“Our 2011 numbers still are not where they were in 2008,” [San Antonio] City Manager Sheryl Sculley told the council during a briefing session Wednesday.
The projected shortfall in the general fund in the next budget has been reduced from $37 million to a range between $8.5 million and $20 million, depending largely on whether the council decides to again fund several initiatives from the 2011 budget that were tagged as one-time allocations, Budget Director Maria Villagómez said.
That shortfall doesn’t take into account likely state and federal cuts that be as much as $42.6 million.
It appears that the next five years could be far more severe with the city facing cumulative annual local shortfalls totaling as much as $388.9 million through the 2016 budget.
Houston’s shortfall for the next year is currently pegged at about $80 million, which is down a bit thanks to less-bad-than-anticipated property tax revenues. I have not seen any dollar figure attached to “likely state and federal cuts” for Houston. Its five year deficit is projected to be about $600 million. That figure we know to be largely driven by pension obligations, but no reason for San Antonio’s five-year shortfall is given in the story. I have to presume pension obligations have something to do with it, however. Anyway, since we often hear about how our situation compares with other cities, I thought it would be useful to do a bit of side-by-side.