 Good evening. Well, go ahead and get started. Can everyone hear me in the back of the room? My speaker's working up right here. Well, good evening. My name is Jeff Coyle. I'm the director of government public affairs for the city. And I'm going to give a little bit of the housekeeping and logistics here in a second. But we're so grateful that you're here tonight. It's a great turnout for this meeting. This is one of five speak-up meetings about the FY17 budget, the budget for next year for the city. So how many of you came here to speak up about something in the budget? How many of you came here just because it's our burger park and you'll take any species you can come to this beautiful place? This park is so great. It has two council members. We're both here tonight. I think all 10 would claim it if they could and they probably do it in time to time. So let me just back up a little bit to explain how we got to where we are right now so you understand the process. Every year the city does an outreach campaign in the April-May timeframe to ask the community what is important to you in your city budget? What do you want us to spend tax dollars on? What problems do you want us to address? And so forth. We had the best effort yet this year. We had over 5,000 people submit comments for the budget we took them all in. We present them to the city council, to the mayor council, and they hold an all-day budget session to respond to what they've heard from the community and to lay out their own priorities for what should be in the budget. And from there, the city manager and city staff go back through the whole month of July and develop a proposed budget for next year. And so Cheryl presented that to the city council last week, the proposed budget. That's what we're going to be sharing with you tonight and talking about. And there's another one month period, roughly, until the council then will vote to adopt the budget September 15th. So there's opportunities for tweaks and changes to the budget for the council members to recommend some adjustments. And so that's why it's so important that you're here tonight and that you share your comments with us because we really need that input to be able to get to a place where the budget is ready to be voted on and adopted by the council. So I'm going to step out of the way. We have a one-minute video, a very short video, just to give you the highlights of what's in the budget. The mayors here as are both of the council members for this area. And they'll say a few words and then hand it over to our city manager, Cheryl Scully, who will give you the presentation on the budget itself. Thanks for being here. Antonio, you spoke up and we listened. More than 5,000 of you told us what you wanted in this year's budget. First off, this budget has no city property tax increase and our public safety spending stays at less than 66% of our budget. You told us streets, sidewalks, and drainage were your top priority, and we delivered. This year's budget features $79 million for street improvements and sidewalks. You told us neighborhood services were really important, so we made some cool things happen. This year's budget features $900,000 more for animal care services and $900,000 more to care for our city parks. You also told us public safety was important, so this budget features 32 new police officers, 9 new parks officers, and 42 more employees to answer your 911 calls. Fire and EMS will also receive new equipment and gear for 1,200 firefighters. Aw, speak up! There's so much more included in this year's budget, and you can learn all about it at saspeakup.com. Now it's time for you to... Aw, speak up! Again, fill out the survey today. Go into it more and more detail now. One last housekeeping thing I forgot to mention. Is there anyone who needs a Spanish translation? We have translating services here. If anyone does, come see Alex, and we'll get you set up. And with that, I'll turn it over to our mayor, Ivy Taylor. We're taking the time to come out and be part of the process. We really appreciate your presence. It needs a lot for you to come out in the evening so that you can be informed on what's going on in relation to the budget. Really, the budget, the annual budget that we develop each year is the most important policy document that we create for our city on an annual basis. It's a statement of our priorities and a prioritization of how you will use your hard-earned tax dollars. So it's key that it's not just the council and the manager and the staff coming up with it, but instead that we work in collaboration with the community to ensure that we do the best job we can in order to reflect your priorities. Cheryl's going to go into detail, but you've got a little preview in the video that the budget proposal does focus on some of those key things that we've heard consistently across the city from citizens that they want a focus on infrastructure or our streets and sidewalks and also on public safety and on any services that can maintain the health and vibrancy of the neighborhoods where we live. So we've managed to put together a proposal that does that without a property tax rate increase. So this is an important juncture in the process of opportunity for you to provide a response to the proposal that we have. So I certainly encourage folks to provide feedback. I also, when I come to these meetings, it's great to see everyone that's out here, but I also know that there are a lot of folks who aren't aware of what's going on. So I like to challenge everybody to go out and tell 10 people something that you learn at this evening's meeting or share with them the website and the link so that they can know about the budget proposal and the process as well. And then finally, I would just like to offer my thanks to those of you that work through your Hamlet Associations, as I know many of you do, because that work is so important for us at City Hall in order for us to have a connection and a link back to folks who are on the front lines every single day and working to ensure the quality of life in our neighborhoods throughout San Antonio. That's what makes us the great city that we are. So I want to thank those of you that are involved in that way. So I am going to turn it over. There are two, as was already mentioned, you have two hard-working council members who represent this general area, including Councilor Ron Nirenberg, and at this point I'm going to turn the mic over to my hard-working colleague, Councilman Joe Crier. Thank you all for coming out here tonight. It's the best way to be a good leader or to be a good listener. And I have been listening to people in District 9 for the last several months about this budget and frankly, since we passed this year's budget a year ago. And this budget, which you're seeing tonight, certainly reflects the things I've always been concerned about, which are basic services, streets and drainage, police and fire, parks and libraries. I think we're doing a good job there. But what we've brought together for you tonight, our leaders in the various city departments. So if you've got a concern about streets and drainage, I see Rozzy in the back there who's got a table up here and he helps lead our department that does that. If you've got a concern about what we delicately refer to in this generation as solid waste, previously in my generation on the garbage department, David is over here and he and his team are there. If you've got questions about your bins and the color of your bins and what you put in your bins David would ask me to say please do not put diapers and please do not put dead dogs in your recycling bins. It's costing us, costing you a fortune to deal with that. So if you've got concerns in a specific area, the reason we've bought all these department folks here, we've got outstanding people from the police department. I saw Chief of Madison, Chief of Virginia earlier, Chief Hood from the fire department. So if you've got concerns in those areas when we break up after Cheryl's presentation, go see those folks. Tell them what your problem is. Ask them a question. That's why they're here. They want to hear from you. They've got the resources to get your problems fixed. I am a full-time counselor but a part-time soccer fan and my favorite soccer star is a guy named Christiana Ronaldo in many of you may know, which is why I always call Ron Nuremberg Ronaldo whenever I see him. He is our Ronaldo on city council. He's been a great guy for me to sit next to and work with. We have a lot in common in terms of our concerns for the city but the most important thing tonight is we have in common a fabulous, fabulous park that is one of the great jewels of the city and we both hope that you will be seeing in the long election next year a proposal to help make this an even greater park than it already is. So it's my turn to say hi to Councilman Ron Nuremberg and help me welcome him to this gathering tonight. I can say that once again in fiscal year 17, we have scored a goal with this budget. Now I think there's a lot of things to be grateful for in the city of San Antonio, a lot of things that we are excited about for this budget. We are a city of almost one and a half million people. We have a balanced budget to get feedback from you. You'll hear about that in just a minute. We are a AAA rated city. We got our rankings reaffirmed by the rating agencies which saves you dollars and cents every single day. And we are a city that is very, very well managed and financed and my son John would agree with that. I want to say thank you to a couple of people that you should know their names of. First and foremost, Lord Elizabeth, who put this whole event on here at Harvard Park. Lord Elizabeth, well done. I also want to thank our District 8 neighbor, Maria Villagomez, who recently got a well-deserved promotion. She used to serve as our budget director, putting together these budgets year after year. She kind of came back. The man who replaced her in the position of budget director who drafted this budget, he did a great job, John Woodruff. So, thank you to these folks and so many more that make this budget possible. I'm excited about several things in this budget, including the investment in streets and sidewalks which are maintaining the level that they were last year. We also, you know, have been engaged in an essay tomorrow, comprehensive planning efforts where we are supporting the implementation of that plan through two new senior planning managers who will help us begin to dig deep into what a master plan looks like for each of those 13 areas around our city that are experiencing extraordinary impact for growth for our community. But there's so much more. You know, we're engaged in a conversation about how we improve air quality in this community. Next year, we expect to be designated non-attainment which is going to have real economic impact on this community as well as public health concerns. So, we are investing in making sure that we have real data to help educate our public and help drive policy changes here at the city. So, without further ado, I want to introduce our city manager, Cheryl Scully. We'll now begin to get into the details of our budget. So, thank you, Cheryl, for being here. Again, with the presentation, first, I just want to say thank you to all the staff. We have quite a few staff here today, but they're here so that they can answer your questions and talk with you in even further detail about the budget. And I see Eric Walsh, deputy city manager. We've named a number of the department heads here. I hope we don't outnumber you here tonight. None the less, we are here to work with you and help answer all of your questions. So, let's talk about the budget itself. And I'll give you a quick overview and then we can answer questions that you might have. So, this budget does, as was said by the council members, reflect the policy direction of the council as well as the survey work we did preparing this budget. So, in advance of our policy goal-setting session with the council, we actually surveyed the community and we had, as was said, 5,000 responses, which is more than double what we had last year. And so that gives us some added input and the things that come out on top, of course, are infrastructure, streets, and sidewalks, improving those. And we focus our sidewalk improvements in areas near schools so that children can walk to schools and also adjacent to bus routes so that those who are transit dependent have access to the transit routes. We begin the implementation of S-A-B-N-R-L. Have any of you participated in some of those meetings? I see some people nodding their heads. And so the council just recently adopted the Comprehensive Growth and Development Plan for the community, a transportation element of that plan and a sustainability plan. And those items, the goals and policies that are coming out of that program are reflected within this budget. And as was mentioned, we have improvements to public safety in our neighborhoods and we're preparing for the 2017 bond program. So, in 2007, we proposed and the voters overwhelmingly approved a $550 million bond program, the majority of which nearly 80% focused on streets and drainage improvements throughout San Antonio. We completed those projects and then recommended that the 12 bond program was nearly $600 million, but the voters also approved. No property tax rate increased and we're completing those projects now. So we are proposing an $850 million bond program in 2017 and those committees are being organized now. The citizen effort to focus on those improvements throughout the community and I'll talk a little bit in more detail about that a little bit later. But this budget, as proposed, does not include a property tax rate increase. In fact, the city has not increased the city property tax rate for 24 years and has reduced the city rate four times in the past decade. Next slide. So, the community priorities, street maintenance, that's what came out of the survey and what we hear over and over again. Any guesses as to how many miles and streets we maintain? A lot. More than 4,000. So we all have a street that we know needs repair the needs certainly outpace the resources available. Nonetheless, it's up to the mayor and council members to work with the staff and recommendations as to how to prioritize the needs of the community. So this budget, again, is focusing on street maintenance. Additional police officers and firefighters are included within this proposed budget and as I've said, neighborhood services, economic development, parks and recreation these are the priorities that came out of our survey work. So the total city budget $2.5 billion. Now, oftentimes, council members here, I hear this too when someone asks for something to be added to the budget they'll say something like just add that, it's a small amount you have a $2.5 billion budget you can find the money to do it. Let me assure you that every single dollar in the budget is appropriated. That is, you may not necessarily agree with how those dollars are appropriated and it's a process that the council deliberates over we're beginning our first work session tomorrow with the council to discuss some of the departmental budgets and those that we'll discuss tomorrow and this is live on TV as well. 2 to 5 p.m. Police department, fire department and our transportation and capital improvements tomorrow afternoon. So the council deliberates and talks with the professional staff about their recommendations and then makes decisions as to what is included within the budget. So, $2.5 billion is the total budget every dollar is accounted for within the proposal and the recommendation, our budget is balanced we're required by law to maintain a balanced budget, it's balanced today, it's balanced when it's presented to the council and it's balanced at the end of the fiscal year. It's actually slightly less than the 2016 budget and that is because the capital portion of the budget, the capital construction is slightly less because we're finishing up the 2012 fund program. We're on the downhill slope finishing up those projects so the capital budget is a little bit less this year and that's why the overall budget is 2.5 of a percent less than it was in 2016. The budget has three major components, the general fund and that's the services that you most frequently think of the city services police, fire, parks and recreation, libraries, code enforcement, animal care services the maintenance of our streets and sidewalks, drainage improvements that composes the general fund 1.14 billion dollars. Restricted funds are those enterprises of the city that are operated based on the fees that are collected from that service. For example garbage collection being necarious here from Solid Waste so the fees that we pay for single family residential garbage collection cover the cost of that department likewise for development services the fees for permits and for planning and for new construction and inspections in the community. The fees that are paid by those that are applying for the permits and developing in the community cover the cost of those expenses. Also the airport it's an enterprise operation so our property taxes do not support the airport but rather the fees for those paid by the airlines from the commercial operations at the airport all of those who lease space the users of the airport that is what pays for airport operations so those are the three components and then capital construction including the body program and other capital construction within those enterprise operations that is the total city budget this is what composes the general fund so you say that two thirds of the general fund budget is the public safety departments so police and fire compose in this proposal 65.9% of the general fund budget and the council gave us direction to keep public safety spending within 66% it's one of the highest percentages in major cities in Texas as a percent of the general fund it is a core service and we're working diligently to try to manage those costs so that it doesn't crowd out those other services that we care a lot about streets and sidewalks, parks and recreation and then all these departments on the right those services that include human services and libraries our health department animal care historic preservation economic development and the general administration of the city our personnel department human resources the accounting division purchasing those that are necessary to support our operating departments so that is the general fund budget and it represents about a 3.4% increase over the prior year so the 2017 budget supports SA tomorrow our new comprehensive plan that was just adopted by the mayor and city council and we'll focus on the next steps in the process the implementation of that plan and the development of action steps to implement the transportation component the sustainability component and the growth centers that were identified within the comprehensive growth and development plan 13 employment centers throughout the community for which we will develop more specific plans as to how to help them grow in an orderly way that complements the neighborhoods that surround those areas of the city in the area of fire and EMS this budget does reflect that we have not negotiated a contract with the fire union and it reflects the cost in evergreen meaning there is a clause in that collective bargaining agreement that says the terms and conditions continue for 10 years after the contract expires where they completing the second year the contract expired 2 years ago we're hopeful that the fire union will negotiate with us on a new contract but as yet they have not and so this budget does reflect the evergreen cost of the fire department this year we added 51 firefighters in the 2016 budget during the course of the year and so this budget fully funds them for the full year we're adding two more classes a fire class and an emergency medical services class in the 2017 budget and we're retrofitting our fire stations those that do not have proper exhaust systems that is to keep some of the fumes from the fire engines and the ladder trucks from getting into the sleeping quarters for the firefighters who are retrofitting those fire stations we're also adding a sense of bunker gear and that may not be very interesting to you all but the firefighters that wear that's the equipment they wear when they fight a fire we're adding a second set of gear for them so that the first set after they fight a fire can be even better cleaned in addition to filling vacant positions this budget adds an additional 32 police officers and nine parks police we're expanding our park system and so with the new linear creeps we add park police officers to help us control the expanding and growing park system we're very fortunate that we're able to do that we're adding 42 civilian positions at our 911 call center we answer about our calls through the 911 center annually that is increasing and so we need to be able to handle those within appropriate timelines not with people on hold hopefully none of you have ever been put on hold when you call 911 and then we get those routed properly so that we can respond to those emergencies we're continuing with the implementation of body cameras for all of our police officers throughout the department we have your schedule and this will be the second year that will be implementing body cameras for all of the police officers and we're introducing a gang violence intervention pilot program we've studied some best practices in other cities that have experienced gang violence and how to prevent it so we'll be introducing this pilot program as part of the budget infrastructure was mentioned 79 million for streets and sidewalks and so 64 million of that's going into street maintenance and 15 million to improve sidewalks throughout the community these are just some of not an exhaustive list but some of the street projects that are included in the 2017 budget in council district 8 I don't know do we have a list for council district 9 as well oh I'm sorry it's 8 and 9 but we just want to give you an idea of some of those projects that will be included within the 2017 budget the council adopts on an annual basis a 5 year infrastructure plan so the staff recommends to council projects that need to be completed throughout the neighborhoods within the districts and each year that plan is updated to complete a year of projects and then we add another year so that residents have an idea I know when their favorite street that needs to be repaired will be repaired in the future and we work on that plan on an annual basis develop the 5 year plan so this is just an example of some of the streets sidewalk projects in both districts 8 and 9 here is another listing of some of the streets where sidewalks will be approved and within and through the city's website we can access a list a comprehensive list of all the streets and sidewalks that will be improved in the upcoming year street lighting it's kind of a dismal slide isn't it imagine if that's a moon or actually a street light there I do seem to lighten the oncoming car nonetheless we have included an additional allocation for lighting within some of the neighborhoods we often get complaints that some of the neighborhoods are too dark people don't feel safe walking in the evening or early in the morning and so we're trying to improve the lighting in some of our neighborhoods and that's included within the proposed budget likewise and we want to be a community where people feel safe to walk in their neighborhoods and comfortable with that and also from the standpoint of safety around schools at the urging actually of Councilman Pryor we have focused on improvements in and around the schools we've had fatalities children that are crossing sometimes mid-block so we're working on education for our children with the schools but also ensuring that there are the flashers and appropriate crossing markings for those pedestrians in and around schools zero fatalities that is pedestrians hit by cars and we have a very high number in San Antonio with pedestrians who are killed by cars and so we are making further improvements especially in some of those major street areas where we know people will need to cross the street but we want them to do it safely and so there are dollars included in the budget to help with that safety program Animal Care Services and we have represented this here tonight from Animal Care Services enhancing continuing to enhance our program especially in the educational area that is responsible pet ownership it's not entirely the responsibility of the city it's a partnership with the community and so educating the public on the need to license your animal to have it vaccinated and to provide the proper care but also to do and offer more spay neuter surgery so that we can manage the pet population we've made a lot of progress our department has made many improvements with the help of the community and I see Sally Scott here tonight that served on the Animal Care Advisory Board for many years helping us with the effort to do a better job we did achieve for the first time live release rate that is of the jobs we pick up in partnership with some of the other organizations Humane Society Animal Defensively we're able to adopt out many of the animals that we pick up there straight and return to owner those that are roaming within the neighborhoods that may have gotten out by accident or that are left to roam within the neighborhoods Delegate agencies the council direction was to increase our effort with regard to workforce development throughout the community to help young workers as well as those who are a little bit older improve their skillset and be able to have jobs within the community and so some of the dollars will refocus into the area of workforce development and we're also though there has been some discussion about the domestic violence programs and they are funded at their current level so there is no cut or reduction for the domestic violence programs in this budget Parks and Recreation includes 7 additional positions first we're showing here two parks within this area of the community but big parks as I said coming online that is more acreage that we're managing so these positions will maintain the additional acreage that's added to the park system the additional greenways that of course we all vote for as part of the five year renewal for our prequely program senior services we have a couple of new centers that are coming online and the dollars are included within the budget to be able to staff these and this is an important point but as we talk about bond programs we also talk about what it would cost to operate those facilities they are completed so we have two senior centers that are coming online one new one and we're expanding that northeast center we actually have quite a few more people attending if you haven't seen the district 10 senior center we expected to have about 4500 seniors going to that center and I think the number now is up to close to 7000 people going to that senior center so socialization recreational activities that are available we also let the mayors urging have been focused on smart city innovation and we're part of an alliance of several cities across the country that are looking at ways that we can use technology to improve our service delivery to the public so we do that through business practices but we also want to make technology available to the public and we're also looking at some of our parks that have the highest number of users we're also looking at community chaos where we can access information at different city locations including some of our parks and we're looking at doing this first at several of our missions where you can gather information about city services but also local businesses and where the closest restaurant or other public facilities may be located in the community we're also looking at the parks reservation system so that people do not have to go to a park facility to actually make a reservation to rent one of the pavilions or have a big gathering a family gathering to rent some space we'll be able to do that online as say online permitting we're also looking at issuing building permits but over online so that people do not have to come downtown to get their permits and for my favorites the budget transparency tool this is Opengov and you can get online this week and look at any of the line items in our $2.5 billion budget now several of us budget staff love budgeting and working and maybe all of you are not interested in looking at all of those line items but if you have a department that you have a special interest in or you'd like to know what our spending is or resources within a particular area you can't access that through the city's website so in the capital plan we have of course most the biggest chunk devoted to street maintenance the airport projects make up another major component of the budget 23% you know that the consolidated car rental facility is under construction and that will be completed in November of 2017 and that other neighborhood sidewalks parks and drainage projects included within the budget in terms of the 2012 bond status I'm very pleased to report and thank the transportation and capital improvements team for managing our capital construction so well 140 projects that we voted on in the 2012 bond program 92% are either under construction or completed and the balance will be our in design and will be underway in 2017 so the 2012 bond projects just a list of you that have been completed or are still under construction in districts 8 and 9 you can see these aren't you glad how's the road is done what a project but we did that in partnership with Texas and the county and did some drainage improvements as well as the widening of the street to accommodate the traffic in this growing area and these are some of the other projects including those districts next steps in the budget process this month in September there will be these five city council work sessions I mentioned the first one is tomorrow afternoon from 2-5 we're also doing these community budget work sessions out in the community the first one was last night we met down in district 2 this one tonight and we have more this weekend next week the council will also host two public hearings down at the municipal plaza building and budget adoption is expected on September 15 by city charter the council must adopt the budget by mid-September our new fiscal year begins on October 1 okay I'm done and that concludes what we wanted to cover with you to explain what's included in the proposed 2017 budget you've been a very patient audience we'll get back over to Jeff for a few other instructions and then our staff is here and waiting to field your questions and we're happy we will stay in top with everyone that has a question or wants to discuss an aspect of the budget thank you so much for being here tonight so we set this up as an open house format so that people can come and go as they like most departments are here that are public facing especially if you didn't see something in the budget that you want to feel free to ask questions and the one thing we ask of everyone is on the table over here we have a very brief survey document it has a couple of specific questions and then some open ended ones so anything under the sun that you want to tell us about the budget we will report it that's our only way of knowing for sure yes I have handed out my business card tonight it's about SAS I spoke here before over a year ago and I don't see anything in that budget last year's budget or maybe for the future for senior transportation I'm over 75 I don't drive anymore I use VIA they often be a grant for this but I have to be in business for 3 years seniors need 3 things transportation, affordable housing and accessible and better healthcare affordable healthcare this is major so anyone who has questions about senior transportation can certainly speak with him and obviously we'll take all those comments in the survey document thank you very much for being here and we're happy to answer any questions thanks