San Antonio City To Host Virtual Town Hall Meetings On The Fiscal Year 2021 Budget

Press release from the City of San Antonio:

June 18, 2020

Residents invited to learn about fiscal challenges due to COVID-19 and ask questions

SAN ANTONIO (June 18, 2020) – The City of San Antonio will kick off its sixth-annual SASpeakUp on the Budget campaign this Thursday, June 18, with virtual town hall meetings for each City Council district to be held through June 25 and a survey available at www.SASpeakUp.com. This year’s budget process is unlike any year before due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has left the City with financial constraints.

“The pandemic has had a devastating impact on our economy that has been felt in our sales tax revenue, hotel occupancy tax, and parking revenue—just to name a few,” said City Manager Erik Walsh. “Balancing the FY2021 budget will be difficult, and we’re providing residents the opportunity to learn about these fiscal challenges and ask questions at a number of virtual meetings.”

During today’s City Council A Session, City Manager Erik Walsh presented the trial budget—a new component of this year’s process that provides an opportunity to view and discuss potential reductions needed to balance the budget before the proposed budget is developed and presented in August. The trial budget serves as an important tool to jumpstart discussions with City Council and the community. The presentation also included a five-year financial forecast, which projects a $109 million deficit to the City’s budget over the next two years.

In order to balance the budget while maintaining current levels of City services, the trial budget includes reductions to police overtime, a hiring freeze, reductions to economic development incentives, one-time personnel expense reductions, reductions to the street maintenance program and other reductions to the general fund and fuel contingencies

A robust public participation process is planned for later this summer, following the presentation of the proposed budget. More information about the budget is available here.

Residents can tune in to the virtual town hall meetings live on the web by visiting www.sanantonio.gov/tvsa or on the City’s Facebook page. Residents can also watch on television channels: AT&T 99, Grande 20, Spectrum 21, and digital antenna 16.1, or listen live by dialing 210-207-5555 and selecting option 1 for English or option 2 for Spanish.

In addition, residents are invited to submit their budget questions in advance by calling 311, emailing saspeakup@sanantonio.gov, using #SASpeakUp on social media, or by texting their question and “SASpeakUp1” to 55000.

A complete schedule for the SASpeakUp on the FY2021 Budget town hall meetings is shown below. Meetings will be available in English, Spanish and American Sign Language.

This press release was produced by the City of San Antonio. The views expressed here are the author’s own.