Scooter patrol, Sunday brush drop-off, and homeless showers among San Antonio’s proposed budget cuts

SAN ANTONIO – Facing a growing budget deficit, the City of San Antonio has proposed cutting or shifting around tens of millions of dollars over the next two years.

Most of the movement is in the city’s General Fund, which is what it uses to pay for basic city services like police, libraries, and street maintenance. Over the course of the next two years, the city plans to cut or transfer $36.6 million in spending on scooter enforcement, a boarding home inspections team, and a mobile shower for homeless people.

However, the city has plans to cut another $1.6 million from various other funds with restricted purposes in the same timeframe. That includes eliminating Sunday brush drop-off and converting dozens of downtown parking meters to Pay by App parking zones.

Here is a look at some of the spending it plans to either cut or transfer in just the upcoming 2025 fiscal year:

• Scooter Patrol Overtime ($82,125): There will be no more San Antonio Park Police overtime shifts to enforce scooter regulations. Though the rentable electric scooters’ surprise appearance downtown in 2018 caused the city to scramble to regulate them, their use and abuse appear to be less of a problem now. Park Police officers on a typical nine-hour shift issued about 2.8 verbal warnings on average and no actual tickets, according to the budget document.
• Boarding Home Inspections ($215,188 and 3 positions): Boarding homes, which cater to elderly and disabled residents, got extra scrutiny after the Amistad Residential Facility on Norwood Court caught fire in 2012, killing three residents. However, City Manager Erik Walsh said the Boarding Home Inspection team was created at a time when they anticipated there could be up to 300 operating within the city. Now, there are only seven registered boarding homes. A Development Services Department spokeswoman says the team’s duties will be absorbed by existing staff.
• Homeless Mobile Shower Unit ($62,478): The city says its mobile shower unit has not funneled as many homeless people toward outreach services as it had hoped. The mobile shower is set up at weekly resource hubs at churches on the East Side and West Side, but fewer than 100 people are assisted each year on average, according to the city. The resource hubs will continue to operate, according to the city budget proposal, and showers are still available at Haven for Hope and Christian Assistance Ministry.
• No Sunday Brush Drop-Off at Bitters ($58,182 & 1 position): Currently open seven days a week, the Bitters Brush Recycling Center would go to a Monday through Saturday schedule. The city says this would align the hours with its four Bulky Waste Collection Centers; though those are open only five days a week, Tuesday through Saturday. The cut also means the loss of one cashier position.
• Parking Meter Conversion ($30,097): The city plans to convert 50 of the 150 downtown parking meters to the Pay by App Parking Zones. The cut reflects the city’s anticipated savings from having to service or repair fewer meters. According to the budget proposal, the city plans to make the switch at the less used areas farther out from the city center. The city has already converted 126 parking meters.
• Police Overtime for Alamodome Events ($1,037,288): The city wants to shift the overtime costs of San Antonio Police officers performing traffic control at Alamodome events from the General Fund to a separate part of the budget. The expense doesn’t go away, though, and the city plans to increase a surcharge on Alamodome event tickets to help cover the cost.
• SPARK Parks Program ($220,000): The program that gives partial funding to public parks built on school property would be eliminated. There have been 32 parks building under the program since 2013, according to the city, but only six since 2020.
• City Fee Waivers ($1,500,000): The city uses fee waivers as a way to encourage certain development, such as affordable housing, but it has $1 million in unused funds already. So the FY 2025 budget will only include another $1 million instead of $2.5 million.
• SAEDC Exec. Director Position ($150,000): The city has funded an executive director position for the non-profit San Antonio Economic Development Corporation since 2014, but city staff have assumed the role since FY 2020 when the group’s leader retired. Since then, a city spokesman said has spent this money on partially funding the San Antonio Military Medical (SAMMI) Executive Director position and operating expenses, including the annual audit and sponsorships. The SAMMI executive director contract ended in FY 2022, the spokesman said, and the work shifted to VelocityTX in FY 2023.
• Vision Zero funding split ($500,000): Not technically a cut, the city had been setting aside $1 million a year from its General Fund for Vision Zero, a program focused on improving safety along the city’s highest-risk roadways. This year, staff say they should draw half of that from a separate pot of sales tax money they share with Bexar County and VIA Metropolitan Transit — the Advanced Transportation District Fund.
• Austin/San Antonio Corridor Council ($50,000): The Corridor Council is a public/private non-profit group that advocates for transportation infrastructure and economic development. The city says even if it stops being a dues-paying member of the Corridor Council, it would continue its advocacy through other groups.
• East Side Promise Zone contract ($114,000): The East Side Promise Zone was one of the first five set up under the Obama administration in 2014 to help funnel funding into traditionally underserved areas. The city says the nonprofit San Antonio for Growth on the Eastside (SAGE), which supports and promotes businesses on the East Side, fulfilled its obligations. SAGE CEO James Nortey said he was expecting this contract to go away. However, he was “surprised” and “disappointed” to see the next cuts to a business development organization like his.
• Business Development Organizations ($517,336): The city wants to eliminate direct funding for three geographically-based business development organizations: SAGE, Prosper West, and the Southside First Economic Development Council. Instead, the city says the BDOs will each still have access to money through another group the city is funding, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation.

You can read through all of the city’s proposed budget cuts below:

Related coverage on KSAT:

• 5 things to know about City of San Antonio’s nearly $4 billion budget proposal
• Trash, parking, and deceased transit: City fees going up under proposed San Antonio budget