On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Dufilho San Antonio is a fast growing, fast moving city with something new happening every day.

That's why each week we go on the record with Randy Beamer and the newsmakers who are driving this change.

Then we gather at the reporters roundtable to talk about the latest news stories with the journalist behind those stories.

Join us now as we go on the record with Randy Beamer.

Hi, everybody, and thank you for joining us for this edition of On the Record.

I'm Randy Beamer, and this week we are getting some big news actually happened last week up in Austin about a huge merger or integration that will be coming up here in San Antonio with two of our biggest institutions.

University of Texas at San Antonio and the UT Health Science Center.

Joining us to explain all about it is the president of UTSA, Doctor Taylor.

Eighmy, thank you very much for coming in.

Randy, it's a pleasure to have a chance to have a conversation with you again.

Thanks for inviting me.

Well, sure.

This is such big news.

What does it mean when we hear the Board of Regents okayed this plan to merge?

Basically UTSA and to create with the UT Health Science Center a huge institution.

People don't realize how big each one of them are, but now it's going to be massive.

The elegance of this is that the two institutions have been on a very positive trajectory over the last decade, each in their own right.

Really hitting homeruns left and right and the opportunity to bring the two together.

They're very complementary in some ways, to bring them together to create a world class institution and as a once in a lifetime opportunity.

And, it's something that our Board of Regents has been very interested in.

If you look historically over the last decade or so, the number of, efforts about doing these kinds of things with UT system institutions has, has happened before.

UT Tyler and UT Health Tyler merge the creation of UT RGV, about a decade ago, the efforts to establish the Dell Medical School and then have this collaboration with M.D.

Anderson.

There's a lot of things that our board has been very interested in and doing, and it's very courageous and bold, but it's a big thinking idea.

If you look at the very best universities in our nation, the very best have integrated together a large research university with an academic medical center or health science center.

And it's rather peculiar to Texas that they're kept kind of separate entities.

But, with some of the board actions before, especially around UT Tyler, the bringing together of the two entities to create a completely integrated, model of what a really robust, world class research university should be.

And it's not subordinated.

It won't be that the UT Health Science Center part, the medical part will be subordinate.

No, not at all.

It its mean practically.

It's actually bringing two institutions together to create that will become legacy institutions, to create a brand new university that has immediate profound impact about its scale, size.

It's more than a once in a lifetime opportunity for those of us that are going to have a chance to work on all of this together, my colleagues at UT Health San Antonio are fabulous.

That institution in its own right is world class already.

And, the research enterprise there is immense.

And the fact that we can merge that with our, our evolving and growing and impactful institution to create what essentially will be a very large, comprehensive, immediately, deeply impactful world class university is something that our city deserves, warrants, needs.

We can't wait to get this done because it will have such a deep impact to who we serve, who we educate, how we take care of our community, how we provide health services in terms of funding and getting research and grants and things like that.

No, UTSA, just went away and fought for a long time.

I know you did this to get the tier one research status.

and got that.

What will it mean now combined and in terms of getting money both from the state and private?

Well, actually, if you take the two enterprises, the research enterprise at UT Health San Antonio is about at least twice as big as the research enterprise at UTSA.

But combined, the way we measure research universities is they're they're, expenditures of research dollars reflective of federal government funding, state government funding, philanthropic funding, private sector funding.

We measure it by, research expenditures.

And we will become essentially a half $1 billion a year research enterprise, which is in public.

Higher ed is a big number.

And it's it's really reflective of the talent that's, available at our two institutions at UT health.

Their relationship with the National Institutes of Health is profoundly impactful.

And they they are one of the high fliers in terms of the funding that they've been getting from NIH.

They have 5 or 6 NIH specific centers at UT San Antonio.

We've been doing a wonderful job in growing our our relationships with the Department of Energy and Department of Commerce and with NIH and NSF.

But bringing the two together is going to create a world class research institution on day one.

We have to work a lot on how we integrate and how we bring our operations together, but we're going to have all sorts of new opportunities to pursue funding.

When you think about the integration of engineering, basic sciences, bioengineering with all of the health disciplines at UT health, our application of AI and data science to all of this is going to be profound.

we have a really strong engineering program, and melding that with the medical school in terms of how we collaborate is going to open up all sorts of doors for us as we go forward.

And a lot of the growth recently that you've been talking about and are still working on, it's downtown and the AI campus that or the AI program that I it has a longer name, I guess it does, but that's going to be integrated as one of how many campuses what you have now.

So, between the two institutions across our metroplex, we're going to have six campuses, which is very big.

And so part of the health, the health part of it.

What are you are going to call that?

Well, there's a very important aspect to this that we have to be mindful of and take care of the UT Health San Antonio brand is extremely important and powerful, and we're going to have to figure out a way, as we meld the two institutions together to make sure that we we honor and propagate that kind of, brand.

It's very powerful.

If you look at especially as as we came out of the pandemic, UT Health San Antonio's efforts around supporting and protecting our community and ensuring lives were saved and people were as healthy as they could be.

They the institution had a profoundly important role in our community, and that brand has carry forward out of out of the pandemic, and we just want to make sure that that we honor that to the best extent possible.

Some people might still be confused.

Years ago, Bexar County Hospital and the Bexar County Hospital system morphed into University Hospital and then University Hospital and UT health.

There's some confusion.

There's a lot of cooperation there.

There still is.

There still will be.

Oh, yes.

University.

University Health Systems is an important, absolutely critical partner to UT Health San Antonio and will be going forward.

And that relationship and the provision of medical providers to university health is going to continue.

And it's a very important aspect of community health here in San Antonio and Bexar County.

And it's really important to Bexar County proper.

And, and, it's very important to UT Health San Antonio.

That relationship will continue going forward.

Will it be in a robust way easier if we just call it University Health and UTSA, or is there still going to be a UT health component?

I, I think it it would be more appropriate to frame frame your question this way, that the relationship that the new institution will have with us will continue in a very strong, robust way because that relationship is integral to providing health care to our community.

And it's essential for our medical school so that that relationship is going to go forward in a very strong way.

And you're working on all kinds of expansion.

I guess, aside from this, in terms of downtown campus in some of the other buildings.

Sure.

About a little about that, actually, both institutions have very robust capital plans.

and, capital investment in facilities.

UT San Antonio has very big ideas about growth and building additions in the medical center, in addition to their brand new multi-specialty research hospital that's going online.

And, later this year, and, so they have very active growth plans, as do we in terms of what we're doing at Park West and at, the main campus and especially downtown, and both of those trajectories around growth and and planning for the future are going to continue, even though we're going to now go through a process of integrating the two institutions and mergers, a definitional thing that we have to work on with our accrediting body.

But the process of integration is going to take a number of years and will be an active work in progress.

But the whole point is we're not creating, something that's a consolidation of two institutions of one plus one equals two.

We are going to create the foundation for a world class university.

So we're thinking like one plus one equals ten.

Well thank you runners.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

And go runners.

Doctor Taylor Amy, president of the newly expanded UTSA.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Some have called it a rebellion at the Bexar County Courthouse in terms of what one judge wants to do to change the system here, to describe what she would like is that judge Judge Christine Hoard, tech District Court judge in the 225th district.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you for the invitation.

Now, this has been something you've been talking about publicly for about a year now.

And to some, it might seem inside baseball, but you want to change things that would benefit lawyers, you say, as well as clients at general public judges, what are the main changes that you want to make down at the courthouse?

Well, I would like the opportunity to make any changes that would potentially benefit the citizens of Bexar County.

And unless you're an attorney that practices or litigation here in Bexar County or you're you're a litigant that has a case before the civil court judges, I wouldn't expect anybody to, fully understand or even know what I'm talking about when we start to discuss the presiding system.

Right.

There's a presiding court system in Bexar County.

And basically, that means that a pretrial motions can be assigned to any court or any judge.

Instead of keeping that case before the same judge throughout pretrial and into the jury trial.

And that's what you want to change.

You want to keep it to one judge.

That's correct.

So if someone files a divorce case, for example, the district court clerk will stamp it with whatever court is next in the, the wheel system.

So there's 14 civil district courts.

And so, it's a rotating system as far as the assignment of cases.

But in any of the other counties in the state of Texas, with the exception of Travis, if the two 25th court was stamped on that petition, when those litigants showed up for court, they'd go to the two 25th and they'd have the judge of the two 25th for the duration of the case.

Bexar County is is very different in what we do here is essentially there's a cattle call every morning where litigants report to the presiding court and the presiding judge acts almost like a traffic and air traffic controller, and divides out the cases to whichever judges are on duty and present that day.

And so every time you go to the courthouse, you have a 1 in 14 chance of getting the same judge.

And that lack of consistency in judges and rulings, I think is problematic.

And you say that leads to judge shopping in terms of motions from lawyers, pretrial motions.

Correct.

That that does happen from time to time because essentially, like I said, every time you go to the courthouse, you don't know what judge you're going to get.

And so sometimes attorneys or pro se litigants will do this as well.

They'll file a motion, they'll get a ruling that they're not happy with.

They'll refile essentially the same motion with a slightly different title.

and then it gets set and then they roll the dice to see if they get a different judge and a different ruling.

The people who support the system.

And that's, as I understand it, all the other judges or most of the other judges that would like to see it kept this way.

say that it moves things along.

and so it wouldn't be your case, wouldn't be, you know, subject to whatever the problems is, it's scheduling one judge that you're stuck with that one judge.

And if they can't do it, you're stuck.

Well, I mean, the way the system is right now, there are definitely some pros to the presiding system.

It works well for very quick matters.

Or if somebody has just a one time appearance necessary at the courthouse.

The problem I've seen on the bench, in the last year and a half or so since I took the bench, is that when you have cases that require multiple hearings and multiple settings, each time that litigant comes to the courthouse, if they don't have the same judge that they had at the previous setting, they have to rehash the the, you know, the basis and facts of the, of the case and situation.

And that takes up time.

depending on the litigants, it stresses people out.

Most people don't want to go to the courthouse in the first place.

And if they have to go and kind of relive whatever trauma potentially they're going through, that's that's, it's not helpful for, for them.

And like I said, the going to court is stressful enough.

And I don't think that we need to I think we need to do whatever we can to alleviate that additional stress.

But now this is some would say that you are a new judge, relatively new judge, just, appointed to replace Judge Peter Sacchi in the two 25th.

and that the there's a way to do this and there's a way not to do this.

Now, you just kind of said, I'm not going to do this anymore.

and then I guess Judge Harle, the senior judge, said, yes, you are.

There's an order.

And now after that, you've said, no, I'm not, and it's going to be that you're going to take it to the Texas Supreme Court.

Where are we in the process now?

Well, that order that you mentioned that Judge Harle signed came out, Friday before last.

And so I was supposed to start my own docket that Monday.

And so.

As a presiding.

as a, as a judge sitting, away from the presiding system.

So essentially I would leave that system and I would, I would do my own two 25th cases.

And then you're supposed to in terms of what you want.

Correct.

And then once that order came out, obviously, no one should ignore a judge's order.

And I wasn't necessarily going to do that either.

so we've been working to try and figure out what are we going to do from now until the foreseeable future.

So what I've done is I have, agreed to assist with presiding cases.

That's what I've been doing.

All, last week, this week, I was assigned a trial case through the monitoring system.

And so I'm down there at the courthouse working.

And while we're trying to figure out what's going to happen in these next, next few weeks.

So I do have an attorney that is going to be filing an action with the Texas Supreme Court.

I anticipate that being done next week, so that the Texas Supreme Court can essentially tell us whether the local rules that govern district court judges at the courthouse, whether those rules are essentially constitutional.

As part of the rotation.

You were set to be the presiding judge.

You would be in charge of all of these 14 judges, including yourself, next month.

Correct.

But what's going to happen?

Are you going to be the presiding judge, act as the presiding judge?

the other 13 judges and I have been in contact, and we're trying to figure out how potentially I could honor that commitment and be the presiding judge while not committing any, issues regarding any sort of claims that I'm waving.

And so we're just trying to figure that out right now.

We'll have a decision hopefully by the end of the week.

And again, kind of building on the last question.

And one of the questions is, as a young judge, people are going to ask, well, how does she know better than the others who have been there decades?

Some of them.

What's best for the system?

Well, I mean, I yes, I am a new judge, relatively.

I took the bench on January 1st, 2023.

I am a young judge, but I have been a practicing attorney for almost 19 years.

my first day on the job, I was set to be the monitoring judge.

That's the judge that serves for one quarter of the year at a time.

And that judge makes the assignments for jury trials and multi-day bench trials.

So that gave me an opportunity to get a lot of behind the scenes knowledge, which was very helpful.

but then with that in mind, and then also my experience as presiding judge last year.

So I've been a monitoring judge.

I've been the presiding judge, and I'm a judge that sits on the bench most days most of the time.

And so seeing the problems and issues as the presiding judge, you know, sometimes attorneys would approach and say, judge, which judges are still available?

they might take a look and see who's available and up to reset their case and try for a different day with a judge.

They preferred, that type of, I guess behavior or action isn't something that should be happening.

Gaming the system.

Correct.

But again, what kinds of reaction have you had from other judges?

I understand they are not supportive of this in general.

Well, you know, it's my understanding the court, my colleagues are all supportive of the presiding system.

and and that's their that's their prerogative.

We are all entitled to our own opinions.

I've gotten lots of messages from attorneys and even judges in other jurisdictions that are very happy that I'm doing this.

And so I don't want to dictate what the other judges do.

I just want to be able to, you know, leave a system that I think has a lot of problems.

I think we need to tweak that system.

and the ultimate answer may not be a complete solo docket like I want to do, but I definitely don't think it's a presiding system that exists today.

Will this put at risk any cases?

Now, some people might think, okay, well, if you do this, then if I go through the system one way and somebody else does, that's going to bring up a way for someone to appeal and say, hey, I got an unequal justice.

I don't believe so.

The Fourth Court of Appeals has ruled multiple times that the switching of benches, which is what we do in Bexar County or switching jurisdiction, that there's there's no issue with that.

The only difference now is my focus is on whether, if if I choose not to agree to switch benches, can I be forced to.

And that's a Texas constitutional issue.

And that's, that's where this hinges.

And so that'll go to the Supreme Court as you file it next week.

Your lawyer does.

And I have no idea yet at this time how long that might take.

But in the meantime you're going to go by, I guess, the rules as set down by Judge Harle.

Yes.

So my my, biggest, I guess fear is that I don't want to be at the courthouse with nothing to do.

And so while we're trying to work things out and figure out what the Texas Supreme Court is going, is going to ultimately decide, I'll be assisting, presiding and monitoring court.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

Judge Christine Horton of the 225th district Court.

Thanks.

Thank you.

On reporters roundtable this week, we're talking the Bexar County budget about to go off a kind of cliff, just as commissioners are also considering pay raises for themselves.

The timing of that, something we can talk about with the person who knows everything there is to know about politics and government.

Andrea Drudge, the politics and government reporter for a San Antonio report.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Oh, no, I hope you haven't oversold that.

Every single thing you know.

So first of all, the budget, Cliff, that not just Bexar County, but other, government entities are going into right now because that federal funding part that they had since Covid is about to lapse, what does it mean here in Bexar County?

How bad is.

It?

So the big picture outlook that the county manager gave commissioners last week and has been talking about for the past couple of weeks with them, is, the idea that they started a lot of public health initiatives with this Covid money.

They got something like $390 million from the federal government in federal pandemic relief, and they used it to start a county health department.

They used it for domestic violence programs.

some things related to law enforcement funding to mental health, counseling for kids in schools, just a huge array of things that they some of them were one time spending, some of them were clearly not.

And if this is all, if they were to continue all of these programs at the same rate, and their revenue is sinking a little bit with less growth and property taxes in the county that they would be headed.

Their budget would be going like this by 2028.

So he was recommending we use the last of the Arpa money that's unallocated to just funds replacement in the general fund this year.

And on top of that, you guys need to figure out $25 million of things to cut in the future, or else budgets going like that.

Arpa money you can use.

People might think, well, wait, how can you use that Covid relief money for general fund?

But in some cases you can.

Yeah.

And that money has to all be spent out.

It needs to be allocated, I think by the end of this year but spent out by 2026.

So that's kind of where the real drop off is.

So I think sort of gradually play out the way they do.

And you mentioned that as well, that the tax appraisals and the tax money that's gone down somewhat, the increase in it has gone down comparatively.

How big a problem is that?

Because we were all complaining and still are about tax appraisals being high, but maybe they're not going up as fast as they did?

Well, in some ways, the city and the county are both limited in how much new money they can collect from that, from that 2021 law that the state passed saying they can only take in 3.5% more than the previous year, not including new, development.

So in the past, they would hit that 3.5% and then get to keep whatever new development as well.

This year, the city is coming in just below the 3.5%, cap and then the county.

So, you know, in the past they've had to sort of give away money in ways they've had to find those homestead exemptions, they've had to find ways to take in less property taxes and lower their tax rate.

This year, both the city and county are saying tax rate stays the same.

Really.

It could probably it could go up without them hitting that cap.

But they're not doing that.

But they're going to need to make the cuts in other places, both the city and county.

For years before the state changed the law, though, the rates going up, the tax appraisals was, I don't wanna say a boondoggle, but it was it was big money.

Yeah.

And much less so this year the appraisals have gone up much less and for, but for the county, they were saying in the past the it's really the new growth that the budget and this year it's been going down steadily for several years now.

What are they talking about in terms of cuts then?

They've been very careful not to talk about specific projects.

if you'll recall, last year's budget cycle was very dramatic.

Over at the county, it was Peter Skyes first year as county judge, and the commissioners, didn't even try to come together on what their spending priorities would be for the whole county.

The county staff said that the majority of commissioners wanted them to just divide up some of this money for infrastructure projects evenly between the precincts.

And Tommy Calvert did not like that.

Did not like that.

Said that that was unfair to the historically underserved parts of the, county like his precinct, and he abstained from the budget and judge.

The guy also said, this isn't the best way for us to be doing things.

We've got to flip it around so that we are directing staff on what our big priorities are.

But now we're a few weeks out from the budget, and it's hard to say whether they are any closer to coming together on big spending priorities as a group.

The five of them, they went through the all the list of capital projects maybe a week ago.

And I think the initial idea was that they were going to sort of whittle down that list in some way, and then it's unclear whether that's going to happen at all, or whether all the projects will just be pushed out further, because the county manager's also recommended that they not take on any new debt, they use what they've already borrowed to finish projects they've already started before they take on any new ones.

And that could cause some problems as well, right?

If they're in the middle of something and they try to end it or stop it, I.

Think they were going to try to finish everything.

They'd started.

But then, you know, there could also be needs like, I think he pointed out that the jail is quite old.

There's also there's always new needs that pop up that are urgent.

So they would have to have some flexibility to do that.

But as far as their long list of projects, they needed to rethink the way they were finance financing them.

But none of the things that you mentioned earlier, the things they started in Covid, like the county health department, that that has to stay, are they're going to fund that somehow, right?

I can't see them getting rid of the entire county health department, but specific programs, they're going to have to go through.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Andrea Rush knows everything there is to know about politics and government in San Antonio.

I was correct, and thank you for joining us for this edition of On the Record.

You can see the show again or previous shows.

You can also download the podcast.

Just go to klrn.org I'm Randy Beamer and we'll see you next time.

On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Dufilho