Last week, City Council passed a $3.8 billion budget. We didn’t comment at the time, as we were a bit under the weather, but there was a fair amount of news and blog commentary.
As noted in the main Matt Stiles story for the Chronicle, here are some highlights:
* The Mayor and Council reduced the property tax rate slightly, although appraisal creep will still result in an estimated 7% increase in aggregate property tax revenue.
* Spending on public safety will exceed $1 billion for the first time. Council added one police cadet class (for a total of seven), which could result in an addition of 200 net officers if assumptions hold.
* The waste-reduction fee proposed by the Mayor’s task force met its demise, which was also noted by Slampo.
We later learned from a Stiles blog post that Councilmember Michael Berry’s amendment to abolish the Mayor’s Office on Immigrant and Refugee Affairs (MOIRA) was withdrawn, after Mayor White “agreed that the office should end activities perceived as advocacy for illegal immigrants.” Advantage: Slampo.
The city budgeted $75 million for HMEPS, which was short of the amount that would have been required by law, had the city and HMEPS not finally reached agreement on the new figure (see also NewsWatch: City Hall) in a deal that allegedly preserves benefits for current city workers but changes benefits for future workers. Nobody really wants to talk about the remaining unfunded liability, but that will now be the next mayor’s problem. We’ll surely be blogging about it a few years from now, unless we find a new hobby by then.
And finally, there was an odd column from Kristen Mack last Friday on the budget, in which Mack asserted that the budget reflects an overly cautious, micromanaging mayor contemplating a run for statewide office on a platform of tax cutting and public safety. That actually sounds pretty good to us, bringing to mind images of Rudy Giuliani (who cleaned up a worse mess in New York City than even Lee Brown could have caused — although Lee P. did contribute in his own way). Alas, Houston’s spending growth (and fee growth) along with the crime issue cause our mayor to come up a bit short in comparisons with Giuliani (which might have been a less confusing thesis).
So, there’s your two-glasses-of-wine-and-nearly-a-week-late review of the budget. Please be sure to add your own thoughts in the comments.
