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.

Thank you for joining us for this edition of On the Record.

I'm Randy Beamer, and this week we are starting with a couple of fascinating developments out of Port San Antonio, which is growing leaps and bounds.

You might not know that if you haven't been out there, but Jim Bakker is president and CEO of port S.A. or Port San Antonio.

He's here to tell us all about it.

First of all, you have a verdict?

Port for vertical takeoff and landing vehicle is in the works.

And you also have this ultramodern office tower innovation tower that's in the works, first of all.

And this ever tall, port.

What?

Well, what is going on there?

And how close are we to seeing, heavy takeoff and landing vehicles?

Yeah.

So their electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles, EV talls.

They're part of what we call advanced air mobility, which is an evolution of how we use both the airspace and the aircraft.

You can think of these as really, really big drones that hobbyists like yourselves use.

I'm a drone pilot.

So they are tremendously maneuverable.

They are very, very quiet.

Most of them right now are battery powered and electrically operated.

They may be moving to hydrogen or hybrid sources, but because they are quiet and maneuverable, they have the ability to really transform the way that we use the air.

So like a mini helicopter or basically.

It's like a mini helicopter that is quieter, more maneuverable and cheaper.

And you would fly it from the seat or it could be flown remotely.

So there's two different concepts that are being pursued.

One is a very traditional.

You have a traditionally certificated pilot who sits up front and flies it essentially under helicopter rules.

The second maneuver goes into something that is either partially autonomous or fully autonomous.

So it may be a future with no pilot, but I think that is a long way off.

And what this allows us to do, ultimately, is to take municipal transportation and public transportation and dramatically reduce both the capital cost of that as well as the operating cost.

But it would increase air traffic, and you would need a much improved or at least a different air traffic control system.

I would think we.

Are going to slice some of the airspace out when I say we.

This is a combination of federal and state and industry operation.

I've served on the state's advanced air Mobility Commission for two terms now.

So yes, they will operate relatively low.

They will operate hopefully in relatively uncontested airspace.

And when they get into congested airspace, have some different human machine interface and some different communication profiles that are all compatible with controlled airspace.

But think about this.

If you're going to build a rail line or a bus line or a traffic line, you've got to spend a fortune on fixed infrastructure.

That's going to require a lot of maintenance, that's going to require a lot of land acquisition, and that really keeps you going just from point A to point B to point C, to.

Point Advanced rapid Transit.

With Veo.

We see that right basically down San Pedro.

Exactly.

So this is a good place.

You were saying before we we started talking here about to to try this vertical because say compared to Houston where there is more traffic around that area, air traffic.

One of the advantages that we have in San Antonio, and especially at Port San Antonio, is we have urban environments, we have suburban environments and rural environments all right next to each other.

We have all of the signals interference that you're going to have from an urban environment.

But we don't have the level of air traffic congestion that you're going to have in a Houston or a Dallas or a Washington and.

Around port RSA, even though Lackland Air Force Base is there with the main runway that shared with port say, that is not, as busy.

And so that would be a good place for this.

It's a wonderful place.

So we and Lackland Air Force Base chair Kelly Field, there are military pilot trainings that go on there.

Boeing has our largest global technical operations on the planet, but it's not a 92nd approach and departure path for a bunch of commercial airlines and cargo airlines, and it is relatively easy to schedule in when we're going to effectively shut down the traditional aeronautical activities and bring in the advanced aeronautical activities.

Where are you in developing this report, and what does it mean?

People think a heliport would be just a big H on the ground in orange, and that's where they land and take off.

But this is more than that.

This is significantly more so ours is a nine figure project, but that also involve involves moving a lot of traditional aeronautical activities.

We're pushing a taxiway out that's large enough for seven for sevens, because we still have seven four sevens on our campus.

We're building the consolidated, facilities for our FBO and our passenger terminal.

Fixed base, fixed.

Base operator.

But we're also building not just the pads on which these EV talls can operate, but also the charging infrastructure and the future infrastructure that's required for them, which requires burying power lines.

It requires bringing a tremendous amount of power, potentially bringing hydrogen.

I know you've had some conversations about liquid hydrogen to the campus as well.

And then putting in the nav aids and the electronic capabilities and the future flight capabilities, they're going to be required, required for these aircraft.

And you're just starting on this.

What's the timeline for the report as well as the development of these kind of vehicles, which some of it is being done here.

So it's going to be measured in a couple of years.

Some of this is going to be relatively easy to do and move at the pace of the FAA and the Department of Defense as they authorize at different levels of construction.

Some of it is going to depend upon how these aircraft and their operations get proved out.

So being an early adopter, we have to build for a bunch of potential future states, whether the approach and departure routes will come straight out of the to port themselves, or whether like a more traditional airport where the helicopters will air taxi or hover taxi out to a runway approach and departure.

And another big headline out of port say, is this ultramodern innovation tower that's in the works?

And people don't realize just how big port SA is.

18,000 workers out there and all kinds of construction, if they haven't been there.

Why is this important to have this?

This innovation tower and have it so big and so visible?

Well, there's two reasons.

The first reason is practical.

In the past couple of years, we've built and fully leased out almost 1,000,000ft² of space, including office space.

We've got about a 9,697% occupancy rate on the campus, and we need more office space.

The second reason is some of the most advanced work on the planet is being done right here in southwest San Antonio, but it doesn't look like it.

And so if you want to attract and retain people, and you want the people in the community around us to know that this is what they.

Do.

You need to build something that's big and spectacular.

So it'll be tall, it'll light up, it'll have all of the amenities not just inside it, but around it, because it's just as important for the people who never go in it.

And people hear the word port SA and know that it used to be Kelly Field and they did a lot of engine work there, but it's not the same concept, not the same kind of workers that are there.

These are tech workers in offices.

It's tech workers in offices.

It's people doing tremendously advanced work with signals, with engines, with aviation.

We're now part of the Association of University Research Parks.

Back in November, we won the research Park Innovation District of the year award, first one in Texas ever to win Research Triangle Park.

And Opal.

I'm not pronouncing that correctly in France.

Sandia are all past winners.

And now Little Port San Antonio, we've added 9000 people, give or take, in the past 7 or 8 years.

We expect to add 12 to 18,000 people in the coming 7 to 10 years.

Wow.

Well, thank you very much.

I'm going to have to get down there and everybody should get down there and see it.

You can drive on to what used to be Kelly Air Force Base, Port San Antonio President and CEO Jim Perse, BOC, thanks very much.

Thanks so much.

School districts across the state right now are trying to figure out their budgets, just as state lawmakers in Austin are figuring out just how much and maybe more.

They're going to give two public schools this year, but schools say they are strap.

Joining us to talk about that is Doctor Hania Aquino, who is superintendent of Essar ISD.

Thank you very much for coming in.

And I see the, recap of the current financial reality for C-I-S-D.

If you could basically describe where you are and how tough it's going to be to budget, even with whatever we think the state is going to give more to public schools.

Great question, and thank you for the invitation of Randy.

As you know, the spring is a busy time for school district.

We're preparing for to administer the state assessment.

And then the key activity is adopting our budget.

We adopt a budget in June of this year.

And I will describe that financial reality that we are facing for the next school year.

2526 Cisd is facing a structural budget deficit of $51 million.

So we plan to address that by cutting about $17 million every year for the next three year.

Most of those cuts are kind of come from Central Office, but it will also impact our schools and and campuses and, and the classroom.

And, you know, there's the reality.

It's not unique as you mentioned, is across the state.

Last year, the Texas Association of School Business Official, I released a survey that showed that 80% of the school district we're going to adopt a deficit budget or had insufficient resources.

Of those who responded to the survey, people.

Might wonder adopting a deficit budget for a public, entity, is it legal?

And you said it is, but you don't do that.

It is technically it is legal.

We don't we don't do it.

We take part of our research because it does affect the district's credit rating.

So we don't like to adopt a deficit, a deficit budget.

And you have the what you said is SR, that's still some of the Covid money that you held back to deal with this kind of thing.

We, strategically plan for it, knowing that after the sunset of the federal relief dollars, which was, last school year, we were going to be in a very difficult point.

So we reserve about 30 million, 30 million to give us a cushion so we can carry ourself for the next three years.

And some of the same problems you outlined in here.

School boards, public schools across the state are dealing with because the increase of the allotment, well, it hasn't increased since 2019, the special sessions where the governor was pushing vouchers.

It didn't happen yet.

We expect those vouchers will happen this year.

But he didn't want to increase public schools while there was no vouchers.

So you have been the same budget per student since 2019.

Correct.

As inflation has gone up.

Correct.

So a major factor, as you said in Texas, is that the basic alignment, which is the foundational, block for student funding, has not increased since 2019.

It is still at $6,160 per student.

So that's what we got five years ago.

That's still what we received, despite a national inflation rate of about 22% at C-I-S-D.

Since 2000 and.

19, since two 1919, since 2019, at Sad 21% increase in our utility, 11% increase in our fuel, 318% increase in property insurance.

At the same time, we have given our staff during that same five year period a 14.5% increase.

And I have no regret because there's a national shortage, our health costs have increased and our per pupil funding or basic allotment remains flat.

Is it's answers.

And what are you hearing from state lawmakers?

Because I know schools, public schools have been pushing for an increase since 2019, expected maybe more this session.

And they are telling you.

Yeah, again, you know, I'm following like everybody else by many other bills that have been filed.

So there's one bill that talks about an increase of 200, about $220 per student to to the basic allotment.

They are talking about potentially increasing the funding for special education, which will be extremely needed.

We are the state underfund special ed by 20% for SaPD that translate to $7 million.

Why our population has declined.

Our our special education population has increased in the last five years by 6%.

And that's not the fault of the parents, the students or or the district.

So every time we provide special education services, we go in the red and.

School districts across the country are dealing with fewer school age kids, and that is also affecting attendance.

It's not just people leaving to charter schools.

And I think a lot of people don't understand that.

They think your attendance is down because everybody's going to charter schools, and that is not the case.

Many people are.

But what are some of the other reasons attendance is dropping?

So the majority, the major, the major reason of why we have declining and Roman is because up to declining birth rates, actually, our study shows that we've only lost about 20% of our declining enrollment to charter school or private private school.

About 72% are because of declining birth rates.

People are having less kids, and when they have kids, they're doing at a later stage in in their life.

That's the main reason for the declining enrollment.

And you get about what, 90% or 90 million, you said, from federal funds through the Department of Education, it goes directly to the district.

If there is no Department of Education, as they're looking at in Washington, what happens with that money?

It's still it filters through the state instead of to you.

And that could cause a problem.

So we don't know what exactly is going to happen.

But if the Department of Education is dismantle, they cut half of the staff up to department.

If that happens, you know, title one, which is for low income, the special ed funding, emerging bilingual funding is, what passed to the state.

The state could decide to then fund it as part of the block grant, and maybe eliminating some of the restrictions that come with that funding.

So title one is particularly only can be used for low income.

Ida can only be used for students with disabilities.

How do you, figure in also in this budget, if the school voucher bill passes, which would give, as I understand, about 11,000 to parents per student, as opposed to what you get a 6000 for the base and allotment, how do you figure in how many people might leave the district, and you are paid by attendance per student, and that could cut into your, budget bottom line.

Yeah.

So we are analyzing what is the potential impact upward.

So I there's 16 private school within C-I-S-D boundary.

If we increase it by one mile is total of 20 for private school that might compete for our for our, our students.

A lot of them, actually, the cost of tuition exceeds the 11,000, but there are some schools that are around the range of 6000.

We also look at their their capacity.

I don't think we're going to see an impact in next school year, because the private school is going to have to ramp up their capacity to support greater student.

But in year two, we might have a significant impact, which will force us to close more, more schools.

And another key factor the state of Texas is one of six state in the nation that still funds public education by average daily attendance.

What does that mean when I told you that 6160 is the basic allotment?

That's not what my district got this year.

My district got 5444, because last year my average attendance was 9,090%.

So there's an impact because it's also based on attendance.

So you have some work to do with the next few months before the budget in June.

Yeah.

Thank you very much for coming in to explain this.

And it's again, affecting not just this AiSd so good luck with all that Doctor Aquino, superintendent of SSD.

Thanks.

Thank you.

The impact of federal layoffs in the San Antonio area is still developing.

It's hard to gauge right now, but City of San Antonio is getting ready to deal with any laid off employees through its ready to Work program.

Here to tell us all about it is Lindsey Kahnert, who is a business reporter for the San Antonio Report.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Tell us about this.

How the city's ready to work, which was a little controversial, has been it hasn't helped as many people, but they want to use some of the money.

They've had some of the resources to help people laid off.

And we don't know how many yet.

Right.

Yeah.

So, Randy, there's not really any numbers yet that tell us, how many people have been laid off federally, even at the federal level?

We're not sure how many.

It's a lot.

From the dog of E, of course, but, San Antonio, because we are a military city, is expecting there to be even more here in San Antonio.

Just in general because of how many federal jobs we have.

So, the city is preparing for that.

Councilwoman Richard Garcia and Councilman Randy Playas filed a CCR to create a new raft program.

Council resolution to take it up and talk about it.

Correct.

Be ready to work.

Program is gearing up, and they are trying to push anyone that is laid off to use those resources.

And those resources.

The city back in the middle of the pandemic, I guess it was December of 21, voted what was it?

Oh, that one eight sales tax, which is expiring this year.

But the money, because they haven't had the success they wanted that that will last for a few years.

Yeah.

That'll last until 2029.

And that funding does stop at the end of this calendar year, December 31st, 25.

And as you remember, that one eight cent tax used to go to the Edwards Aquifer Protection Program, the voters in 2020 voted to put it towards work programing.

And so that's where it's been since then.

Where are these people?

It's not just Defense Department employees or 38,000.

You point out in the article nonmilitary federal workers in the area and they've already closed, not offices, but building.

This is they've gotten rid of the leases.

Right.

So we expect.

More.

Yeah, we're expecting to see more.

But again, the city doesn't know how many, multiple officials said they're not able to say how hard the city will be impacted.

But they are bracing for even federal city jobs, to be impacted.

And there are I guess they want about 2000 workers that have gotten jobs through ready to work, and there are 10,000 in the pipeline or getting some kind of training.

So that's what it says, according to their dashboard.

It's hard to say exactly what kind of training they're getting.

What jobs they're getting it for, what level they're getting it for.

But they do have about 10,000 people enrolled, and they have successfully placed about 1900.

And are they talking about different kinds of training for this group of federal workers?

Then there are a lot of service workers that were affected.

And so it was basically starting from scratch.

But these are workers who have been in offices or whatever.

Right?

So that's a great question.

And it's something that some people are worried about.

If these resources are now going to go to people who are already highly skilled and highly trained, whereas, you know, a lot of people that do ready to work are just starting out, like you mentioned.

But a lot of the employers that I work with ready to work have already volunteered to say they want to hire these very, credentialed people and get them in their offices immediately.

So it could be a pretty quick transition without training.

And that's what we're ready to work does.

Aside from training, they just they have a network of employees, employers that they work with.

That's correct.

Yeah.

They work with these employers to, basically place people into jobs.

And I have another story that you worked on, which I thought was fascinating out of southwest research Institute.

Tell us about hydrogen trucks.

Big 18 Wheeler trucks.

Yeah.

Riggs theory was, able to successfully create a series.

We were.

Yes, a, a correct working, hydrogen truck for a semi 18 Wheeler.

And it it's amazing.

13ft tall truck with these big hydrogen, engines on it.

And then the inside of the engine was a natural gas engine converted to hydrogen.

This is just a prototype.

So what did they do?

How long did it take them to come up with this?

It took a.

While.

The actual consortium they created to make this truck only had 18 months to work, and they were able to successfully create this engine.

Of course, there's been, hydrogen engines in the works for years.

So all of that work went into this, but, they, they, you know, are actually limited more by the market.

So that's more of the issue, the infrastructure.

Where are we with that?

Yeah.

So there's no hydrogen pumps readily available at our gas stations.

Right.

So that's kind of the question.

A lot of people think hydrogen will eventually be more widespread, but they think it'll be more at the commercial level.

So, you know, H-e-b, Walmart, maybe their semi's will one day have, hydrogen, fueling them like.

Some have, liquid gas, that kind of thing.

Natural gas.

So, it's also they call it H2 ice because it has to be down to what?

So, I don't know if that's why it's that name, but I know that the liquid nitrogen or liquid hydrogen, excuse me, has to be -400, degrees Celsius to be liquid.

Otherwise it's a gas.

So, they have.

Oh, yeah.

Keep it really cold.

Yeah.

I knew that.

And so what does it look like?

These trucks have this huge thing right behind, the truck drivers.

Yeah.

It's wild.

It actually looks pretty much like a normal semi, except for these big cylinders that, hold nitro or hydrogen in them, and they're really, really cold.

And, it's just right behind where the truck driver sits.

So it's kind of crazy.

And people don't know what that is.

Is there any concern about safety?

With something right behind a truck driver that looks like.

And for the average lay person, we don't know what happens to hydrogen when I get some accident.

Yeah, that's a good question.

Scary.

Doesn't, didn't say to me if that's a concern or not, but I am curious if that is a safety issue or not, because hydrogen obviously you don't want that to get, knocked over.

And you mentioned the consortium and that's where sweary I, I'm, I'm struck by that.

I've never heard that acronym or nickname.

They work with a lot of private funders and public as well.

So this consortium, what is that?

It is, a partnership between a bunch of different businesses.

And we tried to create this and, one of the big donors that they had, was, you know, they had hold they had credible they had all those big names that were helping them to construct this and using all of their best minds together to make this happen.

Did they talk about, in the long run, why they want to use this in terms of what it would cost to run, fleet of trucks like that?

That's a great question.

And, they didn't have specific answers for that yet.

But, the idea is to one day hopefully have this be a cheaper option, then diesel or gas and obviously, a better for the environment.

And because of the engine, this runs like a regular truck, I guess, and is as fast and accelerates and all that.

Yeah.

They said it could go up to 500.

Miles distance, which is pretty amazing.

And it looks and acts just like a regular truck.

It's cool.

I got to see it going around the campus, just like a normal truck would.

But go.

Did you get some driver?

I didn't know, maybe one day.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

Some fascinating articles.

You can check them out in the San Antonio report.

Business reporter Lindsay Koerner.

Thanks.

Thanks, Randy.

And thank you for joining us for this edition of On the Record.

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