The loudest opponent of Houston Mayor John Whitmire’s $7.5 billion budget didn’t get to cast a vote or propose any amendments, but he made sure everyone in Houston knew how he felt.
City Controller Chris Hollins launched a crusade against the budget after Whitmire released the proposed document on May 5. Many were concerned about moving the $134 million Solid Waste fund under the utility system, which is largely supplemented by tax revenue, and assessing residents a $5 “administrative fee” for trash pick-up. The measure brings Houston in line with other major cities, Whitmire has said.
Hollins, however, has repeatedly questioned what he refers to as “gimmicks and shell games” with taxpayer dollars. He says that moving Solid Waste under the utilities umbrella means trash pick-up will now be funded by water revenues that he believes should be going toward water projects.
“The mayor’s budget plan drains the city water fund,” he said. “Money to fix leaks is instead going to trash pick-up. The plan will drain $1 billion from the water fund over five years. The critical services that Houstonians depend on are being put at risk by financial mismanagement. We’re going to be faced with even tougher choices like layoffs or reductions in services, which have already begun.”
While the controller’s concerns were noted at a series of town hall meetings last month and frequently repeated by Houston residents during public comment sessions, the budget still passed on Wednesday, 15 to 1, with only Councilman Edward Pollard voting against it. Council Member Tiffany Thomas, who recently told the Houston Press she would vote against the budget, was not present at Wednesday’s meeting. The new fiscal year begins July 1.
Whitmire said he was proud of the budget and the public engagement that his staff had conducted at more than 90 community meetings.
“We’re doing this without raising property taxes,” he said. “We’re not going to slow down in our efforts to find additional resources. There is no perfect budget. We can definitely make improvements. We’re going to do that when we review overtime in our departments, and we’ll be very transparent about that. We haven’t played politics. I think one of the real outcomes of this budget is that we showed Houstonians that we know how to work together.”
The $5 monthly trash fee was baked into the budget and therefore will begin showing up on residents’ bills next month, but Hollins says there’s no guarantee that the already dismal solid waste service will improve. Additionally, the monthly fee is expected to rise incrementally each year and be assessed at $25 a month by 2031.
“We’re asking taxpayers for more money while, out of one side of his mouth, the mayor is saying he’s not going to raise taxes,” Hollins said. “This is a tax. He’s imposing a regressive tax on poor working families with this garbage fee.”
“The cost of picking up trash is close to $30 per household, and in a couple years’ time it’s going to go up to closer to $50 per household. You can’t charge people $5 for something that costs $50,” Hollins said. “You would run out of money, and so they do have a plan in the near term to spend down all the water money to subsidize trash, but that’s going to run out as well, and so the trash fee, by definition, has to be increased in the future, and Houstonians are going to get stuck with that bill.”
Whitmire says the administrative fee will generate $24 million in the next fiscal year and improvements will include restructuring operations, optimizing existing routes and providing leadership training. Fleet and equipment upgrades and expanded recycling and composting services are listed as long-term goals.
Not every Houstonian uses city trash pick-up. About 47,000 households — most of which are in affluent neighborhoods — use private trash service that is subsidized by the city or funded through an HOA to which they pay dues.
To Whitmire’s credit, several people, including pastors, union leaders and police officers, spoke in favor of the budget at recent public hearings. Newly elected progressive council members Alejandra Salinas and Joe Panzarella voted for the budget despite concerns about police overtime and the trash fee, saying they were encouraged that approved amendments would keep the city accountable.
“District C residents are asking for better solid waste services,” said Panzarella, who represents the area that includes Montrose, Meyerland and The Heights. “I believe a solid waste fee is a step toward that, and I will keep a dogged focus on ensuring every dollar goes towards that exact outcome. Furthermore, the amendments that I voted for reflect my commitment to the promises that I campaigned on.”
The mayor has said that public safety is his top priority and he frequently cites the growth in the police force under his leadership, noting that officers want to work in Houston. Much of the police overtime, he says, comes from “pop-up protests” that have been held with increased frequency over the past year.
The mayor’s chief operating officer Steven David appeared on the 901 Bagby Street podcast on May 29, addressing Houston’s $180 million general fund deficit and pointing out that the city budget has been structurally imbalanced every cycle for nearly 40 years.
“Anybody who says government should be run exactly like a business doesn’t understand government at all,” David said, noting that other large cities have budget deficits in the billions.
Critics, however, are opposed to an unprecedented five-year $832 million police contract approved last year, while they say much-needed flood mitigation measures are being ignored.
Dozens of residents organized a campaign called the Houston People’s Budget and demanded last week that the city’s ditch re-establishment program be fully funded at $45 million. Whitmire says it is fully funded. Hollins, however, pointed out that funding doesn’t mean the work is getting done.
“The mayor talks about this record amount of money that’s sitting in the water fund,” Hollins said. “Well, the reason it’s there is because that money is supposed to be going toward major projects to stop the billions of gallons of water that are leaking out of our pipes, to repair the wastewater system that the federal government has sued us over because of how poorly the system functions. We have all this money because we have not executed on those projects.”
Hollins says that last year’s budget called for $76 million in deficit spending. “What we ultimately saw was $180 million of deficit spending, and so that same dishonesty and the same mistakes are embedded in this year’s budget, namely dishonest estimations of overtime,” he said. “We know that they’re going to go over budget on overtime again, so we’re going to likely add tens of millions of dollars in deficit spending when it’s all said and done.”
Whitmire has said that he’s open to suggestions if anyone has a better idea on how to pay the bills and provide high-quality services while also working to close the gap on the deficit.
Hollins’ response to that is that he didn’t put the city in the position that it’s in to have to dig itself out of a massive shortfall.
“In three years’ time, this mayor has increased the budget by $1.3 billion,” Hollins said. “So to increase the budget by $1.3 billion and say, ‘I would welcome your solutions on how we tax people to pay for it,’ that’s disingenuous from the beginning. I didn’t get a say on how to spend that money, and so, of course we laid out options on ways to locate additional revenue, but it’s silly for me to come out and say you should charge these people some fees, or you should increase that tax, when I’m not the one who said let’s spend money like drunken sailors without a plan to pay for it.”
Hollins and Whitmire were elected to their respective positions in late 2023 and this is the third budget cycle they’ve gone through together and the third time they’ve sparred over how to manage taxpayer money. Both men have accused each other of prioritizing political interests over the budget.
“These challenges that we’re facing are not new,” Hollins said. “They’re repeated mistakes that we’ve called out multiple times over, and every time we call it out, the mayor claims it’s politics, but it’s not politics to watch our savings account being drained. When he came into office, the city of Houston had the highest savings account balance in history. It was almost $600 million and he squandered half of it in just two years.”
“In my eyes, it’s unfathomable that here we are on round three,” he added. “The first time, things are imperfect. You make mistakes. You’re learning. By the second time, you shouldn’t make those same mistakes. By the third time, it’s malpractice.”
Council members spent more than three hours on Wednesday debating budget amendments. They approved several, including an investment of $3 million for illegal dumping cleanup, prevention, and enforcement efforts across chronic dump sites in Houston neighborhoods.
Additionally, the mayor’s office must provide a report to council on whether the utility fund is healthy enough to reduce, offset or eliminate the trash fee in future years for disabled veterans and senior citizens. Another approved amendment requires that city officials must report solid waste revenues and expenditures separately from water and sewer information in the city budget.
Hollins says none of the approved amendments did anything to substantially change the numbers in the budget. He added that the budget deserves an F for transparency and accountability.
“They’re not telling the truth to Houstonians about what’s in here and how things are going to impact Houstonians in real life, and that includes this hidden deficit spending,” he said. “It includes spending down money from the water fund on non-water items like trash and police and fire that are going to result in increased water bills in the future. It includes a dishonest take on where this trash fee is headed.”
“What I told city council last week was that the biggest asset that we have as local government is the public trust,” he added. “This budget, and the way that we’ve gone about creating it, and the way the mayor’s gone about running the city, is spending down that public trust because of dishonesty, because of a lack of transparency.”
