be a 10-year program, pegged at right at $100 million. In the work plan for fiscal year 27, there are eight properties, 5,500 acres, which will then push us north of 190,000 protected acres in this program, which we're, you know, closing in on a milestone of 200,000 acres protected. And I do want to highlight, you know, we do look for opportunity to leverage this funding as well. And while there are many partners, you know, one that we actually also have a couple of properties in the hopper is through the Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration Program. And so to date, more than $3.3 million have been committed and leveraged specifically for aquifer protection through the REPI program. Greenway trail development is another question that I get asked about, or actually just how do we do it and where are y'all at? So this on the right is effectively a greenbelt that will be built out encompassing the city of San Antonio. And again, here the history dates back to 2000, more than a quarter century in the making. Through sales tax, 2000 and 2022, $190 million of investment. Bond picked up $103.5 million. Currently, 106 miles are completed. There's another 17 that are funded for construction. We have a tri-party interlocal agreement that the county is funding more than $83 million to build 21 miles of trail that city, county, river authority. River authority is delivering those projects. Currently, there are about four and a half, close to five miles in production. along Zarzamora Creek and Calabria Creek and that is in districts five six and seven and so we're really excited that that's finally getting going as well and then lastly there are 17 miles to complete the ring and so that is what would still need to be funded for construction and here we also have the linear Creek Advisory Board that provides guidance to our work plan so I want to thank them for their efforts and engagement as well Capital projects, some of this you may have heard last week, but not all of it. So we are entering year four or five in our playground shade program. To date, 35 locations have been completed. And as we enter year four, 12 locations and six districts will receive shade. And this work plan begins really in October, the minute the budget is loaded. And our goal is to have this done prior to the hot season in May. Deferred maintenance, that is $1.725 million of planned projects, and I'm not gonna highlight them all. I do want to call out, if you look in the far right there, you see a recently completed bond project right in the middle. That's at Benavides Park. wonderful skate amenity or bicycle amenity. What you don't see is the basketball courts right next to it that need a lot of attention. We will be fully rehabilitating those basketball courts with this work plan. Additionally, Woodlawn Lake Park Pool will be resurfaced That is the pool that opens earliest and closes latest, just based on demand and use. So again, we're glad to continue to invest in those high-use amenities that bring people to our parks. Last week, Mike Shannon highlighted the HVAC replacement, wanted to provide also some other investment happening in collaboration with Capital Delivery, focusing on replacement at three locations, more than $570,000. And to summarize, while we have a lot ahead of us in terms of the work plan, one of the things that we have been slowly working on, and now it's front and center, is becoming reaccredited. And that happens every five years. The accrediting body will be on site this spring, and we work with them, find out where things are at in the summer, and things are looking good. And then next fall, they make that announcement at the national conference. I also want to highlight one of the things that we're really excited to make sure we see through is we've had a lot of success securing grants. With the support of this council and prior councils, we have successfully secured $6.2 million in competitive grant funding. Leading the way is Woodlawn Lake Park at over $3 million. Cassiano Park, which I mentioned earlier, that project is in progress. $1.5 million to support the aquatic amenities there. Pearsall Park, that is in design. It's a BMX-style type of bike track. That's $1.5 million. And we also have a pending grant application with our State Department, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, $1.5 million for a playground at Gomez Park. And then lastly, one of the things, it's been a little bit of a long burn, but through the federal funding ORLP program, they have finally said submit applications. Those are going in October 1, and then we will find out this spring the status of the Normal Oil Park Grant, which is just under $6 million. that is currently a 32-acre park that will become a 75-acre regional park. So we need a lot there, and we're excited about the program and learning the outcome of that on the heels of our upcoming bond election. And lastly, I want to highlight the continued collaboration across city departments For most recently, storm response. You've seen some options there where we collaborate daily. Want to thank the ACS, our EOC, Metro Health, Parks Houses, four of the six resiliency centers. But beyond storm response, that collaboration and work goes on daily. Here and now as an example, I'm going to ask Brenda Hicks-Lorentzen to come up and provide her budget presentation. We have been engaged with them on the Wolf Stadium redevelopment, and that work began this summer and continues this fall. So I'll turn the mic over to Brenda.

Thank you, Homer. Good afternoon, Mayor, Council. My name is Brenda Hicks-Lorentzen, and I am the Director of Economic Development. Today I'll review the proposed fiscal year 27 budget for the economic development department with specific focus on the economic development strategic framework update. The Economic Development Department serves the San Antonio community by supporting businesses of all sizes. We foster relationships locally, nationally, and internationally to provide resources, support initiatives, and develop opportunities that play a critical role in growing San Antonio's economy. Our award-winning Global Engagement Program brings international attention to San Antonio, meaning businesses where they are at is core to our business retention and growth visits, as well as our outreach and engagement strategies. For example, our supplier engagement endeavors, anchored by the Sabeta program, have expanded office hours throughout the city to encourage the participation of small businesses on city contracts. We've expanded our placemaking efforts beyond the Revitalize SA program to include other targeted community-driven placemaking efforts. I will provide some additional details about specific investments, but I would first like to thank assistant directors Anna Bradshaw and Alfred Brewer for their leadership in these efforts. I also want to thank the economic development team members who, time and again, demonstrate remarkable resilience. No matter how quickly circumstances shift, they respond with steady focus and determination. The team embodies the best of public service, professionalism, integrity, and a genuine commitment to strengthening San Antonio's economic future. The proposed general fund budget for the department totals $16.9 million a 9.6% reduction from the fiscal year 26 adopted general fund amount. There is $7.5 million allocated in restricted funds, which includes the Economic Development Incentive Fund, the Starbright Industrial Fund, and the Capital Management Services Fund, which continues to support two positions on our supplier engagement team. The 38 positions shown are a reduction of two staff positions for the department, which I will provide more detail about momentarily. The proposed budget reflects an efficiency of approximately $172,000 for the Small Business Construction Mitigation Program to reflect current construction schedules, limited utilization of activation resources, and our partnership with the Capital Delivery Department. We are shifting Latin America business recruitment from a private contractor and instead will leverage the U.S. Commercial Services International Network to host targeted investment promotion events while continuing regional leadership through the award-winning America's Task Force. As previously referenced, two positions are proposed to be eliminated. For background, in fiscal year 2025, EDD partnered with Barry Dunn, an accounting and consulting firm with expertise in local government process improvement, to work with our team in identifying efficiencies within our incentives contract compliance process as well as the deployment of the 2024 sub-beta ordinance. These process and system efficiencies allow us to eliminate an economic development manager and a vacant senior economic development specialist while continuing our robust approach to monitoring approximately 70 contracts and our proactive supplier engagement outreach efforts. This year we undertook a refresh of the economic development strategic framework with TIP strategies. Since we last discussed, TIP has continued to engage and assess how San Antonio can, quote, level up. Thank you for your engagement thus far. I'd also like to acknowledge and thank the many stakeholders who have offered expertise and shared their insight throughout the iterative process. As a result, the updated framework includes a set of enhanced and new goals centered on strengthening San Antonio's position as a globally competitive destination for business investment and innovation, stimulating private sector investment in place-based redevelopment areas and regional centers via investments in amenities and infrastructure, Improving economic mobility for San Antonio's through developing a workforce with the skills to access good jobs Additionally the updated framework includes a capacity and resources section intended to refine the city's economic development tools Align partners and pursue new funding options to activate the updated framework I will touch upon a few specifics in the next slides But look forward to bringing forth the framework update for further briefing and discussion during the October 14th B session. I Earlier, I referenced the U.S. Commercial Service, and it was through one of their principals, followed by then U.S. Consul General in Munich, who introduced German company Blackwave to us during a sister city-related travel to Darmstadt, Germany in 2024. Following ongoing discussions, the manufacturer of high-tech tanks used in rockets and other spacecraft announced the initial tranche of a $95 million investment and 250 prospective jobs at Port San Antonio. This initial investment and jobs are included in the performance metric shown on the slide. Please note that the new jobs and capital investment figures shown here are higher than what was included in the budget materials in part because of the recently announced industrial electric manufacturing project at Brooks. The $200 million, 1 million square foot manufacturing facility will employ up to 3,000 positions by 2030. Speaking of investments, I'd like to highlight the popular 0% interest rate loan program, as the proposed budget includes $500,000 as ongoing access to capital support for small businesses. This program, offered in partnership with Live Fund, supports eligible business owners and entrepreneurs with interest-free funding to reach their goals. Since 2016, over 400 loans have been facilitated by nearly $14 million, representing an estimated total economic impact of $195 million. Through the program, Allisense, for example, secured interest-free funding that allowed the company to invest in critical equipment and build out a mini manufacturing line for electronics. As we strengthen our support for job creation and investment, it's equally important to ensure we have the sites and infrastructure ready to capture those opportunities. As part of the framework update, we, along with Greater SATX, SAWS, CPS, and other local stakeholders, worked with Global Location Strategies, a site selection firm, to complete a site readiness assessment for 10 sites. GLS reviewed each of the sites using two industry profiles, labor intensive and capital intensive to identify actionable opportunities to move each site closer to investment readiness. In fiscal year 2027 we will be working collaboratively with our partners to identify an initial two or three sites for an intentional approach to addressing the gaps. EDD, working collaboratively with many other departments and stakeholders, as Homer mentioned, will be bringing forth a community-driven master plan for the Wolf Stadium site later this fall. Following consideration of the master plan, EDD will shift focus to identifying development partners to implement the vision for the community. We will also be reporting to the Economic and Workforce Development Committee as follow-up to the August 6 Eastside Corridor Economic Development Implementation Plan, CCR. Offered in partnership with Main Street America, the Revitalize SA Corridor Leadership Program combines leadership training, applied project work, and grant support to catalyze neighborhood corridor revitalization. While cohort three members are now undertaking their change projects, I am pleased to note that many of the earlier cohort members remain engaged in their community, working diligently to drive change and investment in their corridors, which are home to more than 4,700 small businesses. None of the work happens without having appropriate capacity and resources. We will continue to invest in partners like Greater SATX as they build on the tremendous momentum here in San Antonio and in key industry sectors like biosciences through Biomed SA. We will use the available $5.6 million in economic development incentive funds to support company growth, job creation, and innovation, along with continuing to invest in Supply SA and Launch SA. EDD has engaged with stakeholders to address the economic development incentive policy updates with an emphasis on economic mobility, broader community impacts, and investments by both existing companies and those new to the market while enhancing our competitiveness. EDD is completing initial stakeholder feedback sessions this week and previously held specific discussions on job creation, placemaking and innovation. We will be presenting the proposed policy revisions to the Economic and Workforce Development Committee on September 22nd. Throughout spring and summer, we have heard that it is time for us as a community to be bold and take proactive, aggressive posture aimed at leveling up the city, our economy, and our residents. This means increasing competitiveness with national and global peers, creating new opportunities for employment at all levels, expanding the wealth, assets, and tax base of residents and businesses. I look forward to the forthcoming discussion regarding the framework update as well as the department continuing to support job creation, private investment opportunities, and long-term economic growth in fiscal year 2027. Thank you. I will now turn it over to Josephine Valencia.

So good afternoon, mayor and city council. I, my name is Josephine Valencia. I am your director of solid waste and I'm here to talk some trash today. So my agenda for today, I'm going to give you an overview of our services, uh, talk a little bit, our budget and our three proposed initiatives for next year, which includes the rate increase as well as our fleet services fund. Uh, before I get into the presentation, though, I did want to highlight this image. This is a new billboard that just went up last week. It's at seven locations right now, and it'll be at four more next month. And the creation of this billboard was a result of a conversation we had with Councilman Munguia, who had expressed some concerns about all the litter he is seeing on the streets, especially related to the landfill. So I had directed my staff to do an assessment, and as we were driving around the city, and specifically near the landfills, we noticed that a lot of loads, both commercial and residential, were driving around without a tarp. So a lot of the materials were leaving the vehicles and causing litter on the roads. So this is our new campaign that we're hoping to mitigate some of that effects. So an overview of our department, lots of good things come in threes. Three wise men, three meals a day, three carts. Brown, blue, and green. This is our bread and butter operation. This is the service that we provide predominantly to single family homes within the city. It's a service that I think you all know. Another one of our main services is our grappler operations. These are the crews that pick up curbside brush and bulky, both the regularly scheduled as well as the emergency response, such as what we're doing right now. This is also the same crew that works on illegal dumping and homeless encampment cleanups. Most of you knew and loved that Andrew Gutierrez, who retired after 30 years, more than 30 years with the city, Standing behind me is David the deal. He's the new interim assistant director the new Andrew who came during a very difficult time He has a long career with the city and he's been doing an excellent job in directing the storm the storm cleanup And I think it's important to highlight that So for the past 11 days the men and women are a department who have been cleaning storm debris pickup They've worked the past two weekends and Labor Day. So they've worked tirelessly and straight on this and So far in the past 11 days, we have picked up over 11 million pounds of brush, and it's still growing. It's a great amount of material out there. There's still a lot of need out there. We have completed our first sweep of the priority area. That is the area that was most impacted by the storm. We completed the first sweep this past Friday. We are conducting a second sweep in that same area, and we expect to complete that sweep by tomorrow. Next week, we're going to start focusing our areas outside of the priority zone, so there's still many areas within the city that have brush. To accomplish this collection, we had to delay our bulky collection, but I'm happy to say we are on a plan to get back on track with that collection. The bulky collection that was scheduled for collection last week will be completed by tomorrow and the bulky collection that was scheduled for this week will be completed by Friday of next week and we will be back on track on schedule. Today we are delivering flyers for the next collection zone. We don't expect the next collection zone to be impacted for bulky and will continue to be serviced as normal. But transitioning to our budget, our budget consists of two separate funds. The solid waste operating and maintenance fund is an enterprise fund. This is a restricted fund that is funded by our user fees as well as a few other revenue sources. We charge our monthly card customers a fee that appears on the CPS bill. Our other fund is an internal services fund. the fleet maintenance fund, which I'll talk a little bit about in another slide. We have three initiatives for next year. Our first initiative is a customer growth initiative. We expect our population base to grow by about 3,500 customers next fiscal year, bringing us to a curbside cart customer base of 385,400 customers. So the initiative includes six hundred and sixty one thousand to add two drivers and purchase one additional garbage truck Our second initiative is on the transfer station some of you may remember this past summer at the audit committee the deputy director Nick Gallis presented on our plans for the transfer station and A transfer station at a basic overview is where garbage is a covered concrete area where garbage trucks unload onto the floor and then the garbage is picked up and transferred to a larger vehicle, typically a 18-wheeler tractor trailer. This allows us to transport the waste more efficiently a further distance. So the facility was operated by a contractor for over 30 years, and that contract ended last fall. This past summer, we reopened the facility only for city crews right now. And what we are proposing is a one-time $3.1 million investment in facility upgrades. This is a variety of utilities and pavement and scales. What this investment would do would allow us to open the facility open to the public. With these renovations, if we were to, when I say the public, I'm talking about private waste haulers, not your mom and pop pickup trucks. The reason for that, this facility is already close to our free bulky drop-off center on Bitters Road. So by opening this facility to large waste haulers, since there is no disposal area, no disposal option in this area of the city, this could be a revenue generator for the city. And finally, our last initiative is our proposed rates. So we are proposing a 75 cent rate increase on each cart, the small, medium, and the large. We are proposing a 25 cent fee increase on the environmental fee. The difference between these fees, the cart fee is only addressed on residents that receive curbside cart collections, primarily single family homes. It does not apply to apartments or businesses. The environmental fee is assessed on everyone in the city, businesses, apartments, anybody. The environmental fee is used to fund citywide services such as illegal dumping, for example. And the last line here is our waste hauler permit fee. We've never really talked about this fee, and we are not proposing an increase in the fee. This is a fee that applies only to private garbage haulers in the city. So any company that is transporting garbage in the city gets assessed this annual fee. The ordinance that authorizes fee currently has an exemption for recycling trucks. So while we are not proposing to change the amount of the fee, we're proposing to change who the fee applies to. So expand the fee to both garbage and recycling. And I want to highlight that this money does not stay in the solid waste fund. We collect the money, but we transfer the money to the general fund, specifically to Public Works, who uses this money for street maintenance. And finally, I want to talk about our fleet services fund. As I mentioned before, this is an internal services fund. It may surprise you to learn that our fleet division maintains a variety of heavy equipment, trucks, and off-road vehicles, not just our own. We maintain all heavy equipment with the exception of fire trucks. So street sweepers at Public Works, for example, parks and rec equipment, all of those are maintained by our fleet shop. is more cost-effective and faster than sending your vehicles out to the private sector. There is still some work that we send out to private companies, and I'm really looking to reduce that. So one of the things we are working on is an initiative with HR to kind of develop a mechanic apprenticeship program that would allow us to further train our staff and expand the type of repairs that we do. I think this will be a very good companion to our existing and successful driver apprenticeship program. I think as a department, we currently have a very high customer satisfaction rate, and I think part of it that is related to the training and the skill of our employees. So I think it's very important that we invest in all our employees because we all have a role to play from the collector all the way to the director. We are all cogs in a larger organization that try to benefit the city and keep our community clean. And with that, I conclude my presentation and I will turn it over to Sukrit to discuss the library.

Good afternoon, Mayor Jones, members of city council, and the city manager. I'm Sukrit Goswami, director of San Antonio Public Library, and I appreciate the opportunity to go over the library department's proposed fiscal year 2027 budget. I'm also joined today by the members of my leadership team, our assistant directors, Kathy Donnellan and Dale McNeil, our assistant director, Jessica Zurita, and also our DFA, Gabby Rochevor. We also have a few members from our library board of trustees among us today. I'll begin with a brief overview of the library and the scale of services we provide across San Antonio. From there, I'll walk through the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget, including both new investments and efficiencies. I'll spend some additional time on our proposed branch staffing model because that represents the most significant operational change in the budget for the library. and I want to provide counsel with the context and methodology behind that proposal. Finally, the Vice Chair of the Library Board of Trustees and District 2 Representative Joanne Harris is here today to share the board's perspective. Before getting into the budget, I think it is important to understand the scale and breadth of the library's work. Through 30 locations, we expect to welcome approximately 3 million visits this year. Our collection includes close to 2.5 million physical and digital items, with circulation expected to exceed 10 million. Our 39 computer labs, along with Wi-Fi access across all locations, provide more than 2 million hours of technology used annually, and our information professionals answers approximately 1.3 million questions. We also provide 14,000 public programs with more than 220,000 attendees. Our community engagement and marketing efforts generate more than 18 million engagements. Those are significant numbers, but what matters is what sits behind them. A resident completing a job application, a family looking for assistance, or a child discovering the library for the first time. Our libraries are also places for civic engagement, voters, community gatherings, and cooling and warming centers. So when we discuss the library budget, we are really talking about access, access to information, technology, learning, opportunity, and community. And that access is made possible every day by our dedicated library staff. With that context, I will now turn to the proposed budget. LIBRI's total proposed fiscal year 2027 budget is $60.8 million. Of that, $58.1 million is in the general fund, which represent an increase of approximately 4% or $2.2 million. The increase is driven primarily by employees' cost of living adjustments, mandates, and investments in replacement of furniture, fixtures, and equipment. In addition, the proposed budget includes $1.3 million in capital funding and approximately $1.4 million in grant support, which is made possible through the generosity and hard work of other partners from San Antonio Public Library Foundation and Friends of the San Antonio Public Library. This budget emphasizes continuous investment in the community in the most efficient manner. There are areas where additional resources are necessary to maintain and improve service, and then there are also areas where we have identified opportunities to operate more efficiently. The next slide shows proposed additions to the library budget. In this budget proposal, one of the most significant investment is associated with the Carver Branch Library. The proposed budget includes $400,000 for operating and maintenance costs and four additional positions as we prepare for the expanded Carver Branch to return to service. This is an important investment in San Antonio's east side. The proposed budget also includes $2.1 million in one-time funding for furniture, fixture, equipment, computers, and other needs across the library system. Maintaining welcoming spaces, reliable furniture, current technology, and functioning equipment is fundamental to providing quality public service. These investments continue to enhance community experience. The proposed budget addresses several of our highest priority facility needs, including major projects at Central Library, Mission, Thousand Oaks, Tobin at Oakwell, and Patranco branches. These are our highest priorities from our building plan, which considers the condition of facilities across the entire system, lifecycle replacement of major building systems, accessibility, safety, and the condition of public spaces. The project before you represent the facility needs that are most important to address now to maintain safe, accessible, reliable, and welcoming library building and spaces. Those investments are important. Like last year, this year's budget required us to look closely at every aspect of library operation. Starting in December of 2025, the library participated in Citi's comprehensive budget review process. That process resulted in approximately $1.4 million in proposed efficiencies. The first is a $480,000 reduction in our computer software budget. Through a detailed review of our non-personnel expenditures, we determined that the library continues to qualify for academic pricing for software installed on public computers. That allows us to reduce the budget without reducing service. The second efficiency, approximately $950,000, comes from a new branch staffing model. The proposed model right sizes staffing at our branches. It reduces 27 of 88 branch library aid positions and reduces 12 of 113 branch SERC attendant positions. This is a total of 39 positions. 17 of these 39 positions are currently vacant and remaining 22 affected employees will be offered positions at either different branches or other departments within the city with no reduction to pay or tenure. It is important to acknowledge the significance of that. These are real positions and our colleagues, and a staffing change of this size deserves careful consideration. At the same time, we have a responsibility to ensure that our staffing structure reflects the work occurring at our libraries today, and that we are responsible stewards of public funding. The CBR gave us an opportunity to examine both. We worked closely with our partners in the innovation department. We examined community use, how services are delivered, branch workload, individual job responsibilities, branch observations, staffing levels, and we also gathered feedback directly from branch employees, which had a response rate of 71%. One of the clearest trends to emerge was a significant shift in how the community is using our libraries and how customers use our collections. Overall, our circulation has grown, but the balance between physical and digital use has changed considerably. that change has direct implication for some of the work performed in our branches. Our approach to the staffing structure was to ask the question, what do our branches need today to provide full library services effectively and responsibly? That question is the foundation of the model I'll walk you through on the next few slides. This slide outlines the objectives of the branch staffing model. The starting point for the staffing model was service, not reduction. Our first requirement was that every branch must continue to support our seven-day, 56-hour-a-week public service schedule. From there, we asked what roles and responsibilities must be covered to provide full branch service. that workload exists at each location, and whether the work employees are performing aligns appropriately with their classifications. The analysis also accounted for the realities of operating a branch. Vacancies, training, vacation, and sick leave, and the staffing coverage necessary to maintain service throughout the week. We did not simply apply a percentage across the system. We recognized that our branches are not interchangeable. They serve different communities, experience different level of activity and different types of activity, and in some cases provide additional specialized services. The branch staffing model objective was consistent, and public services were not compromised. This slide gets to one of the key factors behind the proposed staffing change, and that is the way residents use our collection. Since 2019, check-ins of physical materials have decreased by 40%, while staff-assisted checkouts have decreased by 62%. Those are key changes in transactional workload. Our residents have not stopped using the library's collection. In fact, overall circulation of physical and digital material has grown by 24%. What has changed is how they use it. Physical circulation has declined by 18%, while digital circulation has grown by 161%. So this is not a story of declining library use, it is a story of changing library use and that distinction matters. The work associated with moving physical materials through our branches, checking items in, staff assisted checkout, sorting, shelving, and other transactional activity has declined even as overall use of our collection has grown. The proposed budget responds specifically to that change by reducing library aid and circ attendant positions, the two classifications most directly connected to this work. In total, the proposal reduces 39 positions out of 369 branch positions. The proposal maintains our library hours, seven-day service, and programming. It does not reduce librarian, library assistant, or training officer positions. The previous slide explains why a staffing adjustment is appropriate. This slide shows how we translated that analysis into an operating model. The model establishes a standard staffing complement based on the roles necessary to provide comprehensive branch services. Library aids primarily handle shelving, sorting, and organization of physical material. That standard model provides two positions at each branch. Our circulation attendants provide frontline transactional service, such as assisting customers with checking materials in and out, issuing library cards, and processing fees. The standard model provides three positions. The library assistants provide a broader range of information and customer services and develop and present programs. The model provides two positions at each branch. Librarians provide reference and reader's advisory services, select materials based on community needs, develop age-based programming, supervise staff, and serve as person in charge. The standard model provides four librarians at each location. And at seven branches, training officers support our Learn at SAPPL locations, providing specialized services to job seekers and adult learners. This is where the staffing decision became more precise. Library aides and circuit attendants are those most directly affected by the decline in physical material transaction. At the same time, we are maintaining the positions that provide reference, programming, information assistance, adult learning, supervision, and other professional and specialized services. And because branches differ, this standard is a starting point rather than a rigid formula. Individual branch staffing ranges from eight to 17 positions based on workload and services, and 3 4th of our branches will have 11 or more positions. Alongside expenditure reductions, the proposed budget also identifies opportunities to generate additional revenues. Two changes are proposed, totaling approximately $1 million annually. The first is an increase in the lost item processing fee from $5 to $10. While the library system does not charge late fee anymore, it does charge a replacement fee when a user fails to return a checked out item. The fee charged for the lost item is the list price of the item plus a processing fee. This processing fee has not been increased since 2008. This change is estimated to generate $10,000 annually. The most significant proposal is the new $20 annual library card fee for Bexar County residents who live outside the city of San Antonio. Currently approximately 97,000 non-San Antonio Bexar County residents have San Antonio Public Library cards. The proposed $20 fee is based on a cost recovery methodology that considers the per capita cost of providing library services and the contribution currently made by Bexar County. In the proposed budget, the fee would be applied to the residents within Bexar County but outside the city of San Antonio for a library card which would be valid for 12 months. The estimated revenue from this proposal is $1 million annually. That concludes my overview of the proposed fiscal year 2027 library budget, and now I'm pleased to introduce Joanne Harris, Vice Chair of San Antonio Public Library Board of Trustees.

Joanne, thank you.

Thank you so much, Sukrit.

It's very nice of you.

Good afternoon. mayor jones and the members of the city council i'm joanne harris and i serve as the vice chair for the san antonio public library board of trustees our chairperson just free car since her regrets that she cannot be here today but i know she's live streaming someplace okay The Library Board of Trustees is a policy-making body made up of 11 community representatives appointed by each of you. We truly share a common passion for a vital role that we know that all the libraries serve. The San Antonio Public Library enriches the lives of residents every day in each of your districts and across the city. While people in our community have difficult, very difficult decisions about their own personal budgets, the library remains a constant beacon of light, of information, of opportunities, and they serve also as a place for respite for all. And when I'm talking about all, I'm talking about infants with their caregivers, not just mothers, fathers, grandmothers, and everything. Children, teens, tweens, adults, and of course, older adults. The importance of library increase during these challenging times because the San Antonio Public Library delivers free service to all residents in San Antonio. While families may have to cut back on certain things, they never have to compromise on a trip to the library. San Antonio residents are using these libraries for everything. From checking out books, to attending free events and programs, to accessing life online homework help, to helping with adult educators that we have available that are able to help with resumes, that's able to help with even things like applications, and I have actually seen some of the adult educators helping to read a form to them and explain to them what that form is. San Antonio receives exceptional value from the city's investment in the San Antonio Public Library. It is due to that investment over time that this city has continued to build an exceptional library system that continues to involve, to serve, and the needs of all of the residents. On behalf of the Library Board of Trustees, I want to truly thank you for all that you continue to do, and I want to also thank the city council and the city manager also because I know what kind of a difficult task that you have before you. But I'm here to ask that you please continue to invest in the libraries because the library is a vital community hub during these economical times. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you Joanne for your remarks today and for representing our library board. Mayor and council, thank you again for giving us the opportunity today to share not only our proposed budget but also the great work our library does every day across this community. We are grateful for your continued support and for your investment in the people we have privilege to serve. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks again to the staff for the time and the presentations. A couple of clarifying questions before I turn it over to my colleagues. For EDD, Brenda. On the lift fund funding, do we have an understanding of, absent our contribution to that, what the impact would have been, i.e., if not for our contribution to that $500,000? what exactly, what would not have happened, right? Because I know our contribution gets lumped into others, but welcome understanding. And then if you can, the Allisense example is helpful, but if we've got some other examples that we can point to that speak to why that's important, appreciate that.

Sure, absolutely. So that $500,000 buys down, we have a goal of about $1 million per year in loans, 26 loans. This year, our actual estimate will be 23 loans leveraging that $1 million, and that represents $460,000 bought down, and then the remaining funds are used for marketing administration. These funds are utilized for businesses that are not otherwise eligible for traditional funding. So these are resources that go to businesses are typically in underserved communities that would not be able to get those loans. And so, again, it's Allosense, for example, that was able to access those funding for their mini manufacturing facility. We also have a number of other examples that we can certainly provide you. We love this program. In general, again, since 2016, so the 10 years of service, there's been over 430 small businesses served representing almost nearly $14 million in those loans, traditional loans accessed from those businesses.

that thank you have we ever tried to work with some of the maybe local financial institutions to see if they may try to kind of similarly do that program or even maybe some of the chambers and figure out if they may be interested in taking that on themselves. It really seems something that may be really in their bailiwick.

So the lenders have, of course, different lending requirements. They have what's called Community Reinvestment Act, CRA requirements. They actually utilize and invest in LIFT Fund, for example, so Wells Fargo when we were utilizing this program and some ARPA dollars. invested the match dollars, and they're able to count that in those loans that they do provide in some cases as their CRA investments. So the lenders are all already actively engaged in the program, and it's really the LIFT Fund through their community development financial institution, the CDFI, that they're able to, again, provide those loans to those underserved businesses.

Great. Thank you. For the library, please. How was it determined that the Central Library would not be open on Sundays? I found out the hard way one time, by the way.

So this is basically to provide access citywide. And to open Central Library on Sundays will require a lot of resources. And of course, if possible, we would like to keep that library open. But right now, we don't have all the resources.

Okay. I'd welcome understanding what it would take to open that on Sundays. Is that also the only library that charges parking?

I believe that is true.

Okay. I'd like to understand what it would cost to make that largely free. Okay. Yeah. Can you help us understand? We all prize the library and everyone up here will speak to the additional services that they provide beyond helping somebody find a book. So can you help us understand, is it natural attrition that led to 17 vacancies? It seems like a high percentage given your overall staffing.

Right. So on an average, every year, at any given time, we have about 6% of vacancy rate, if that's what you're asking. Yeah.

So that's on par?

That's on par, yes.

Thanks, I appreciate it. And for clarification, the additional library card fee, will that in any way impact the money we currently receive from the county, the $3.5 million?

To the best of my knowledge, to the best of our understanding right now, the answer is no.

Okay.

I was just going to reiterate, no, ma'am.

Okay, okay. Because they're having a little bit of a tough time like we are in their own budget. On the botanical garden. Thanks, Homer. I'd like to help us understand, as you mentioned, this was originally, this arrangement was originally started in 2010. And when, at this point, do we have an understanding of when that entity may be more financially independent? I'd be surprised if at the time they signed that they thought in 2026 they'd still be giving the botanical garden a million dollars. I'd welcome understanding how it becomes financially independent.

The current funding to the botanical garden that is part of the annual budget adoption It's tied directly to the lease. So when that lease was negotiated between the city and the society, which council approved, I think it was in the fall of 2010, that effectively was part of their plan. Now, in the lease, it does spell out over like a 15-year period, I believe, the phase out of that, if you will, where it goes more into a capital reserve account. So to answer your question, in summary, that was something that was negotiated at the time that was intentional relative to where they're at today. We'll highlight the budget when they took over full operations in 2019. Because it was run by the city up until that point, effectively. So our operating budget was $1.2 million. And from that point forward, at the time they took over, their budget was a little over $5 million, so together a little more than six. And so they've grown that since then, but they've really been focused on bringing investment to the facility. And with that investment, new buildings being constructed, programming, et cetera, then obviously the operational need grows as well. But it is tied back to... that lease agreement that council approved that was negotiated where the city would provide this support over an extended period of time.

You said 15 years from 2010.

I need to double check the last year. Yeah, there's well, when they when they took over. Yeah, right. They did not begin receiving the annual contribution until the time they took over full O&M or operations. happened in 2019 so it goes out from there but it is defined in the lease agreement what that looks like from the time they took over operations which was just in 2019 when we also are looking at go ahead I just wanted to make certain we were clear it ends in 2039 December 31st of 2039

Okay. When they come forward with projects that may, whether it be for the TERS or for the bond or what have you, and that thereby then potentially also increases the O&M associated with now having to maintain those things, how do we inform that so we have an understanding of how those costs may affect what we do or do not contribute to their O&M?

Any improvements they make, they're locked in effectively. We're not increasing our O&M. So when they're bringing those capital projects online, that is something that they build into their operating plan as they continue to see those costs rise. But as defined in the lease, the city's contribution is fixed. So regardless of their O&M is going up for their improvements, they're carrying the cost of that.

Okay. So it's fixed even as they have additional revenue?

Yes.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Council Member Mesa-Gonzalez, please.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the presentations. A quick question on the public, for public libraries. I remember seeing, and I think it was scenario A, I wanted to just clarify there was a reduction to the library adult services and programming. It was about 4.3 million a year. Can you share some concrete examples of what falls in that category?

Councilmember the biggest impact would be to get to that level there will be reduction of hours And also the reduction and maybe even the closing on certain days Councilman also included in that is the adult learn as a sa PL so we have training officers that provide that adult learning at certain branches in our libraries and

Okay, but the $4.3 million is based off of what he just said? It's programming.

It's programming for adult learning services.

And what type of adult learning services?

So the adult, I think it's called the Learn at SAPL, which is a learning program at certain library branches.

Can you provide maybe in a memo just what that looks like? Sure. Throughout the... throughout the city, what districts are impacted by that?

Sure, we can show which, yes.

Okay. I mean, and those are every day or just as they come, or how does that work on the programming side?

I believe the program, so they have the adult learning program at each of our branches with that specific learn at SAPL at certain branches.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council, Kathy Donnellan, Assistant Library Director. So we have the Learn at SAPPL program at seven branches and the Central Library, and it provides a variety of adult basic education services like English as a second language, helping to develop resumes, digital literacy, and it operates at about 40 hours a week.

Do you know how many residents are helped through those programs? Yes.

If you don't, it's OK. So we have a variety of metrics for the program. So in terms of the number of sessions that are either group sessions or individual sessions, it's 638 a year. Program attendance is over 4,000 a year. And then there's the length of the sessions, because some of these sessions are very intensive based on the individual's needs. So that's about 20,000 hours a year.

Kathy, can you give the council members the seven locations? Yes.

I don't have them memorized. I'm going to look at my sheet.

It's okay. And I don't want to take up time for other folks. Okay, let's do that. Okay, thank you so much. I also noticed on some library programming, there's a library portal at the Briscoe Western Art Museum. Is that funded through the general fund?

Yes, it is.

And because it carries such a obviously a tourism and culture, there's a tourism dimension there being in the museum. Is there an opportunity for it to be funded another way through the hot tax or?

That part, I don't have an answer, but we have been looking into expanding services through that location, through the Briscoe Portal Museum. Our team has been looking into that, like how we can assist our community, how we can provide more services from that location.

Okay. And just to add, so the library portal is part of the Briscoe Western Art Museum. So that is a not-for-profit that is separately funded for operation and maintenance of the building. The building is a city building, and it was the former central library. So there's limited resources that are used for that portal. It's a small space.

Okay, thank you. On to Parks and Recreation's just a quick question and thank you for all the work you and your team do. We've got 27 parks in District 8 and you can't think of District 8 without thinking of parks and so I just appreciate all the work that you and your team do. I remember also in a in that scenario a there was a parks marketing program. Can you expand on what that does? If that's for promotion or is that for registration? enrollment, like what does that cover?

Absolutely. It is primarily our community engagement. So we go out into schools, sometimes the last come speak about volunteer opportunities or career day or those types of things. It does not, that the marketing piece specifically is not tied to registration. So if you're thinking of our summer youth program, that is something that would need to be registered for, but the marketing piece of what we do think of like when we do a ribbon cutting or groundbreaking or community engagement type of opportunities. Also, that would be like you mentioned, Greenway trail system. We will stand up events or like pop-up energized stations just to engage the community. So it's really focused on that, not so much on program registration.

Okay. So is that different than what the CNE department would do for the city or I guess your department has a specific community engagement piece.

Yes. Correct. We have a small team that does it, but it's very focused on park programming and outreach. Now, there is collaboration with that team and C&E as needed.

Okay. Thank you for that. And just a couple of questions for solid waste management. Does the department currently track any costs related to the abandoned shopping cart collection.

We do track and we do track the number of shopping carts that are that are collected. It's very difficult to give a cost to it because we don't go out and pick up let's say one shopping cart. So we'll pick up. We do track costs for illegal dumping which includes shopping carts. So I can't, it's very difficult to parcel out, you know, this is how much it cost me to pick up this shopping cart versus the pile of construction material.

And we don't have anything set up with those, like I, my district is Dezavala and I-10, and so it's like this perfect corridor of Walmart, HEB, and Home Depot. And so the shopping carts end up everywhere, and I didn't know if there was any conversations that we've had with those companies on, you know, picking up their shopping carts and how long we keep them. I know it costs them money, costs us money.

We have not, but I would say we also track the shopping carts, the brands of the shopping carts that we collect, and I would say that the big companies, the HEBs and Walmarts, and Target, those three specifically, The number of carts that we have recovered has gone down significantly. So I've noticed that a lot of them have installed locking mechanisms that if they leave the parking lot, the wheels lock. So the number of carts that we are collecting is going down. The carts that we are collecting are mostly from smaller independent companies right now.

Okay. If you can provide that info to me, I'd love that just because that comes up a lot at my HOA meetings. And I had a budget town hall this morning and a District 8 resident asked me this question and said I would ask you this question. So this is for Bob in Park Forest. How do the city's monthly solid waste fees compare to those of other similar Texas cities? And what are the factors that go into determining the fee amounts?

If someone could bring up the presentation again, we have a backup slide. I would say generally that our fees are favorable to other Texas cities. There you see San Antonio, we're the one all the way on the left. Then you see Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Corpus Christi, and Arlington. I would say our rates are very cost-effective compared to others. And also we'll add, it's not a fair comparison in some ways because some of the cities such as Dallas, for example, and Corpus, they own their own landfills. So they have a source of generating revenue that sometimes subsidize their rates.

Okay, thank you so much.

And generally, Councilwoman, the answer to the question about what goes into the rate, it is the employees, the service, the equipment, the fees associated with the disposal of that, and it also nets out the revenue we receive from recycling material.

Okay. And one quick question for, that's all, thank you so much. For libraries, I forgot to ask, I know, I think you mentioned this, but on the specific positions that were identified, those were based on, did that start with what's vacant and then go to seniority, or how was that determined? On the positions that were...

So those positions were determined by the comprehensive budget review. So this is where we checked with the workload for our staff members.

OK. There's like four people that got up. What happened?

Kate Kinison, Office of Innovation. I was like, you're not with libraries. No, I'm not. Just to clarify the question, are you looking to understand the HR process or how we got to the positions? Because you asked about the vacancies.

Yeah, I was curious if it started there with let's remove the vacancies first and then from there go to seniority or, yeah.

No, the analysis started with looking at the current state, some of the statistics that Sukrit walked through in terms of the digital collection going up and the physical collection going down. That was an important trend to notice early on. We compared what was happening over the last three years. It was leveling off. but it had come way down the physical circulation since 2019 pre-pandemic. So we felt that that was stable. That was a stabilized assumption. That that need, that physical need to reshelve and check in and check out was no longer there. And then from there, we established a minimum staffing need per library. That was step two. Step three was we explored the nuances branch by branch. We did site visits, a survey of 71% of the staff responded. We looked at workload metrics by branch and that actually shifted. Some branches have slightly more workload. so they would get slightly more staff. I mean, it was a very complex model. I'm trying to simplify it for you. We even looked at building layouts. There is a building, Greater Northwest Library, that is an L-shape, and so it has two service desks by nine, and you have to staff the service desks, so that increased the minimum staffing that they would need from the circulation attendants. We reviewed job descriptions because we knew that the metrics were going down, but we had to get very clear on which jobs that impacted, and that was the circulation, attendance, and the aids. And then finally, it's a right sizing based on the trends that we saw and the needs of the individual libraries.

And do the nuances include what other services a library provides for warming centers, cooling centers? Yes, ma'am. How does that play into, I guess, what you just described?

Yeah, if you want to bring up that objective slide that Sukrit went through. Oh, okay. My time's up.

I used your time. No worries. Go ahead. Please answer the question.

Okay. Yeah, so the objective slide, I think it had seven objectives. That was also a starting point. We're not going to reduce hours. We're not going to reduce programs. That's why you're going to see no changes to librarians. or the librarian assistants, those are, I believe it's 84% of programming is delivered by librarians, so you're not gonna see any changes to those services. We just talked about the learn centers and the training officers, those also are not impacted. So the short answer to your question is no.

Okay. Thank you so much. Those are all my questions.

If you would, in case it answers anyone else, any other of my colleagues' questions, because it's been brought up a couple other times where some of these libraries, it's obviously not on your objective chart, but they do fulfill an important role of after school, right? Yeah. How was that nuance taken into account into your analysis? The librarians in the after school care? I guess just understanding the nuanced workload at each of the individual branches based on kind of that community and how that community uses the library.

Yes. Okay. You want to take that one?

Yes. We looked against across all the comprehensive services of the library including coverage of the full schedule. So if we can pull up the slide that has the standard staffing complement, that shows by job title how the coverage works for all the different duties. So that was considered. And that's why we established four librarian positions and those other basic standards across the system. If you go forward one more.

The staffing schedule. It's the next slide.

There you go. So this looked at all of the different comprehensive services for each branch and by the job titles and the job duties that are associated with each role. So you can see that the librarians and the library assistants, for example, that deliver programs, there's a minimum staffing complement that's been established to cover all those duties. Okay.

Thank you. Councilmember Alderete-Gavito, please.

Thank you. Thank you so much for the presentations. I'm going to start with the library. I honestly have nothing to say but thank you. I mean, I think, Joanne, with your comments about the library leading the way once again, This is an example of that you know of course the city is in a position of making really tough choices right now, but I feel that you all did it in a strategic and smart way. Looking at the. Looking at the branch staffing model objectives are making sure that there's no impact to negative impact to our residents. I mean we right sizing is a never a comfortable thing, but This is exactly what it is. It's called right-sizing for a reason. So thank you so much for making those tough choices. Thank you so much, Sukrit, as you noted, of being good stewards of taxpayer dollars. You know, I mean, again, these are not easy decisions to make. But I do appreciate the library's efforts in leading the way for city departments and showing us how it's done. So I just wanted to tell you thank you. I did also want to note a couple of other things, too. When you mentioned, I think it's going from 39 vacant positions, of the 39 positions, 17 are vacant. The other 22, they're being taken care of, right? They're moving to other positions in the libraries. Their pay is not going to be impacted. We are handling these people with dignity and respect. They're not going to get a lower pay. And I think that, again, this is just leading the way. Again, we're all going to have to work together to navigate through the difficult times. And so I can't thank you all enough for... Even though it's difficult even though it's tough for showing us how it's done and again making sure that the city employees the 22 that are impacted are still going to be handled appropriately and with care. So thank you so much. Thank you to the innovation team for helping out with this. I mean I think outlining the branch staffing model objectives making sure that there was no negative resident impact those are our North Star and you all made it happen again difficult decisions but right sizing is what needs to be done and and and so this is a collective effort and I just can't say enough how much I thank you for that I saw the fees on lost books I might need to pay up some fees because my girls have some books that have folded into their library but we'll work on that And then moving on to parks. Homer, thank you so much for your ongoing collaboration on a number of projects in District 7. I know that we are looking forward to major improvements at Woodlawn Lake. And you know, I'm glad that my team and your team and others even before the budget deficit looked at other ways to get money right so we wouldn't have to tap into our general fund right we got that federal grant we teamed up with other elected officials and got that federal grant so we're so excited for it to come to life I know that I push on y'all because we get pushed on from our residents. So many people love Woodlawn Lake. It means so much to others. But thank you so much for y'all's help and collaboration there. Thank y'all for working with us on the e-grid and migratory waterfowl research that we've been doing. I mean, these birds have been pushed from the zoo to the parks, and we just need to figure out how to make it right so that these birds stop messing up. They're beautiful, but that they stop messing up our other parks. um y'all y'all have been great partners there and then also too i wanted to mention about y'all's team and my team collaboration with the bear ottoman on renewing the bird city texas designation we look forward to working with you all so that we can continue to be a safe city for our migratory birds. I know everyone knows I'm a bird nerd, so thank you so much for y'all's help there. Really quick, just a couple of things. Slide seven, the oak wilt replacement program that has been hugely popular with residents, I think not only in District 7, but in other districts too, so I'm glad we can continue to to do this for our resident to replace lost tree canopy we all talk about the heat island effect and really the biggest and best way to to battle that is is with more trees so thank you so much for y'all's help in making that idea come to life that was a resident idea that you know we just put policy behind and so thank you all so much for act for making it happen Also, too, I was really impressed with the tree survival rate of 81%. Thank you for baselining that. I think I asked about it last year, because we are going to be projected to get so many new trees. And we just want to make sure that the new trees we planted are for not. Like, that they're not for not. That's a double negative. But you know that they will survive. So thank you for that good baseline, and we'll continue to monitor that. Let's see. We all love them. We need them to be safe. Can you remind me again? Because this comes up a lot at my coffees with the councilman. That is a parks police or who's monitoring the Greenway trails?

Public safety is in those parks police positions that were vacant or converting over to PD basically. We have presence on our trails just for broad awareness daily with our maintenance team, as well as our trail stewards. They serve and observe and report function, don't serve public safety, but they see something. The benefit of that is we identify maintenance needs and trends of activity. And then I meet monthly with Captain Biasioli, and we share information. But the public safety is going to be under... And the police.

Okay, yeah. And I think that, you know, we all love our trolls. You know, you all have heard me say before, I mean, green spaces are so important, not only for people's physical health, but their mental health. And so we just want to make sure that they're safe places. for people to ride bikes or walk or whatever. Really quick on the playground shade structure slide. How many more playgrounds need to be shaded?

It is a five-year program and 12 and I believe final year is also 11 or 12 locations, I will confirm. But we did it over with the intentionality of around a dozen a year. I think a couple years ago we actually did 13 just based on the park and got to do more than one playground if they have two. But we can get that finite list for you. That means year five would be fiscal year 28, and that would be the conclusion of the program.

Can we make sure, hopefully it doesn't need to be a policy proposal or anything, but that we never build a playground again without a shade structure?

100%, yes. That is part of our design palette, and we will continue to work with Mike's team to deliver that.

Awesome, because yeah, we, you know, we, don't want little hands to be burning on the playground. So yeah, however we can incorporate that, so that way we're not having to have this backlog of shade structures. Those are all my comments. Thanks so much, Homer. Economic development. Thank you, Brenda, for the presentation. So I see that strategic account management is a big chunk of the budget. How is this different? or how do y'all collaborate with greater SATX on going after these leads? I understand the lead gen part of it, but I'm just curious how left hand is talking to the right hand.

Sure, absolutely. So we have regular meetings. I do want to highlight that the economic development incentive fund is also included in that strategic account management budget, which is one of our restricted funds. But specifically with Greater SATX, we have regular weekly, biweekly check-ins. We have, when we look at business retention and growth, they focus on companies over 200 employees. We as a department focus on those businesses less than 200 employees. And then, again, they're the lead generation. So they're the ones who are doing the proactive marketing, and that's what our investment covers. The hosting, the site selectors, all of those types of activities that go in that lead generation targeting. And then once that company is identified, we may partner with them as part of that aspect. And then, of course, any connection with the city, we're the one that facilitates that.

Okay, so they're the ones kind of making the initial contact, grooming the relationship, and then y'all follow up with maybe some details that need to...

For the bulk of them. Now again, we through our international relations activities have a number of when we travel for our sister cities, there's also always that business development component. Sometimes we do those in joint visits with greater SATX and then other times it might just be where we're the lead. but that's the exception to that lead generation.

Okay, sounds good. I only have 37 seconds left. Solid ways, Josephine. Your team continues to be amazing. Thank you so much for leading a phenomenal team. We get nothing but compliments, and even when there is a problem, you all find a solution so quickly. So thank you so much for leading a phenomenal team.

Thank you.

Thank you. Those are all my comments. Thanks.

Thank you. Council Member Castillo, please. Thank you all for the presentations, and I'll begin with parks. I just want to commend you and your team, Homer, for all that you all do in ensuring that District 5 parks continue to see improvements. I'm grateful to see that Benavides Park is proposed to have a shade structure over the basketball courts. I know the St. Timothy's community is going to be extremely grateful. During the weekend, following the storm, my team and I were out in the area and in spite of there being no electricity near Casiano, the kids were out on the all wheel park on all wheels. Some of them barefoot and I didn't understand with how hot it was, but they're putting that park to use. So extremely grateful for you and your team for the improvements that you've made there. I'm pleased to see that hopefully soon we'll be hearing back if the team receives support for norm oil. Just lots of great improvements to highlight. But I'd be remiss if I didn't highlight Marianne, who's here because she's our library trustee, but has been a huge advocate for Cassiano Park. So thank you for being supportive of the parks team. and the Castellano improvements. I did have a couple of questions, particularly around the community service level adjustment. Would these adjustments impact the San Juan Community Center and or Sunny Melendez?

No, I mean, bottom line, no, short answer. We've absorbed the duties of that position, and we are within an acceptable range for meeting our service level agreements.

Great, thanks for that. In terms of the urban tree canopy, I know there was the neighborhood program where Parks was connecting folks with tree assistance, particularly seniors. My understanding is that's not funded in this budget, but I'm hopeful that it's something that we can reconsider, again, given the aftermath of the storm, understanding how overgrown trees were a primary reason in which it took CPS some time to respond to specific power lines. Think there's value in us investing in that tree program.

Yes, and and to Clarify slightly that was part of a budget amendment. I believe in fiscal year 25 and We had some rains actually, I think it was maybe early spring Bottom line those funds have been fully expended. We we did provide the Needed service to residents that needed but currently is not part of the parks proposed budget. I

And I know in district 5 over 62 residents were able to receive assistance So again, just emphasizing the value and impact of that program. Yes.

Thank you Councilwoman Castillo David McCary assistant city manager One of the things that we'll do is we'll actually look at it from the tree mitigation fund For this year to see if we can still make that happen the funds were spent for a reason So we'll follow up on that for you

Thank you, Mr. Kerry. Thank you, Homer. Lastly, I wanted to highlight, in terms of the adjusted fees, I understand why these are necessary. However, Justin on my team often rents him and some friends at Woodlawn Park. So, again, I understand why they need to be adjusted. Justin's arguing when we look at the GDP income. San Antonio in comparison to other cities that were not faring as well as others so Just wanted to highlight that many of our residents to rent out Rosedale and you are well aware of this But again understanding with the storm again Rosedale like the roofs like flown off like there's a lot of improvements that are going to be Needed to be made there. Those are all my comments for parks. Thank you.

Thank you.

I

I did want to move over to Libraries with Secret. Just wanted to thank you and your team for just the presentations. Can you help me understand something that came up during our budget presentation in terms of the circulation and the digital kiosk? If I'm remembering correctly, essentially, if someone uses the digital kiosk to self-checkout, that is not being counted as circulation?

That is being counted as circulation, but that's not being counted as physically handling of that circulation.

And I guess my question that I'm thinking about, I was talking to my team about this and I was like, yeah, that's what I do too. So oftentimes I will put a book on hold. So someone is going to grab the book from the shelf, put it on the hold shelf, and then I pick it up and I take it to the kiosk. Right. So is that being counted as like that it's being touched and at circulation because someone did put it on the hold shelf and then I took it to the kiosk?

So that does require a bigger answer, a larger answer. So in one way we are not counting that towards like handling of our checked out item, but during the CBR process, the way what I explained in my presentation, that part was considered when it came to workload for our library aids and circuit attendants.

With that understanding, I have great concern with these kiosks being in our public libraries if we are essentially innovating our way out of city employees having a job. I understand that it's an option, but if these are going to then reduce the amount of circulation, I want to caution us having these placed in our public library systems. I understand and appreciate the layout of the new staffing makeup that you all intend to propose, But again, I just have concerns that, you know, we are replacing employees with technology. I would like to understand those that would be impacted. Which council districts do they live in? Because again, these are like the individuals that will be unemployed that we're going to have to connect to housing assistance, utility assistance, so on and so forth. So there's greater impact beyond the city of San Antonio making budget efficiencies. So I would like to receive that information from city staff if possible, so that way our team knows how to best support our constituents if some of those library staffs are District 5 residents.

Thank you.

Thank you for that. And then, of course, again, I wanted to thank Mary Ann for representing District 5 as the D5 trustee, just always involved, engaged, asking the right questions, and making sure that D5 receives the care in terms of our public library systems and as well as our public parks. So thank you so much. I DID WANT TO BRIEFLY MOVE ON TO ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. THANK YOU, BRENDA. I REALLY APPRECIATE THE EMPHASIS ON THE PLACEMAKING WITHIN THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PRESENTATION. THIS HAS MADE GREAT IMPACT IN DISTRICT FIVE, PARTICULARLY OFF OF THE WEST AND HOPE AND ACTION COMMUNITY. IT WAS GREAT HEARING FROM MANY D5 PARTICIPANTS. Pitch their proposal to me and there's just so many great ideas So just great to see how you are facilitating that work and seeing the impact and I think about the King Donna community and how that's really empowered community to tap into sustainability grants to see how they could potentially explore tours in the area, and how to just, again, take community control, but again, with tools provided by economic development. So when we talk about, for example, the EDIF Fund, I understand and I value the impact of those large-scale projects, the Toyotas, and just those things that are on the front page of the newspaper. But I also want us to hone in on some of those more community-driven economic development visions. Like, for example, on Quintana, I'm thinking about Jaime of Jaime's Place and his vision for commerce and turning that into a music corridor. And then, of course, the South Colorado corridor in District 5, which connects all the puentes, all the bridges of District 5. And there's a community vision of how to weave in just the the nonprofit corridor, the business corridor, and the community corridor. So just understanding how with the economic development plan, we can use those funds to support more community vision. I don't know if you have anything to share to that. And I know we'll be talking as a council on the strategic framework. So lots of opportunity there.

Yes, ma'am. And I look forward to briefing you at the economic workforce development committee on incentives September 22nd.

Thank you. And I know my team had a lot of questions, so looking forward to that as well. And again, lastly, solid waste. When I was having a conversation with my team, and you all are well aware, the data shows that the city of San Antonio, our constituents, really value your leadership, the work of solid waste. Particularly, again, after the storm, my constituents understand just how hard you all work and how responsive you are. and just the need to have patience at this time as folks go out in the field and pick up the debris so just appreciate the work and my team really values the eco scholar program and the apprenticeship programs that you've created so i really appreciate the emphasis to emphasis to expand the apprenticeship program because there's so much value in that model so just wanted to commend you and your team for looking at how y'all can expand and bring bring more folks along and up through the city

Thank you so much. It's easy when I have a great team behind me.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Munguia, please.

Thank you, Mayor. I'll pick off right there, Josephine. Thank you so much for you and your team's work, especially over this past couple weeks. Our district was hit very hard, and you all have been out there constantly picking things up and not missing a beat with your regular trash recycle organics pickup. And also, thank you for the tar pit ads, because we are plagued in District 4 with litter and dumping. And I really appreciate the time y'all took to drive out there and take a look and see what can be done to add to it. So it's not an easy task, but I thank you and your team for getting out there and doing it. And I think there's a high satisfaction for the work that y'all do. I mean, anytime we've reached out to Solid Waste, y'all have been there to help us. And it's made a big difference in the community when they see a mattress or something get tossed and thrown. And for y'all to go and pick it up within hours sometimes, it's just amazing for people. So thank you for your work and your leadership. And thank you to all the crews that have been working 24-7 on that. So I don't have any other questions other than to just make sure you give that guy, that Robles guy, a lot of hard work and don't go easy on him. Okay, thank you. Okay, we'll start with Parks. So, Homer, thank you also. You have come to several meetings, park walkthroughs in our district, and sometimes that's been on Saturday mornings. I know we have one coming up this Saturday at 9 a.m., so thank you for coming, and Sarah, too, for participating, and Nikki, too. And those mean a lot to the residents because they actually get to walk the whole park with us and talk about every single issue that comes up. And it's also good for me to get out there too to see what investments we can make going forward at the parks. And I think there's, we've been to several that there's a lot of room for investments on. So I appreciate y'all just going every time we ask and scheduling those. And can we go to the Greenway Trail slide, please? So I love our Greenway trails, and I'm so sad that D4 has the largest gap of any other part of the trail system. And I'm hoping that that will be part of the bond, because I know we did a design project right in 17 for that large segment right there, right?

Yeah, actually, Councilman, that was in the 22 bond, there was dollars specifically set aside to design that seven-mile-ish connector. So that is effectively... needs just funding for construction. Yeah. Teeing it up for a shovel-ready project, but design is nearly complete and that is a major connector to the ring as you pointed out.

Absolutely. That's a huge priority for us in D4 to get them on the next bond. So that's a top parks priority for us also. And then if you can just briefly walk through, it's at the end of the Pearsall Park. You saw that trail. You can put that back up on there.

at the end of Pearsall Park there you see that trail that is is that the county I can't see the color real well what is that status at south of Pearsall that is one of the pieces that is part of that 17 miles that would need to be funded for construction south of Pearsall Park and it's not yellow

Well, maybe you can follow up with me. I will follow up.

I'm looking here, but effectively, we'll follow up, Councilman. Thank you. Maybe a better visual, too.

Yeah, and that's a good link from Quintana all the way down to Highway 16. And I know Mr. Randall on our linear creeks board is a real... big advocate for that segment right there and has a lot he can contribute to that also. So I'd like to kind of gauge that and see how we can also make that a priority.

Absolutely. We'll get a, we'll pop in memo and get a zoomed in of the segment. Sure. Thank you.

Appreciate that. And also when you talked about the, the UDC and the tree mitigation fund, you know, I was talking to perhaps a change we can discuss that PCDC is reevaluating the water usage rule. Cause I think we have a pretty strict rule that, on establishing trees and how often, how long you can water the tree for once it's first established at a park?

Correct. So maintenance is acceptable under current chapter 35 for the three-year establishment of trees planted with the fund. And so there'd be opportunity. I know Amin and his team will be going through that UDC update so we can evaluate appropriate recommended edits to that specific piece of the code.

I think that would be great, especially because at Arnold Park, right, which we're going to go to this Saturday, in the years past, we had a good tree line out there planted, and then the lawn died. And I think it's partly because there was no irrigation. And I'm not sure if maybe that's the rule is how long you can have a tree on irrigated water for. So I think there's some things to work out to maybe increase the 75% or whatever it is, retention rate of trees, just to make sure they're established for a longer period of time and they have a better chance of surviving. You got it.

Thank you. Yes.

Can I work for economic workforce, Brenda? Yeah.

So again, I'm glad to see most of the sites for jobs or the 10 site assessments. Eight of the 10 are in District 4. I can just tell by the map. So I'm very pleased about that. So when you talk about those assessments, those 10 sites, are you looking at a very specific industry trying to get there? Do you have jobs in mind already? What are you kind of thinking with those 10 sites?

With this particular assessment, it was really more broadly defined rather than specific industries, but it was the capital intensive type industries as well as the labor intensive. So all 10 sites were run through that modeling and then identified where there were opportunities for enhancements for each site based on those difference. And those needs were different.

Yeah. Excellent. Okay. You know, and I just, we've talked about this in the past about the large attraction we already have to advanced manufacturing. So trying to see what other maybe shifts we can make in the space, particularly on the south side, so that we just have a broader general workforce opportunities, not primarily just the advanced manufacturing. So I think that that's important. And also, I think, you know, to Councilman Castillo's point about some of the work in Quintana, I just worry that without a presence of a BDO, and we've had that conversation about why that kind of exists the way it does now, we don't really have one on the south side. And so I just wonder how we are ensuring that we are helping businesses, particularly on that side of town, because there is not a dedicated BDO just servicing that area. which I know has been some issues on some other BDOs and their capacities on the west side and east side. But the south side has for a very long time not had an operating BDO. And so we are, in my mind, missing out on a lot of those things. And not just the big corporations, right? I mean, a lot of the bigger folks that you're getting here with Greater CTX are on the south side, and that's fantastic. But to the Councilman's point, we have a lot of smaller businesses and mid-size that have the opportunity to grow and expand. But maybe just don't have that resource available. So I'm just going to not have a response now, but just kind of in the upcoming year, how do we work on that? And then maybe you can also get me data on the outcomes of lift funds. So I know the 0% interest loan is fantastic. That's wonderful. We need more of that. but I'm also curious to know where those have landed. So obviously all parts of town need that, but I want to make sure that we're not leaving out pockets of communities that cannot access that because I know the funds are very limited and it's, you know, application basis and folks get denied all the time. But I want to make sure that we're setting folks up for success to get those types of programs when they can.

Yeah. So we can certainly provide that full list in the map of where those businesses are located. And then as part of the fiscal year 27, we've also been looking at an assessment on that and are enhancing the contract with Lift Fund for specific targeting of marketing so that we are, again, continuing to focus on those underserved communities.

Absolutely. And I imagine that if someone gets that, they're not able to go back and get it again, right?

So there's a two-year limitation, historically, on being able to get it. And then again, the focus with a lot of the work that is done is trying to get those businesses where they can go to a traditional lender.

Sure. Okay. And I'd also like to, if you can note on the list who's gotten it more than once. Sure. That'd be helpful. Thank you. Libraries, I just want to give a shout out to Andrea, who represents us on the Board of Trustees. And thank you to Cortez Library and Johnston Library. They're fantastic libraries in my community. Everybody knows my dad at Cortez Library. He goes there all the time, actually. So they have a great team over there. But I do also want to recognize that something the mayor brought up earlier and something that we've received from some of the staff, right, and some of the people that are emailing us about the libraries, because I think of all the things we're cutting, this has gotten the most attention and responses from residents is maybe some of the work that they're doing. above and beyond their role right and i think there's people might say well they need to come back and kind of do what they need to do on their role but how do we make sure that we can help accommodate if they're going above and beyond great example tobin library when i was young and middle school over there a lot of kids from garner went there next door to tobin right and they were an unofficial sitter right And so instead of saying, you know, we need to make sure staff are going back down to what just the bare minimum work category is, how are we keeping them enhanced, right? And so if they're doing above and beyond, how do we help them stay above and beyond? Because they are helping the community with more than just shelving and doing those things. So however we can help keep those, I'd be looking into that. Thank you.

Thanks. Thank you. Council Member Villagran, please.

Thank you. I want to start by acknowledging that I think we all understand that this is a difficult budget. How we use taxpayer dollars and how we maintain services our residents rely upon is what we face today. I believe our responsibility as city council is to approach the process with discipline, transparency, and willingness to make difficult decisions. And I appreciate some of your answers here because some of the questions being asked by my council colleagues, it falls back on us as council representatives to do some of the work. Thank you for being gracious and not saying that out loud, but I will. We have to be thoughtful about what we are reducing, what those reduction means for our residents, and whether we are solving a problem today only to create a larger problem tomorrow. For me, this is not about being for or against cuts, it's about making responsible choices. so Eric these presentations that these directors gave today this is based on the budget you presented to us yes ma'am all right and and again I want to go we can talk and say we'd like this and we'd like that but unless we're willing to say that we are going to move forward with that variable rate it's just talk so I again will be supporting a variable rate tax rate increase as you presented I would like to go higher, but it doesn't seem the council has an appetite for that because I'd like to see things restored. But with that, I'll begin with the libraries. Thank you so much. I know this is difficult. I'll have you come up in a little while. I know this is difficult. We are investing more in more than just books and materials. We are investing in adults and children, technology and resiliency hubs for my area. We are investing in people's futures when we talk about the library because that's where they go to fill out their ready to work out applications because we do not have the best broadband in District 3. So I feel that your efforts in making efficiencies and reducing are admirable ideal would like the twenty two positions followed that will no longer be at the library as they move to different departments because i would hope that they would remain in the city because i do believe with some of the increases you've put forward in charging twenty dollars for non-residents and other costs like that that we'll see more increase and more circulation. And while I don't think we need to do away with technology, I think we need to learn how to have that personal touch as people use the technology and check out. So how do we count it? Because there is a human element somewhere. Because I've sit and tried to scan a book three times at the scanners and then it's a librarian or a librarian assistant that tells me flip it around so even though they may not touch it it is that personal when you walk into the library and you check out that I want to see these positions restored But we are in the situation that we are right now, and you have, library, done, you have gone above and beyond to make sure that we move forward in this budget. So thank you for that. Our library is... critical i think we're going to see more participation as as the budget gets more difficult as people look for more places to spend cool afternoons that isn't a movie theater as we have people come in and do more programming and you can bet that district three is going to try and do more programming at their libraries to make sure that we get more people in there and we can come to the next budget and get um those positions restored so from the 22 people wherever they are that are moving within the city or within the library i hope they stick with this and understanding we're going to look for ways to invest back so that we can we can increase those services So thank you, library, for that. I want to take just a brief moment to talk about solid waste because it's not going to be very long. But thank you so much for your efforts and everything. So the one question I have for you and David, you may need to answer. Is it possible that we could maybe get Centro to take over our downtown trash operations if it's more cost efficient so we can stick to the streets of the neighborhoods?

That would probably be a conversation we'd have to have with downtown operations as well. We support Central as well and they support us. There is some collaboration even though they have a contract. If they see the letter baskets full, for example, they'll pull it and leave it to the side. So there is a little bit of interaction, but that is a conversation worth having.

Okay, you guys are doing an incredible job. I've talked about my ideas of neighbor dump days. We can take everything to the dump on certain neighbors. Y'all help me with the dial-in trailers. So thank you. Keep up the good work. And I think that investment in the transfer station is going to be key in making sure we continue with the services. So thank you for that. So with the time I have left, I do want to talk about economic developments and its relationships to parks and rec. But what I'd like to say is in terms of long-term fiscal sustainability, we need economic development department to do its job. And it's not just recruiting companies. It really is coordinating with all of our public and private partnerships. It's about understanding who is still here, who we need to continue to build up and make strong, which is our Toyotas, our Holts, our USAAs, our just, I keep on thinking of only like our Brooks, our solar, you know, I keep on thinking of just southern sectors, but I know that there's places, SWBC, let me get to another side of town. We need to continue to do that because business retention matters, and you all are working on that. Our small business ecosystem, as we work on that, I think that's key too. But we need to begin, which I'll have started with greater SATX, with South Texas Business Partnership, and with the chambers as they go through their transitions. to look at where we are globally and where are we competing globally. And I see Sherry here and a lot of it has been that soft kind of, you know, hi, how are you doing, remember me sort of situation. But as we move forward, I know we have a lot of companies here that have now partnered and parent under a global company that we need to identify because global engagement is going to be key as we move forward. So we need to create the conditions where private investment can occur. We need to make sure that we are attractive, not just through incentives. And I think that is why ready to work has been critical in getting some of those businesses here because we have an economic ecosystem of skilled laborers. And we need to continue that and maintain that. and keep Project Quest as a general fund line item as we move forward. And I think that that's going to be important as we continue to grow because this is how we get out of the deficit, by bringing more jobs, more careers, more opportunities for our community. And with that said, as we grow and as we continue to move forward, Homer, I need for you to give us... Botanical Gardens is one of a number of city properties that have leases. I know Mission Concepcion Park, a lot of our parks are leased up, Five Diamonds. We need that list and that roster to see where are those contracts, what is our return on investment, and do we need to, in the future, look at what we're charging and asking them to do to maintain that field and to activate that space. It's important that I am thankful for everybody who activates a park space within District 3. Because if not, then that would be left for you guys to go and take care of and maintain and program that. So I appreciate that. But I think we need to look at the value that we have in some of these park spaces and see. And I appreciate what you've... the examination with the botanical gardens. But again, the botanical gardens and the historic designation sits on some of those properties. And y'all know me, I love old things, but I don't think we need to save them all, is I think what makes it so problematic for them to continue to maintain. So I think as we look at that, We need to stop just looking at one and we need to look bigger picture at citywide what we have and what we're leasing out to sports organizations and sports groups and making sure we're getting a return on our investment. So other than that, I love what y'all are doing at the parks. I'm looking forward to Pickwell. What we have coming at Mission Marquee and in that near Mission Library, it's a whole new kind of, it's going to be its own little amusement park, but for free by the city. So I'm really looking forward to that. And the team has been amazing at every opening that we've had, whether it's the skate park or the dog park. I just appreciate y'all's efforts, but I think we need to look bigger picture at where all our dollars are. Great. Thank you. Councilmember Galvan, please.

Thank you, Mary. Thank you to all the staff who presented today and for all the work that you've done to prepare this budget and to go through all the fine details here. I want to thank Parks and the team, Homer and everybody for all that you do, of course, year-round and all the support that you give for all the things that we ask of you every single day from my team. I really appreciate all the support that you've given us throughout the year. Solid waste, all the same to you. Special thanks, of course, to the Hot Shack crew who allowed us to do a ride-along with them and a video with them this summer. It was very hot, but very important to showcase the work that you all and your team do every single day, of course, especially during these times of crisis as well. Just another reminder why solid waste without y'all, our city would stop functioning. I have a couple questions for EdDN Library. For Brenda, also want to give you some flowers as well for all the hard work you're doing, you and your team, for the Wolf Stadium conversations, of course. We have one this Saturday at Cuellar Community Center from 10 to, no, from 11 to 1, right in the heart of District 6. We're very excited to have that meeting and to see more of what's going to happen there. My only question was, and maybe it's a little bit outside your wheelhouse, so I'm sorry to bring you up here for something that may be outside. But thinking about the small business fees that we're reviewing right now to increase, I think they're Metro Health and DSD primarily, so I know they're not managed by you all. But have you heard from anybody in the small business community about the impact of that, or have you done an analysis on what that impact would look like on a small business ecosystem as it relates to fees increasing?

So admittedly, it's just been a really high level, just given timeline. Typically, what we would prefer to do is go to the Small Business Advisory Commission, but we were unable to. do that at this point in time. We have had meetings with the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and so forth to get that feedback. Okay.

And what's typically been, I guess, the response you've heard from small business, from the SBAC or anybody else, as a beta, et cetera, about what fees have typically done to small businesses here in our community? Of course, we know it's difficult, right, at all fronts. But I guess what's the impact on the larger ecosystem here in our community or even the development of new small businesses? Sure.

So, again, at this point in time, it's been very anecdotal as our business outreach specialists are out and whatnot, so we'd have to do more follow-up to feel more comfortable to provide a specific response.

Okay, I appreciate that. Thank you, Brenda. I think there's other questions. For the library... Thank you, Mr. Goswami, for the presentation and for all the work that you all do, of course, and to the board as well for the thorough review of everything that the library does as well. A couple of quick questions. I know I sent you an email the other day about Libby services. I feel like it's my favorite thing to say. But I would be interested in seeing what the cost of those services are for the subscription that we use, particularly the year-over-year and the renewal subscriptions there. I don't know if we have that information readily available, but...

I believe you should have received that in an email today, but we have the number, exact number, 4.6 million.

4.6 million for this coming year?

This number is from fiscal year 2025, and this does include our paid subscription to New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Overdrive, and Libby.

Okay, got it. And then, well, I'll look at the email that you sent over. But I guess I'm interested in seeing the year over year as well and for any kind of renewal subscriptions, particularly for, I mean, it may be more difficult than I'm asking for, but more granular, but thinking about how to renew books that we already have that are... we digitally subscribed to a while ago, and then how much is that costing us versus the physical purchase. Do you know what I'm asking?

Are you asking about the cost between physical material we have and the digital material we have and how much we spent?

Precisely. So just thinking about, right, we purchased one book that's really popular, another book that's really popular, one physical, one virtual, how many times do I have to renew this one virtually versus potentially repairing this book that's physical or anything of the sort there. And so trying to see the cost of the lifetime of those books and then therefore the longer cost of

Yeah, I think that would vary overall. But what we are spending is almost 50-50 on digital and physical material. Almost.

Got it. When you say almost, what's the 51, 50, 49?

I would say more like 45, 55.

Okay, okay. Fair enough, fair enough. That's helpful. And then I know we're having an important conversation on the circulation attendance in particular. Can you just remind me, I think it was slide 10 was the kind of breakdown of... the staffing. Is the request or the reduction looking at eliminating all circulation attendants or just relative to the changes over time of the use?

Just relative to changing over time of the use. So overall, the 12 circulation attendants positions are being on the list.

Okay. Got it. Okay, well, I appreciate that. I mean, it's something that doesn't super sit well with me. I understand the look at making sure that it's more efficient and such. I still... And I know there's been some good analysis, so I appreciate the analysis you all have done as well to go through about what work they do every single day, how it compares to not only circulation, but also other services provided at the libraries. I still... feel a little uneasy about it given just what the different things I see it like the greatest library or Petrenko the different clubs that are offered the different activities that are offered I don't and you can correct me if I'm wrong with those folks are not doing that work but I would anticipate that you know folks shift around as that work becomes available as our residents then request for those services to be available in some form whether it's a direct service that we provide specifically or something that is a request from the residents who use that site about can we create a small club here can we do this kind of activity here because I think about all the time I think it was the Green Northwest in particular that had, in the teen club section, the different zines that they were doing or the zines that they were doing that had all kinds of incredible materials in there. And maybe you can tell me today or later on, I don't know how often circulation attendants support that work, while everybody else may be busy on something else.

So from our assessment through this CBR process, it was very minimal support which was being provided by circuit attendants.

Okay. So typically is it the library system that's doing that or somebody else?

Correct. So it's library assistants and our librarians.

Okay. Got it. All right. Well, thank you so much. Those are all my questions for all today. Again, I appreciate all the presentations today from all the staff. Yeah. Those are my questions, Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Spears, please.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I want to say thank you to Vice Chair Harris for your message today. That was really impactful. And also to my friend and a veteran, Bert Quintanilla, for being here. He's my appointee on the library board. I know this is a really hot topic amongst my constituents as well. Everyone loves the library. Everyone goes to the library. It's an important fixture in our community. I know that right-sizing here is very difficult, although I am happy that unlike private sector, we are able to find another position for these employees, and that's important. I wanted to ask on page 534 of the budget book, it says, let me get to it. What is the contractual services for?

Councilwoman Freddie Martinez, budget director. The contractual services in the library would cover things for their collections to operate the library, other things such as building maintenance, security, and other functions of the library that they do on a day-to-day basis.

Okay, so that's put there. Okay. And then do we have a breakdown of the marketing engagements? I think it was mentioned on a slide. I have it as 536 in the budget book. Just not, I mean, when you get a chance.

Yeah, currently we don't, but we will get you that information.

Okay, great. And then, so on slide 11 on the collection of the fee for the library cards, so did I hear you correctly? Let me get back to it. You said there were 97,000 non-San Antonio residents that currently use the library?

That is correct.

So the estimate, though, is coming in at a million. Is that just recapture your estimate?

We are anticipating half of the cardholders will pay for that.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. That's all I had for the library. All right on the parks. District 9 we have the I think it's the most popular park in the town. This the Stubing Ranch Park the where Mitchell's Landing is. Shout out to April Chang for that, but um. I'm really proud of this park. My concern is it's the only fully accessible park in town and it's getting undue wear and tear because I hear from people as far as Comal up in New Braunfels coming over to this park. Is there any Thought or are we looking at how we can bring more accessible? Equipment, I mean it's hard to do a whole park that same way or but but what are we looking at for accessibility?

You're talking about across the park system. We're specifically in district 9 both our design guidelines require universal design, excuse me, our universal design guidelines do include fully accessible park amenities. The best example of that would be our playground. Now, obviously there at Mitchell's Landing, that is not standard for every park, but every playground is fully accessible. When we do park improvements, for example, we have some old parks and if we're adding picnic pads, then we're putting ADA pathways to connect people to those paths. So it really is on an incremental basis. When we're implementing a bond program, for example, or just an entirely new park coming online, then those guidelines are a requirement. So if we are doing it, it's just more of an incremental approach.

Okay. Okay. Could we put a map? I was on the website. Is there a way to do a map that details where every park is, add that to the website?

Yes. We can figure out a way. I mean, we have a lot of parks, 278 parks, so it will be busy, but we can make sure that there's a visual so people know where to go when they want to access these amenities.

So they can see what's close to them. Yes, absolutely.

Okay.

Okay. Can you tell me what areas of the park's budget have grown the most over the last three years?

Well, probably the clearest example, top of mind for me is in the current year budget, there was an increase in environmental fund. And in the proposed budget, there was an increase in environmental fund as well. So That is a restricted fund. It is for park maintenance, sanitation only. I think the team members that are on crews and go out there, that would be the clearest example of where it's grown the most and has been through the environmental fund.

Do you want to augment that?

I'll just add that personnel have increased, personnel costs have increased, but also as new capital projects come online, we're maintaining and operating those trails as well as new parks and new amenities.

OK. So on slide five how long does. How do you evaluate obviously

zero participation classes or or is there a threshold or how are we evaluating this and like what about low participation absolutely so the threshold is five and what we were doing that is now even been modified this summer is I meet with the program team monthly and When we close a month, for example, August just ended, I'll be meeting with the team next week to look at where attendance was above or below the threshold, and where there's low, which is anything below five, that's coming off the books. We're making sure that we're almost as real time as we can be making edits to then upcoming programming in the next month. So that happens monthly, and the threshold is five.

Okay. I think that's it for parks. Thank you. Yes. Brenda, thank you for your presentation on economic development. This is key for me. I wanted to add Boeing to your list, Councilwoman Villagran, of businesses for retention. I think that this is the path forward for our city is to ensure that we are retaining our businesses, attracting more businesses. This is how we grow. And the key component to that would be the workforce piece, right? So that we have good jobs and that we're building a pipeline around those jobs and new industry. I think the industries that the city's focusing on, that the mayor often talks about as well, are the AI and the technology that we're looking at. These are real areas for us to be focused on and opportunity for San Antonio. Especially with AI, I think looking at how we have some really great up-and-coming businesses with strong, serious connections locally that are ready and willing to help here and get more engaged. I'm very encouraged about them already in our community. You know, I want to remember, too, how we can continue to support our veterans and focus on how we can accelerate their entry into being small business owners or becoming part of our workforce in a different way. I know this is scary to a lot of our community because there's so much change happening around us, but I think we need to be thinking about how we embrace all the change and the trajectory that we have going forward, and I think that's what you're doing in economic development. I did have a couple of questions on slide nine. What is the breakdown, let me get to slide nine. There, fast. Can you tell me what the breakdown of the responsibilities of supply SA are?

SupplySA is the, what was formerly known as the South Central Texas Regional Certification Agency. They certify businesses, small businesses, minority business status and whatnot. We, while we can focus on small with the SEBATA program, we do continue to track the spending for all of our minority certifications. Okay.

And is there anything that's duplicative between SupplySA and LaunchSA?

The two organizations have worked really well together to collaborate where SupplySA primarily focuses again on those procurement trainings, doing businesses with all of those public entities that are a partner. LaunchSA focuses on other small business activities. There has been some collaboration around actually the veteran small business support.

Okay. I'll just have to chime in on round two. Okay, thanks.

Thank you. Council Member Cora, please.

Thanks, Mayor. Thank you all for the presentation. Sorry I missed some of the content. I still thought the meeting was at 2 p.m. today. But I'm going to go ahead and start off with library thank you secret for your presentation and the vice chair for presenting want to shout out my library appointee carla vasquez for her work on this really important organization i have a couple of questions on slide 10 for the new staffing model did you all compare the staffing model to other cities or can you tell me a little bit about like what assumptions were built in to the staffing model

We have Kate Kinison from Innovation who was part of CBR and she's going to be answering that question.

Kate Kinison, Chief Innovation Officer. Yes, ma'am, we did. And we're pretty much in line with other cities. The median staff per branch for our comp cities was 8.6. San Antonio was at 10. But when we did look at hours, we have extended Sunday hours compared to the other branches. But overall, over the course of the week, we're pretty in line with the other branches. So we were just slightly above the median in the comp cities that we looked at.

But I'm assuming you guys also considered foot traffic and a number of visitors and other assumptions, right?

Yes. I mean, the main thing we were looking at at that point was staffing. So we didn't get a handle on all of their performance metrics. It wasn't that apples to apples of a comparison. And to be honest, it really wasn't the deciding factor in the right sizing at the end of the day. It was early on in the analysis, just to get a sense of how we compared to other cities.

Got it. So what were the, and I'm sorry if you already answered this, what was the deciding factor?

The deciding factor, to keep this pretty simple, was the physical check-ins being down 40%, the staff-assisted checkouts being down

62 percent and then looking at the positions that primarily were in charge of the physical check-ins and check-outs okay because the annual visits to the library numbers that y'all project in your metrics so at 2025 it was 3 million and then for 26 it was projected to be 2.6 million and it's actually the new target is 2.9 million which means we're exceeding our metrics and i must have missed last year that we dropped it And then for 27, the number of visitations is 2.8 million. And while library staff isn't necessarily always just doing checkouts, they're also supporting for visitations. So I think maybe like, and obviously this is a thing that a lot of our community members are asking us about. We have to be really clear in exactly what assumptions we're making and why in terms of why we're saying that we are justified in decreased library visits. staff at each of the libraries. So can you share with me which libraries, do you have the list of which libraries are reducing?

I think it's in the back of the slide, sir.

Slide 15, please.

So I guess what I would ask is, like, aside from these positions, what else did we look at? Like, is there a chart that shows us this is how much circulation is down? This is how much visitations are down in each of these libraries? And then share that with us. And I think overall for moving forward, we should consider for any comprehensive budget reviews that we get a briefing maybe in B session before budget so that we can ask like a lot of these detailed questions so that we can be more supportive of changes that come as a result of them. And then last question for you guys is what's the plan to met like? So how do you guys measure that customer satisfaction rating of 96%?

And Councilwoman, just real quick on your last question. We did provide the change in the circulation and the handling of materials in our first follow-up memo. So I can, but I'll resend that.

Okay, I must have missed that. Was that by library?

It was as part of the follow up from the first budget work session where we talked about reductions in revenues.

Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. It was. Yes. Yes.

OK. OK. I'm sorry I missed that. And can you guys talk a little bit about customer satisfaction? What's the how do you guys measure that? Ninety six percent.

Councilmember that was 2025 citywide survey and From there we picked up 96% Satisfaction for the library and library was one of the top one of the top departments in the city with the positive So many of us are advocating for better understanding the changes and

So I'd like to understand, do you already have a plan in place on how you're going to measure satisfaction and continued support for visitors at the library?

Could you repeat that question again? I'm sorry.

Like do you have a plan to measure satisfaction moving forward given the changes?

Absolutely. We will be observing. We will be looking at how it's affecting our services. And so that's how we are going to be measuring our changes too.

Maybe you can follow up with a more comprehensive plan on what that looks like, what specific quantitative and qualitative data that you'll be collecting, and how library employees will also be involved. Yes, Ms. Schiller.

councilwoman David McCary assistant city manager one of the things that we'll do is we'll actually go in with CNE communication and engagement and look at what they did their last survey satisfaction that achieved at 96% and look at what we can do to also take into consideration some of the changes that are occurring now to do a follow-up with that as well Got it. Thank you.

So maybe just an outlined plan of what, when, and how would be helpful.

Yes, we'll do that. Okay.

Thank you so much.

Thanks.

Thank you. I'm going to move on to solid waste real quick. I know a lot of my colleagues have already shouted out how amazing solid waste was this last week, and I also wanted to shout out Maria, because I think it was Maria's idea. Well, Maria did an amazing job coordinating everything this last weekend. But also it was, I think maybe her idea to send out solid waste again, a couple of times in our neighborhoods where a lot of food was thrown away because of the electricity. And I got so many thank yous for that. Like I didn't think how many people would be grateful that they didn't have to smell, you know, old food in their trash cans. So thank you guys for mobilizing and getting folks out there. I also had a couple of other shout outs. We had a situation on Wildwood a couple months ago where solid waste came out and cleaned up a lot that was vacant and wasn't technically their official requirement, but they always are willing to go above and beyond to make sure our neighborhoods are clean. And our small businesses often call us about illegal dumping. It's a really tricky situation on who we hold accountable, but I know Solid Waste is always willing to help. So I appreciate just being your leadership there. Um, on slide 12, when you brought that up earlier, have we ever considered and I don't know if this is like a terrible idea, but have we ever considered owning our own landfill?

Uh, no, the, the time for that, I think has really passed. So. Across the country in the 1980s when the federal regulations on landfills changed, San Antonio, like most other cities, got out of the landfill business at the time. The realistic permitting process, if today you gave me the direction to open up a new landfill, we're looking at at least 15 years before that would happen. But I think the closest thing we can do is the slide I had before about a transfer station. So taking the waste in and transferring to a permitted facility outside of the city limits.

Got it. So it makes it more efficient. Okay. I appreciate your thinking there. And then just the last question I have is for slide 14, why is our recycling revenue down?

Recycling revenue is incredibly unpredictable. It's like playing the stock market. Some years it's good, some years it's down. Talking to our processor, the tariffs have actually had a very big negative impact on the recycling revenues. which very surprised me because I thought that would have made revenues better, but what they tell me is that the uncertainty in the market has made investment in recycling much more challenging. Even though we and other cities are collecting more recycling, many of the processors that take the stuff have gone out of business or consolidated. On the purchasing side, there are less companies buying recycling, so that has drove the price down.

Interesting. So speaking of that, because I've been asking for this, our field office doesn't recycle. And I don't know if any of your other field offices have the same situation. And I've asked for like the contract of like why that is. But I really think we should do an internal audit of all of our buildings to make sure at least we are recycling. Because would we get money back, right? Because the third party company is going to be doing that recycling. So we would get some of that revenue, right? Yeah.

So I think one of the things I look at from a recycling perspective and a revenue perspective is even when recycling rivers are down, it's still cheaper than landfilling. So all that material has to go somewhere. So even if we wave the magic wand and the blue cart disappeared, then all that stuff would be transferred to the brown cart, which we would dispose of at a much higher rate. So I think there is a great financial benefit to the city in recycling, even when the revenues are not as high as they used to be.

this might not be uh your department thing but i think when we talk about all the other departments we should look at an audit for uh making sure we recycle in all of our buildings okay um thank you so much

Councilman, this is Eric. All city facilities are required to recycle. So I'm not really sure why your field office isn't recycling, but I'll talk to Emily. You should have a blue can, whether it's a leased facility or a safe facility. Yeah, it shouldn't make any difference. Yeah. Okay. I'm glad to know that. We'll get you a bunch of blue cans.

I appreciate it. I can't tell how much time I have left to go on to my next department. Can anyone share that real quick?

Councilman, you can come in in the second round. Okay, great, thanks. Thanks. Okay, Councilman Mejia Rodriguez.

Thank you, I'll be very short. Thank you all for the presentations. I mean, I think with the, I'll keep my comments to what displeases me, which is the idea of losing positions. I think library is one of those that is most in focus, as has been mentioned before. My focus right now is on potential amendments to the budget and figuring out where we might best be able to save all of the positions so that they will not be eliminated. Ideally, we want a long-term solution. At worst, you know, hopefully we can at least protect those positions for two years and buy us a little bit of time to create a longer-term solution, but that is where my mind is at right now. Thank you all.

Okay. Councilwoman Spears, please, on the second round.

Thanks, Mayor. Brenda, sorry. I wanted to know how many businesses are participating and still operating after one, three, and five years, if you have that, or if you need to get that. Back to the launch essay and...

Yeah, we'll follow up with that. I do want to note that we added those six-month, 18-month, 36-month surveys to our contracts a couple years ago. So just starting next year, we're going to really start to see a large number of those 36-month contracts come in to really monitor those trends more.

Okay, great. And then on slide five, do you know what metrics we're going to be using to determine the success of the new strategic framework? I guess that's the first part of the question.

Sure. So, as part of the strategic framework, one of the key deliverables that we'll be discussing is a implementation matrix. Who owns the initiative, kind of the timeline, some of this is shorter-term, mid-term, longer-term initiatives, more ongoing, et cetera. And so we'll be reporting that. And then for each of the initiatives, like we do right now for all of our different programs, when we bring that forward, we do identify the various metrics that we'll be monitoring as far as that goes. So we do try to outline those outcomes and then also outputs, outcomes, and the trends.

Okay. And then... If we can identify which recommendations can be implemented with existing resources and anything that might require additional funding. I guess when we're looking at that around the strategic framework. Okay, that's it. Thank you. On solid waste, let's just be honest. Y'all are the real heroes and the thing most people care about in this city. Without you, it would be a real problem. So thank you very much for everything that you do. I also want to mention that this is also a really strong career path and something that people should really consider. I appreciate what you're doing here with the apprentice program on the repair maintenance of the vehicles. Let me ask. Councilwoman Corr asked one of my questions about the revenue from recycling. So really, on slide nine, about the mechanic apprenticeship program, do we expect to see savings there?

Yes, I do think so. When we send the vehicle out to a private mechanic shop, we're paying about $150 an hour. When we're doing it in-house, we're paying about $95. That's a lot.

That's a big difference. Yes. That's good. That's smart. Okay.

really all i have nothing but praise thank you for everything that you do all right thank you mayor thank you council member um oh actually you said she came off right okay anyone else on the second round council member core yeah sorry i'll be brief um i just have a couple of questions um parks homer i'm going to go to you real quick

So on one, slide seven, wanted to shout out the urban forestry team. They've also been helping us a lot over the last few days. And so I'm really glad about the work they're doing. I know that came from a CCR by Councilman Aldo Degavito and has been supported by Councilman Castillo too. So I just want to say thank you for continuing that work. And the Spurs, I mentioned this at Midtown last week, but the Spurs gave 50K to Urban Canopy, their nonprofit to help with cleanup this week as well. On the woodlawn gym, I'm going to reiterate Councilman Castillo's points because I also use that gym. I'm glad they're getting an HVAC, but at the same time, I think the floors need to be looked at. So my question, Homer, and I also played in the late night hoops that your team did a really great job of organizing, which was funded out of inner city tours for the Woodard Community Center. And I was like, I wonder how often do we actually look at whether like the uptake of gyms and how often we need to redo floors and things like that. What is the maintenance plan for all of our gyms and facility centers?

It's going to vary by the facility use, age of the facility. And so one of the things in the maintenance plan, if you will, for a gym is probably going to be contingent upon the type of floor. So it really varies. One of the things that we do have is going through and building some commonality between how we do a facility assessment, for example, and taking and leaning on BESD so that it's not just parks doing kind of what we think we need to do, but so that there's some continuity across the enterprise. But the short answer is it's really going to depend on facility use, age of the systems. Everything is received investment at different points in time. So it's really a spectrum there. But it is something that we are doing, just varies.

if you if you have a plan that you can show me that shows like by building this is what the improvements are particularly for the gymnasiums and potentially also the parks because i like council mentioned we're increasing fees and that's a hard thing for a lot of our residents that are using it and we just want to make sure that as long if we're increasing fees we're also improving the service that we're providing yes absolutely we can show that i think the woodland gym floor should be replanted okay um Uh, the only other question that I had for you. Oh, I think that was it. Um, thank you. Thank you for your work. Yep. And then, um, I support something to see his point about funding. Do you have you guys thought about, like, other opportunities to use that funding in terms of place, making small business support, et cetera.

So that's been one of the conversations as part of the incentive updates. Again, the incentive updates are regarding the chapter 380 and 312. So it is based on ad valorem. So therefore, it needs to be a little bit larger impact. But we are taking a look at how we can support placemaking either through those tools or with other tools.

Okay, yeah, I think Chapter 380 is pretty vague. So I know it's based on Agloren, but I do think there's an opportunity for you guys to do a little bit more diligence there. There's, for example, Blanco Road has a really great small community that would, I'm sure, appreciate some more placemaking opportunities. So I just think in each of our districts, you probably have some small corridors that could really use some support and would appreciate it so that we're not just focusing all of our energy in downtown and big businesses. Um, and the only other question that I had is on the construction mitigation program, I understand we're right sizing it. Transparently after having dealt with that for the 1st, 2 years, I don't know that the impact that we actually were hoping for actually came to fruition, but I'm just curious. What is the current plan for the program?

Yeah, so the construction mitigation program has more, hence the right sizing. The business outreach specialists really find that it's the one-on-one engagement with the businesses that are the most impactful versus some of those other investments that we're making, signage, activations, and so forth. So in fiscal year 26, we've had almost 11,000 engagements through those outreach efforts and so forth.

But what are the 11,000 engagements turn into? What is the result or outcome of that?

I'm sorry. I'm having a hard time. I didn't catch the question.

Oh, sorry. What did those 11,000 engagements result in?

So a lot of our engagements result in referrals to, for example, the zero percent interest program. So we do track all of that. We also a lot of Launch SA is one of our most utilized referral services, if you will. We have a lot of questions around city services permitting. So a lot of referrals to DSD and helping through those facilities. So it's a lot of that kind of connectivity, if you will. with those direct engagements.

Can you send me a report that includes all of those, or a summary of what those direct engagements were and what happened as a result of them? I'm just curious to make sure that we can move things forward. And the last thing, have we already revamped bi-local? I know we had a lot of discussion about not having the impact that we were hoping for.

So we just completed a survey on the bi-local plan. It's $25,000 in general fund, so it's pretty limited resources. We did just do a survey and are looking at the results of that, how we can expand that program with those resources we have.

Okay, got it. I'll just reiterate, let's just go back and take a look at Councilman Castillo's EIF request, just because I want to make sure we're capturing Chapter 380 correctly. Okay, thank you all. Thank you, Mayor.

Great, thank you. Josephine, just a couple of questions for you. I want to also applaud you. I think you're the funniest person that has briefed me up here. During the public hearing on the property tax increase, we heard a lot from the community, the metal recyclers that are concerned about the increase in the fee that's from 1,000 to 5,000. I know that's not necessarily in your bailiwick, but I would like to understand how you think that may affect the ecosystem. If you've got these small businesses that may not be able to handle that, which then decreases the amount of folks metal recycling in our community. You just said it's cheaper to recycle than it is to have it in the landfill. I'd welcome your thoughts on how do we understand the strength of that ecosystem and how that may impact your work.

Are you talking about large-scale automobile recycling and large scrap metal recycling? Right.

I feel like they're the smaller ones, weren't they? Whoever is getting the fee, that's going from $1,000 to $5,000. It's the metal recyclers. Do I have that right? Yeah. Thanks.

Metal recycling, I think, is at a challenging spot right now, especially for that type of material. What is happening right now... it's become a much more dangerous industry. If you think about what you have in your house, everything has a battery, whether it's your electric toothbrush or the Tesla car. So there are a lot more factors from the recycling aspect that have to be taken into consideration. As you said, this is my bailiwick is bottles and cans, not large-scale metal recycling. But I think... It is a financially profitable industry. My non-expert opinion, and that's exactly what it is, it is an opinion that I believe that there is a need for greater regulation in the scrap metal industry, and a fee may be the best way to achieve that.

I'd welcome understanding that just a little bit more. Again, there was a kind of pretty vocal contingent of folks that showed up for that, and it is a significant increase. I understand, as John Petarek explained, that that is reflective of a cost analysis that better explains kind of the effort as it results there. But as we heard from the folks that came, Eric, those are really, you know, it's a disproportionate impact on those that may be following the rules to account for those that are not. And especially if we're talking about a potential impact now on our landfills, which are a higher cost, I want to make sure I understand impact of the increase in that fee and a decrease in the metal recycling capacity in our community as a result.

Mayor, one thing that's not included within our cost of services, and it's, you know, in many cases, these businesses have been in existence for quite a while, but we're not taking into account the environmental cost in the surrounding area. We're literally just taking the cost of providing the service and the inspections and the permits And we've gone through a bit of a evolution here the last couple of years where we've had incidents at these locations that, and I don't want to broadly speak about the industry, but there have been some bad actors in the industry that have not done enough to protect and live within the code and the permitting requirements. Then we've had either employee injuries or we've had fires on site that have created environmental issues in this running area So it has been a concerted effort and I know you heard from some folks at the public hearing last week about the potential impact but But purely, as we look at it, as purely as the cost it takes us to do to regulate, we're applying that to that industry. And certainly happy to provide more context, but I think that additional context goes beyond our budget and potentially on impacts in the neighborhood and the surrounding areas.

Yeah, I'd appreciate that. Again, just because the response in public hearing and then certainly after the fact in terms of cards and letters, that I'm sure my colleagues have also received from that community. It'd be helpful if we had kind of better talking points to be able to lay that flat. Thank you, Josephine. For the library, Secrete, what would be, I mean, we're facing this literacy crisis, right, not only in our community but across the country. I'd welcome understanding the costs associated with restoring the mobile library program. So that's just a takeaway. I do support restoring all 39 of those positions and an amendment that I've shared with the staff and with some of my colleagues is utilizing the remaining Fiesta subsidy as well as the LISC funding that gets you to the 950 for that. Okay, Brenda, please. Because there's so much, as we think about EDD and we're thinking about economic development, rather, and we're thinking about this, in my mind, related conversation with the TERS, can you speak to how your office engages with the TERS?

So right now with the TERS policy, we do have a where if there's a job creation related initiative, kind of the more traditional, I would say, job creation initiative that's looking at TERS, we can use CHIRS resources as a potential incentive. So we work really closely with neighborhood and housing services through that. So if they get that call, we'll refer them. And so there's been a couple of, like Velocity Texas, we had an arrangement with where there was some CHIRS money set aside for any businesses and job creation they would have at their site as an example of that. We also, more on the BDO side of it, the business development organizations, there are a couple of contracts with SAGE that are tourist funded for their storefront, for example, and the revolving loan fund that we administer in economic development in collaboration with the NHSD.

Okay, that's helpful, thank you. I'd welcome understanding those, I'm sure we have a history of the incentives from the TURs that have been issued. I'd welcome understanding kind of what's that look like. I know some TURs don't have a ton of money in them, but to the extent that folks are utilizing that as an incentive versus coming to the general fund or in any other way. But I'd welcome understanding what that's looked like over the last couple of years. Thanks for laying that flat. The other thing, when we think about the collaboration with some of the business entities, can you speak specifically to how EDD works with Port San Antonio? When we think about the average wage there, over $100,000, Many of those don't require an incentive, which is the best kind of job, I think. So kind of welcome how we kind of target and target our support for and collaboration with an entity like that given the starting wage of those jobs.

Yeah. So with Port SA, they have resources available to them. So a lot of times the companies may or may not be looking for an incentive. Their incentive a lot of times at Port SA may be for lease reductions or other kind of resources. But we do partner with Port SA for business retention and growth. So we do have a number of clients out there that we have worked with for expansions, for example, where we may not, to your point, be providing those incentives. Jim and our team in general have a pretty strong collaborative relationship where, again, as businesses have various needs, we will certainly interact and work with them. And we also, of course, have direct contacts with the businesses where they'll just reach out directly to us and have meetings, whether or not that is with the port staff.

Okay. Unfortunately, as this ice facility on the east side comes online, we heard from two business entities when this was still under discussion about how this would have a negative impact on economic development in the area, which is why they were supportive of that zoning change. It was Sage on the east side and it was Brooks on the south side. I'd welcome kind of how we are thinking about monitoring the economic impact of that facility and how it may depress economic activity in and around there so that we can be thoughtful about how we are best supporting that side of town in light of the disproportionate burden they're now carrying as a result of hosting that facility. So something on paper that kind of helps us wrap our head around how we through an economic development lens are thinking about how we're going to monitor the impact of that.

Okay.

Thank you. I appreciate that. And then lastly, similar to my colleagues and wanting to make sure that we're thinking about economic development a little bit more holistically and in light of some of the changes in some of these key industries where we really want to foothold. you know, some of the recent experiences that we've had, for example, and I really appreciate your team and the collaboration with you and with Greater in supporting the Taiwanese entities that we're trying to bring here, as well as the quantum company, Isadore, and how we have found out kind of the hard way that the economic development policy is not really focused on those kinds of jobs, right? They're focused, as you point out, kind of these like large footprint, kind of thousands of jobs, when in many of these areas, we really want to kind of get that footprint. So started rather, which we know then helps to bring around other associated entities and create the ecosystem that doesn't yet exist here, or at least maybe serve to strengthen that. So as we're looking at the economic development framework, That is what I'm going to pay attention to. I know I've shared this feedback previously, but as we're looking at this refresh, I want to make sure that we have a much more deliberate focus on that So that we can you know some of these companies the fact that you know When you ran it through the algorithm if you will you know we gave them like an 80k Incentive is kind of peanuts to what another community would have given given The focus of that and the desire to land something like that so however we can incorporate a little bit more flexibility into that economic development framework Would be would be helpful in the interest of strengthening that ecosystem. Okay. Okay, let's see. Eric, any final comments? Do you have what you need?

Yes, ma'am, and we will we've got our next round of budget work sessions tomorrow afternoon and I do hope to We will have to you on Friday an updated amendment list in preparation for next week's conversations.

Great. Appreciate it. Okay We do have public comments at 5 p.m. And it's a this is a public hearing. Okay We have 15 1 5 signed up so far. I'm sorry 1.8. Excuse me. Thank you. And reminder, we do have to have quorum for the public hearing. The time is now 4.04 and this meeting is adjourned.