“You’re looking at people, plain and simple,” Houston City Controller Chris Hollins said on Inside Texas Politics.
TEXAS, USA — The city of Houston is facing a gigantic hole in its budget, and if city leaders can’t find a way to come up with $320 million, the city’s chief financial officer says jobs will be on the line.
“You’re looking at people, plain and simple,” Houston City Controller Chris Hollins told WFAA on Inside Texas Politics.
Hollins said the situation is critical and has called for an emergency task force to address the shortfall.
And he’s warned city council members that he won’t be able to certify the budget if it isn’t paid for, and Hollins says that means either drastic cuts or new sources of revenue.
“The challenges that we’re having are in our general fund, most of which is our police, our firefighters,” Hollins said. “And so, you have a very small pie from which to cut if you don’t want to go into public safety, where you’re looking at hundreds, and potentially thousands of jobs as the only way of solving this, unless you look at the revenue side.”
The city was already facing a $220 million shortfall for the new fiscal year, with a costly settlement with firefighters only adding to the problem. That settlement cost the city an additional $650 million in back pay.
The Texas Supreme Court also recently denied the city’s appeal of a ruling that requires the city to spend hundreds of million of dollars on drainage improvements. That loss means the city has to immediately pay around $100 million, bringing the total budget deficit to $320 million.
The city only has a few months to figure it out as the new fiscal year begins July 1, and a budget must be passed before then. Hollins said he’s still waiting to hear from the mayor about his request for an emergency task force.
In the meantime, he said city leaders need to level with residents about what it’s going to take to move Houston forward.
“We haven’t heard directly from the mayor’s office. So, we know as much as you know in terms of what’s been said in the public sphere,” relayed Hollins. “Conversations that I’ve had offline with council members, they express serious concern. But they’re waiting for leadership from the mayor’s office here, and frankly, so is the rest of the city.”
