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 On the Record.

I'm Randy Beamer, and this week we're starting by talking about the county's budget.

You may have seen a headline recently, a county official saying budget is not normal this year.

And here to explain is that county official.

He is the county manager and budget officer, David Smith.

Thank you very much for coming.

Randy, when people hear this is not normal, a lot of people are going through their own budget issues.

Now.

Price of gas going up for sure.

What did you mean by this is not a normal year for the county.

So a normal budget process for us.

And remember for us, the budget process for new money revolves largely around new property tax revenue.

So we're normally discussing how that new revenue will be allocated.

And that can be any of the functions the county does between capital projects.

New patrolmen on the street or other, you know, improvements at the jail, all kinds of stuff.

This year is likely to be a little different.

We think based on early numbers from the appraisal district.

It looks like we will not be seeing growth in property tax revenues this year.

Because the valuations.

Are.

So.

Yes, because the value of the property assessments on existing properties appear to be heading down.

And how big a problem are we talking about the property tax of a single family home?

I understand, decrease by 2003 4 or 342 338, something like that median home.

But that affects the county in a big way because we been going up so steadily a lot.

So even just four years ago, I think we were seeing double digit year to year growth.

And we're not looking at that this year.

We're starting this process a little better than break even.

But people haven't protested their values yet.

Once that happens, we believe we'll actually see a decline in revenues.

Now, when you brought this up to the county commissioners, their reaction was.

They weren't excited about the prospect.

And I'm sure it was.

It was as much for them, though, as it was for the public to be aware of the situation because unlike the housing crash in 2008 where everybody could see what was happening, it was happening to everybody.

This is a little different.

This is, specifically a local government property tax issue.

And what in fact, for us may be a decline in collections and revenues might, for you or me as an individual property taxpayer, be good.

News, right.

My property taxes are going down, but that means you get less.

Also, it's different with the county than the city.

The city of San Antonio gets revenue from source and CPS, and that sometimes goes up on a hot summer.

Where do you get your money?

Mostly for our operating budgets, 80% property tax revenue.

And that's by state law.

The rest of it is.

Court costs and fines, interest earnings on our investment and a slew of miscellaneous fees.

Now, you've been through, for what, close to 30 years now?

Problems, including 2008 housing crisis, dot com bubble, whatever.

How did you get through those?

And are we going to have to see the same kind of cuts?

Part of the way we get through it is by doing what you saw last at our last court meeting, which is what we call the long range forecast.

We do a five year forecast based on the best information we have, plus our own estimates based on our experience of past history.

That forecast gives decision makers a heads up and think of it like your fuel gauge.

And your car tells you we're starting to run low or we're burning fuel faster than expected.

We need to plan ahead.

And we've been forecasting a slowdown in property tax growth for some years.

We didn't think it would be quite as bad as it as we're now estimating.

We see projected budget shortfalls of X amount.

Is that where we are now with the county, or can you even tell to put a specific amount.

It's a little too early, primarily because we haven't seen two big things.

Number one, we haven't seen the volume of protest from property tax owners.

To give you an idea, I think we had nearly over $90 billion of total value under protest last year.

That ended up resulting in 6 to 7 billion in lost taxable value for us, the city, school districts.

That process.

I have no visibility into it right now.

It's not done yet.

When you get that, do you think it'll be a little bit less because property values are less?

Do you think people well, I'm not going to protest this year.

It's actually cheaper than last.

So hopefully that's the case and hopefully we can come back with a revised estimate reflecting that lower protest value.

But they've been pretty steady.

Our loss to protest, it's been pretty steady for the past few years.

It's been in the 6 to $7 billion range.

And people might wonder.

Also, we were getting and different governments were getting, money from the federal government during Covid and after and for several years.

Is that did we get that in the county and are we is that over?

It ends, officially this coming year.

Rainy day funds.

We hear a lot about that with the state reserves.

So the county where where is that another one?

Unfortunately, we're in good shape on a rainy day.

Funds our reserves.

We call them.

The court has been very good about building those up.

When we had the ability to do it.

We have a policy that we tell the world will keep 15% of our operating, expenditures in reserve.

We're above that number.

We're closer to over 20%.

So that provides some cushion.

It can buy you some time.

But when you look at the five year forecast, Randy, I think the biggest change is this time last year, we were estimating about 2.7% growth for right now, this upcoming budget.

And we were hoping that would get better over the four remaining years, 3% and grow as had been historically the case.

We're not estimating that anymore.

I've got no reason to expect interest rates, particularly mortgage related interest rates, to drop soon, and I think that's a big impediment on people purchasing new houses and in the county in particular, that's important because while the city of San Antonio is largely built out already, most of your new subdivisions are happening in Bexar County outside of the city.

I see no slowdown in our population growth.

It's just it's not spending off the same amount of property tax revenue to us as it might have in years past.

So where do you think there will be cutting?

Where did we cut in in the in the tough years.

So what we want to do is stop spending first.

So stop growing expenditures first to try and balance that out.

So that may be some hard decisions that the court will have to consider.

For instance, some of the things we've done in the years, like the housing crash, for instance, were no cost of living adjustment for employees next year, adjustments to employee share of health insurance.

That's all on the table.

We won't be adding as many new patrol positions that we've as we've been able to add in past years, we may not be able to add any new positions.

In your five previous years, we've, frozen vacant positions, not allowed people to fill them.

So you stop the growth first and then see how far that gets you before you start looking at.

And, of course, where you'd think cuts are advisable anyway, you want to make those.

And in a year.

Finally overall budget value is how many billion.

So 2.8 billion is our total budget.

I'd say 1 billion of that's operations and 1.8 is probably capital and other.

And any idea how much more you'll need to get to that point from the projected revenue.

So you know, the gross budget number will change.

It's really the operations budget that we'll be looking at, and we're probably talking tens of millions of dollars will have to identify and either new revenue or decreased projected expenditures.

Well, good luck with that.

You know, I know you've gone through it before.

It's a headache.

But thanks for coming in and explaining it to us.

David Smith, County Manager and Budget director.

Appreciate your time.

Thank you.

You might have seen some headlines recently about this new Green Line Advance Rapid Transit running from the airport down to the south side and the Silver Line as well.

That will run east west as well as a better bus plan.

All kinds of different changes for you here to tell us all about.

It is, John Gary Herrera, the president and CEO of the.

I thank you very much for coming in.

Randy, great to be here.

Thanks for having me.

What is advanced rapid Transit compared to some of the big long busses that people see?

What's the difference?

So what we're going to be talking about on the fundamental side of things is how much time it takes to travel on our system.

And there are different, services that we offer that will, will impact that amount of travel time.

Our system that we have out there right now is, is based upon the amount of time and space that happens on your travel time, on how frequent that bus shows up.

About 60% of your total travel time on our system right now is waiting for that next vehicle.

So that next vehicle, if we can shorten amount of time that that next vehicle comes by, your travel time gets impacted.

So a year ago we had over 70% of our system operating over 30 minutes or more, which means 70% of our system, a vehicle was coming by more than 30 minutes.

We want to reduce that.

Travel time is if we can get under 50 minutes, ten minutes.

Now we're getting a very reliable system.

How long is that going to take?

As you need more busses, you need more bus drivers, you need more riders.

And that's that's part of the art system.

So that art system so work will solve and really look at that improving the quality of this system.

For these art lines, the advanced rapid transit lines.

But first of all having a frequent but secondly there distinction then Randy, the second part of your travel time, once you're on the vehicle, is the amount of time it takes that vehicle to travel.

Well, this is now where we have this design system that really leverages the ability for that vehicle to operate in its own lane for much of that corridor.

And now all of a sudden, it can traverse that corridor at a much more efficient way.

We'll see an improve travel time of about 40 to 45% because of this type of system that we're.

First of all, when you get on the bus, it's going to be level four, same level.

You don't have to, It's going to show up and it's going to have level boarding all the doors.

Because these two have multiple doors they'll open.

You've already would have paid your fare on the platform, not on the vehicle.

So right now all our vehicles.

Are foreign or whatever.

Or two and a half or two cash.

We're going to have the actual fare system actually on the platform.

So each of these platforms along this route will have the ability for somebody to pay their fair before they get on the vehicle.

Their vehicle shows up, all the doors open at the same time.

You can enter any of those doors, those doors closed, and you're off and running.

So that keeps that efficiency into the system, because a you're not waiting at the front of the bus waiting for others or yourself to enter to the to pay.

And then secondly, the level boarding is another key component because those that might need assistance, from the vehicle, those in a wheelchair, for example, they can roll right in and get situated quicker.

And then Green Line, you're doing preparatory work, I guess, which means moving some lines, power lines and such to widen roads and also intersections.

I think that's.

Correct.

One of the unique things that that, you know, I grew up here, Randy, and it's this is going to be a very interesting moment for Villa and for the community that is actually doing road work.

B has never really done that before.

That's scary when you hear how the world works.

But that's part of this part of this investment that we're doing into San Pedro, into into the corridor itself is improving the intersections and improving intersections means widening intersections.

It means new lights, it means pedestrian crossings.

All of this is going to be new and improved, because we want the flow of traffic and the flow of these corridors to be super efficient, because we take advantage that, for.

Example, you said San Pedro and Hildebrandt there by the old first Taco Cabana, that's going to be wider.

It will have a bus.

Well, not right there, but it'll be a more turn lanes.

Yeah, we're going to widen it up because we're going to put some turn only lanes in there.

We're going to coordinate, you know, the traffic signals with each other as, as they're working together.

But it is indeed intended to improve that intersection efficiency so folks and vehicles can travel quicker through it, which means us as well, that we can we can travel to that intersection.

Those coordinated traffic lights.

Yes.

So you'll be able to make sure that that's a green for the bus.

That is.

Right.

So what these traffic lights do, they're on a complete system and they, they, they either will take, if they see the bus coming.

I'll say that.

See, I'm not sure if it's really see, but probably some smart math is working out here.

But they'll hold the green a little bit longer to make sure our vehicle gets through there.

Or if they see it waiting, it'll cycle.

Through and you will have a bus driver.

Yes.

So it's not like, way not automated.

Okay.

And now what about the the timeline for that 2028.

You hope to open that from the South side.

24 months from today.

We should be, ribbon cutting.

In fact, the month before we should be in April of 28, cutting that ribbon on the.

Surface, when you do, how often will you have stops?

So often.

Can I get a bus?

So the that bus will be coming by about every ten minutes.

That vehicle, and then we're going to have 26 stations along the corridor.

Those could be your other stops.

But there are also we're going to have 55, routes that intersect with this very efficient system.

So now all of a sudden, this green line really raises the bar for the entire system, because we're moving people more efficiently.

And they're also able to intersect with 55 other routes that we have intersecting with this system.

That are also part of improvement plan that you and I were talking about earlier, called a Better Bus Plan.

And, yeah, the better bus plan.

We'll get to the Silver Line or that's the next step down the road.

But that's key.

If I don't live along San Pedro.

That's correct.

So where are you in that?

And getting busses faster, quicker, more busses, more drivers.

So the the the aspect of where we are with our better bus plan.

So, you know, to put things in context that show the, the immense work that, that, we've been doing, you know, there at Villa is originally this was going to be a six year plan of of improving the system.

And the Green and Silver Line are part of that six year plan.

Well, what we, what we heard from our customers, and we saw the opportunity to improve things quicker.

We have consolidated that plan and now into two years.

So now we're looking at a two year time period of really improving the system.

Much of that improvement is going to be on a redesign of the system because travel patterns have changed.

We haven't redone the system or redesigned the system in over 12 years.

So we even had Covid during that moment, a time.

Well, travel patterns and travel locations have changed since Covid.

So we are redesigning the system in addition to making it a more efficient system.

Our goal is to not have anything worse than 30 minutes, in our system for frequency.

How much more money?

And where are you getting the money, people might wonder?

As well as down the road, how long is it going to take me to get one part of town?

One bus to over here.

So getting more riders.

I'll, I'll I'll start with that answer.

The in reverse here.

So our fares still remain the same.

We're we're actually the most affordable, one of the most affordable fare.

Products that we have of the United States where $1.30.

So $1.30 to take you from one way trip, you know, no transfers and and, it calls for transfers.

Now, the money for this improvements, you might remember, back in 2020, the voters have elected to send us an additional one eight cent sales tax that started coming in in January.

So we wanted to also line up these improvements to immediately start getting funded, by that new sales tax that was coming in.

So we have really worked hard to line that up, because we know that the citizens have entrusted us to, enough to send that money over.

So we wanted to put it to work right away.

And by the way, that one eight cent sales tax replaces another one for ready to work.

So I'm not going to be paying another one $0.08.

That's correct.

The same that I. That's correct.

It has just been shifted over.

Well good luck in 2028.

I look forward to, riding the new advance.

There you go.

Okay.

Yes.

You two it the green line.

Yes.

Right.

Thanks very much, John Gary Arena, president and CEO of the.

Appreciate it.

You bet.

Thanks for having me.

On our reporters roundtable this week, we are talking some business stories from the airport to the west side of downtown.

And the best guy or one of them, he says, to talk about business in San Antonio.

As the editor in chief of the San Antonio Business Journal.

Ed Arnold, thank you very much for coming.

It's always a pleasure to be with you.

Let's talk about, first, the west side of downtown.

People here, I heard about the ballpark.

So like, we talked about, but not just that.

There's UTSA, how big?

How far are we into this development of the west side of downtown that has been talked about for decades?

Absolutely.

We're not as far along into it as I think locals would like, but it's become real now.

There's a proper rendering out there of this new minor league ballpark for the missions.

It's beautiful.

It's a street level ballpark that are really welcoming, street level ballparks for those that might not know, meaning that the entrance is on the street level, there's no up to get into it.

And so it feels like an entrance way.

And from the main street, it looks like it is designed with the neighborhood in mind.

They really do seem to want to get the neighborhood involved, and it's hard to not be optimistic for me anyway as a local, because quite honestly, a lot of downtown isn't built for us.

It's built for tourism, the Riverwalk.

It's not as though there aren't great local businesses on the Riverwalk.

I like many of them, but it's designed for tourism, right?

And we're not going to the Alamo every week but the minor league ballpark, that's for us.

And Meteora that has held down that neighborhood for generations.

Essentially, they really deserve to be the focal point of all of this coming together.

Rosa Verde Towers is being renovated by, a goodwill.

Here in town is a new development.

That would be a huge project on.

Just West of.

That's 35.

So that would cross the barrier that we've had.

That's right.

Ever.

Well, except for UTSA down, of course.

One UTSA is wants to knit that together.

They want their students to be able to live on that eastern side, come across maybe live on the western side of downtown, come in.

They want to make that what has been a hard barrier for us forever.

They want to loosen that up and I get the sense that the city is ready to go on.

And UTSA speaking of that, they just opened recently one of their many projects in the downtown area, $300 million in investment so far.

Yep, yep.

Is it all built out yet.

Or no, there's still a lot more to come now that cybersecurity school is up and running.

And they had the grand opening ribbon cutting a couple weeks ago.

Obviously, it'll take a little while before students are really filling it from week to week.

But just imagine the impact of that one building that many more kids coming downtown day after day after day after day.

One thing I'm not sure as well reported about UTSA is expansion is that it's not intended to be a school that just complements the main campus.

They are hoping that some students will spend their entire four year career, or a significant portion of it.

I should say, at the downtown campus.

So the idea of living downtown, living on the inner west side, or closer for students that may become reality in the future as UTSA continues to.

But when you talked about the, neighborhood for the ballpark around there, that development that West and Urban is doing, the billion dollars plus.

Yes, that is not going to include it's going to include market rate housing, but not the lower income that some people at home.

That's correct.

There will be lower income housing in Kettleman Square that's being done by Opportunity Home, which we recently had a conversation with both Opportunity Home with and around the stage together, and they talked about how they both feel like both elements need to be successful in order to build a proper neighborhood.

It can't just be luxury and it can't just be affordable homes.

We want all demographics to be able to live downtown, and that's the way it will be successful.

If they really want this.

And now there is, just say west of City Hall, southwest in that UTSA, area that is actually going somewhere.

But what about around Market Square and west west of 35 Cattleman Square?

Where is that development?

Cattleman square is going to be a very challenging project, but Opportunity Home is very, very high on what they can build in there.

They believe that they can get market rate and affordable housing built over there, and that there's an enormous amount of demand for it.

The problem is, is that Cattleman Square has been ignored, like many parts of that section of downtown, for a long time, and it's not going to be an easy lift to get it back up and running.

But I have a lot of faith that opportunity is gonna be able to deliver in there, because the demand that we've seen so far for more expensive housing downtown is still holding up.

I often wonder how many customers the downtown market has for luxury.

But the continental, which is the new Western urban project that opened just a few weeks ago, so far very early, but so far the enthusiasm around that project is impressive.

And The Cattleman Square, when they're calling for project DC and it's on the West side, as opposed to Project Marble.

That's right.

East, a whole different country.

That's right.

But it has different challenges because homelessness is exactly the same shelter and the jail further on.

That's right.

There's been talk of the jail, moving 10 or 15 years down the road.

It would be.

But how tough is that going to be?

How big a lift as you so.

Well, the jail is been the issue forever.

I think Pete Cortez, mentioned that several times.

He had heard throughout his life that if we can just come up with 2 million more dollars, we'll get that jail move.

Not necessarily an easy number to just come up with.

Cortez.

Meteora.

Yes.

Of course.

Meet here.

And and so obviously in that neighborhood, the large bus station, the large like these large institutional things that are hard to move, hard to replace.

It's not going to be easy.

But I do think that VA is also committed to making the bus station, which maybe in previous generations was thought of as not an asset to have in the neighborhood.

An asset for the neighborhood.

True multi-modal exact.

Center.

Exactly.

That's what they're aiming for.

And, the county, as we mentioned, just had, $10 million loan to give to the developers of the ballpark for a kind of a bridge loan they are paying, and they're going to do some, I guess, county park land in there.

So how long is that going to take?

Even though we're talking $1 billion?

Yeah, yeah.

Is it you know, building a ballpark is an expensive project.

It's pretty difficult.

I remember watching the one in Memphis get built when around 1999.

And it takes a good 2 to 4 years depending on, you know, how quickly you're able to go, how, you know, if there's any sort of abatement issues that come up throughout the process.

I think we'll likely see this in another in three seasons.

If I was guessing, but again, they wouldn't put a number to it.

And will the ballpark be there before the rest of that development?

I think so.

I think in the rest of the development is housing is hotel and.

Housing hotel also, they really want to bring more retail and restaurant space around there, and they want more local businesses to come to that area.

I mean, what we really want to see is smaller local businesses see an opportunity in the western part of downtown and put a flag there.

While that's new, while they can do that airport.

They are, you know, trying their best to get more non stops and they're up to it 50 non stops and sending Tonio from 33.

Where are we in that $2.5 billion project.

The capital project is here from you know.

Yeah I I took a flight two weeks ago and when I came back by.

So for those that haven't been to the airport in a little while, the cranes are all up and doing an an immense amount of work.

In fact, it's the busiest construction site in the city currently because a lot of private, commercial real estate has slowed down over the last year.

So that's the most cranes you see in town right now is at the airport, in fact.

And when I was leaving the airport, down by where the, the rideshare is, if for those of you in the airport, somebody a little further down, you can see the frame of the new terminal is visible.

You can actually see the outline of it is, again, difficult and laborious project to put together.

But they are on time from everything that we can see, and everything that we can report on it.

So, you know, despite the, you know, struggles and consternation around our direct flights and the need for them, the airport is building as quick as it can.

Another issue we've heard about and may be coming to an end.

Southwest Airlines had sued the city.

They wanted to be in that new terminal, terminal C, but the city said, no, you have to be an A, and they they're almost close to a deal on that.

That's what we're hearing.

There's been no public confirmation of that, but we're hearing that they're getting awful close to a deal and that it should, you know, like all good deals, annoy and satisfy both parties.

Do we know where southwest will end up in a maybe a better a better a I don't know.

Yeah.

It's possible.

I mean, you know, southwest has changed a lot of its business model over the last couple of weeks.

I don't know if you've written it lately, but that flight a few weeks ago was a southwest flight for me.

They're assigned seats now.

Yes.

So I don't like that.

I know it's a, you know, like a good bus trip.

I understand you.

And so yeah.

So things have changed and, you know, they're going to start building in some of those amenities that you see in the legacy carriers, which is probably going to appeal to business travelers, which may soften the airport's stance, because that really is the number one concern is business travel.

Well, thank you very much.

Mr.. Well, travel business man.

And Arnold, we've been.

In Vegas, buddy.

I don't want to hear it.

Editor in chief of the San Antonio Business Journal.

What happens in Vegas?

Not for this show now.

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

You can watch the show again or previous shows.

You can also download the podcast at 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.