Daisy Espinoza / Houston Public Media
Mayor John Whitmire is proposing a 5% budget cut across city departments, excluding fire and police due to the city possibly facing a budget shortfall in fiscal year 2025.
The new fiscal year begins in July and Finance Director Mellissa Dubowski said during Wednesday’s city council meeting, the city is anticipating a budgetary gap of about $160 million. Dubowski said a 5% exercise was sent to city departments to prepare for the upcoming fiscal year.
“We’re looking at consolidation of services across departments, and we’re taking a hard look at which vacancies can be eliminated,” she said. “We’re also looking for recurring revenue sources.”
Dubowski said the proposed budget will be released in May. From there, a public hearing will be scheduled to discuss the budget, departments will have budgetary workshops, and she’s hoping to have the budget adopted in early June. The finance department will also give a five-year forecast of the city’s finances during this year’s budget cycle.
At-Large Council Member Sallie Alcorn said the 5% exercise is a good way to show departments where they need to cut back, but it would be hard to cut across the board because each department differs in the amount of resources it has.
Dubowski said the exercise is just a starting point and the finance department will be working with each department.
“We’ll evaluate those ideas that the departments come back with, to figure out which ones are least impactful to constituents, to services,” she said.
A budget reduction could mean cutting spending in some city departments, re-evaluating some city services, and not hiring to fill vacancies. Mayor Whitmire said prior administrations didn’t spell out the city’s true financial standings.
“It’s been kicked down the road,” Whitmire said. “The budget was balanced by selling property, one-time federal funding, so it’s a very sobering discussion to hear our true financial picture, and I’m going to be very transparent.”
Whitmire said most city departments are already either under-resourced or understaffed like police, solid waste, and public works. And it wouldn’t be ideal to cut from departments pinching for resources.
“I don’t like across-the-board cuts,” he said. “I think it rewards inefficient operations, departments that kind of rathole some money or didn’t need all they asked for in the first place, and it punishes those responsible departments.
“But it’s a place to start a conversation, one to let the council members also know we can’t continue to come up with items that we’d like. We’ve got to get back to things we got to have.”
Other potential solutions include removing duplication across departments, looking for recurring revenue sources, adjusting specific fees and exempting public safety from the property revenue cap, Dubowski said Wednesday. In 2006, voters amended the cap which gave an additional $90 million to police, fire, and emergency medical services.
The potential shortfall is not factoring in firefighters’ back pay after a recent agreement was reached between both parties. Firefighters have been working without a contract since 2017. Dubowski said the amount owed to firefighters, which hasn’t been disclosed, could possibly come out of the city’s general fund balance.
