Before agreeing to a tax increase, Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones said city leaders owed it to taxpayers to go through the “intellectual exercise” of looking at every possible cut.
Now in the days before the budget vote, City Manager Erik Walsh says that lengthy process hasn’t produced much consensus — and could actually delegate far more of the decision-making to city staff.
On Thursday, the council will vote on staff’s proposed budget before they vote on the tax rate.
That means that if the rate hike fails, city staff will have to go back and trim the budget down to what the city can afford at the existing rate, Walsh said, and present to back to the council before Sept. 27.
“I don’t think that’s ever really happened, but we also haven’t increased taxes in 33 years,” Walsh told reporters Tuesday. “So we’re in new territory here.”
Unlike Congress, the city is legally required to pass a balanced budget every year — no interim budgets or continuing resolutions allowed.
Normally at this point, that means members would be putting the finishing touches on staff’s budget proposal through amendments.
But as the already divided leaders contend with a major deficit, this year they’re still debating topline numbers.
Jones has spent the past several months urging colleagues to consider all of the city’s spending buckets alongside its general fund conversations, including TIRZ funding, sales tax allocations and the upcoming 2027 bond program.
Hours of debate over those ideas hasn’t moved much money around, but this week she returned with another — adjusting HOT tax funding to pay for programs and senior centers — among a list of 29 budget amendments that would cut funding from nonprofits and community organizations to restore other programs
“I don’t want to support a tax increase just to continue the gravy train,” Jones said at her own press conference Tuesday morning.
By Wednesday afternoon, few of those ideas were reflected in staff’s updated budget proposal, and Jones surprised colleagues with another twist: avoiding a rate increase by making across-the-board cuts.
“I’ve always said that raising property taxes during this difficult time on our neighbors is my last resort,” Jones said.
The idea was met with resistance from some of her colleagues who say poor residents would feel the losses disproportionately.
“Not knowing what is going to be cut is what gives me pause, only because again, as has been mentioned, we’ve been working on this since May, and this really hasn’t been part of the conversation,” said Councilman Ed Mungia (D4).
By moving to Jones’ plan, he said, they would be abandoning the budget proposal shown to residents in town halls all across the city last month.
“What you’re saying now is those cuts in [the budget presented to the public] are not necessarily what you would be doing because this mandate is 1.6% across the board — versus taking a scalpel to the different department budgets,” Mungia said.
But no one was more taken aback than Councilman Marc Whyte (D10), who said members could have come together on targeted cuts weeks ago — if not for Jones’ other maneuvering.
“For the last six weeks, we’ve been off on these wild goose chases, trying to move TIRZ money and trying to move HOT money and and and doing all these different things to try to avoid making the tough decisions of spending cuts,” he said.
“Some of the frustration I think you’re seeing up here today is the result of political games being played for two months, and then at the last minute, coming back and saying that you’re supporting this solution of of across the board.”
Tough choices on a deadline
After weeks of trying to rally opposition to the tax increase, Whyte made his own pitch for across-the-board cuts this week.
When that failed, Whyte — one of the council’s most conservative members — said he’d moved on to start amending the budget as proposed, which includes the 3.9% tax rate hike.
That is, until the mayor signaled interest in helping stop it.
“I was ready to come here today and say that the plan that the city manager finalized last night was the way to go, because I thought that the ship had had sailed,” Whyte said.
Jones fired back, saying the council owed it to the public to consider all of its options — something that hasn’t happened before this year.
But after several minutes of back-and-forth between the two, Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2) cut them off.
“We’re not being productive right now … we’re discussing things that there’s no consensus for,” McKee-Rodriguez said.
On Thursday, the council could approve the tax increase and then move on to its usual budget amendment process.
Council members have already submitted many ideas, some of which have been gaining traction, to keep popular line items like a gastronomy program and scholarships.
“We’ll see tomorrow if the rate increase passes or not, and whether or not we cede our authority over to Eric [Walsh], or if we’re going to make any amendments or changes,” McKee-Rodriguez said.
“All we’re doing right now is stressing each other out. … If we’re going to continue debating things that we already know there’s no consensus for, … it is pointless, and it continues to make us look like fools.”
