Dear Neighbor,
Exciting news: the proposed City Budget for Fiscal Year 2024 is out now! City Manager Erik Walsh presented the plan to City Council recently and, in my opinion, it does an excellent job of prioritizing community needs. Here are some of the highlights:
Saving Money on Property Taxes
The proposed budget includes a 20% General Homestead Exemption, maintains the $85,000 exemption for persons who are disabled or 65 years or older. In total, these exemptions leave $134.5 million in residents’ pockets. On top of that, the budget also slightly decreases the City’s property tax rate. Workshops on how to appeal property tax appraisals and claim exemptions will continue to be offered.
Keeping Our Community Safe
San Antonio Police Department will hire 100 new police officers so that the police department can spend more time on patrol and will create two new SA-CORE Teams to respond to mental health crises. Additionally, the City will continue working with UTSA to prevent violent crime.
Stand Up SA, a gun violence intervention program, will continue working with people who have experienced and perpetrated gun violence to discourage them from participating in the cycle of violence. The program will also start restorative justice programs in schools to help prevent youth from getting involved in gun violence.
Animal Care Services (ACS) will get a $5.6 million increase to their budget and will hire 29 new team members. Seven of those team members will dedicate their time to investigating reports of dog bites and working with owners of dangerous dogs to ensure they do not harm anyone. ACS plans to cut response times to critical calls (calls about dog bites) almost in half.
ACS will also increase spay neuter surgeries from 25,000 to 44,000 annually. This step is essential to reducing the population of stray animals in our neighborhoods.
Development Services will use crime data to prioritize installing 200 to 400 streetlights every year for the next five years. This will help deter crime by bringing more visibility to low-lit areas.
Housing & Homelessness
The Homelessness Response System — a group of non-profit organizations and the City — will help 400 people living in encampments to get off the streets this year. The City will also add funds for more homeless encampment abatements, bringing the annual total from about 500 to 700 abatements. There is also about $700,000 set aside to help 300 individuals at-risk of losing their home to stay housed.
The City will continue to produce and preserve affordable housing. $28.3 million will be available for home rehabilitation programs for low- to moderate-income homeowners — a program critical to keeping residents in safe housing.
Beating the Heat
The Parks Department is preparing to invest $19 million over the next five years to bring shade to 61 playgrounds across the city. This is an important step to ensuring our public parks remain welcoming (almost!) all-year round.
$2 million will go towards installing cool roofs, cool pavement, street trees, and shade structures. Another $1 million will go towards helping low-income residents weatherize their homes, which reduces the strain on our energy grid.
Streets, Sidewalks, Alleys, and Pavement Markings
Funding for street maintenance and repair will remain at $116 million. Funds for pavement markings (like lane stripes) will increase to $11.3 million, meaning that streets with faded markings will get refreshes sooner than later.
The City plans to make 72 miles of sidewalk usable by constructing and repairing sidewalks. Additionally, the City will develop a rating system to help us prioritize which sidewalks are most in need of repair.
Importantly for District 1, the City will begin to maintain alleys that are not used by Solid Waste Management or by utilities (also known as non-service alleys). The burden will no longer fully fall to homeowners to maintain alleys! This first year, the program will address 80 non-service alleys that are in the worst conditions.
Dealing with Nuisances
The City is investing in the new Good Neighbor Program, which focuses on bringing chronic nuisance properties into compliance with City Code. So, for example, the house down the street — the one you and your neighbors have called in for repeatedly for loud music and dangerous dogs — will receive more attention from the City.
The City is also expanding the Illegal Dumping Collection Crew with five new employees and more equipment. This crew cleans up illegal dumping — an issue we face across District 1 — and collects litter along roadways and from homeless encampments.
Kenwood Community Center
Lastly, the proposed budget has $6 million to rebuild the Kenwood Community Center! This community center has been closed for years now because of maintenance issues, but soon enough the community will be able to enjoy a bigger, better community center.
There is so much more in the proposed budget, but those are most of the highlights. My team and I are carefully reviewing the budget and will propose amendments to the budget in the next few weeks.
Have any questions? Didn’t mention a topic that you are interested in? Contact us and we can provide more information.
Yours in public service,
Councilwoman Sukh Kaur
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