Filling the holes in the city budget- What's Your Point?
HOUSTON - "So, we should just roughly state that about $1.5 billion plus give or take is numbers we need to be looking at, at the moment.:- Edward Pollard, Houston City Council District J
" So, there are costs that we are discussing today that we do not yet know what the actual cost will be projected for the city of Houston." - Abbie Kamin, Houston City Council District C
"Why announce that we have an agreement if we have so many unknown variables?" - Edward Pollard, Houston City Council District
Significant objection this week from some on Houston city council to the pending settlement agreement forged between Mayor John Whitmire and Houston’s firefighter union.
First, the math - as if it were a surprise to them, council members learned the $650 million concession for seven full years of back pay will rise above the billion-dollar mark.... When you factor in 25 years’ worth interest that taxpayers must shell out on the settlement bond.
And then there's the second "catch-up" component of the deal which guarantees firefighters annual raises in each of the next five years totaling at least $150 million.
What remains unknown is the cost of multiple "benefit concessions" which have accumulated over the eight long years in which firefighters have served without a contract.
For his part - Mayor John Whitmire, who ran on solving this impasse....was blunt.
"Bob Bullock one-time tough Lt.. Governor, used to drill us - if you don't like this plan, what's your plan? It was a pretty sobering question, and he was a no-nonsense guy. So, I’ve come up with a plan that I think is fiscally responsible. It's going to require us to have additional revenue. I think we need to put everything on the table." Whitmire told city council this week.
WATCH the Full Show - What's Your Point? April 7, 2024
"Everything on the table" - which we've learned likely includes asking Houstonians in November to voluntarily raise their city taxes.... To better fund all aspects of public safety
Other topics this week:
- One on One with Governor Greg Abbott
- Biden draws a line in the sand
It's easy these days to see why the mayor of Houston says... This city is "broke".
For starters - an inherited $160 million budget deficit ....combined with the substantial up-front expense of a billion dollar-plus labor deal with firefighters.
Erasing that "red ink" is going to demand "new revenue" - a reality that's triggered lots of chatter about Houston joining all other major cities in Texas which impose on their citizens a "garbage collection fee".
Our good friend Bill King has been investigating the pros and cons - and concluded a fee would cause scads of neighborhoods to abandon the city’s sketchy service... And instead hire much more efficient private trash haulers.
"Nobody is going to buy the city service if they have an option...and what really worries me about is the people who are going to stuck with this relatively high fee and the poor service are the poorest neighborhoods in town that don't have a homeowner’s association that can't get organized and really don't have option but to take the city service so once again we are kind of dumping on the people who have already been dumped on forever in this city.."
Bill says roughly 25 percent of Houston’s neighborhoods are already served by city-subsidized private trash collectors - who get consistently high marks for what they deliver.