Tension has been escalating between Houston Controller Chris Hollins and Mayor John Whitmire since budget talks began earlier this year and will come to a head as the City Council votes on a $7 billion budget next week.
Hollins said in an exclusive interview with the Houston Press this week that Whitmire has been inaccurate in his claims that the city’s proposed budget does not include tax hikes, fee increases or service cuts. It’s also not a “structurally balanced” budget because the city is dipping into savings to cover costs, Hollins said.
Depending on what shakes out in the coming days, Houston could be looking at the largest budget deficit in the city’s history, the controller said.
Hollins issued a press release Tuesday featuring what he referred to as “10 hard truths about the [Whitmire] administration’s proposed FY 2026 budget — truths that every Houstonian deserves to understand before decisions are finalized.”
Maybe it’s just semantics, but the controller and the mayor have conflicting views on some important issues, such as whether the budget includes tax and fee increases and how big the deficit is.
“There are a lot of inaccuracies in how it’s being portrayed by the administration, and in some cases by members of the press who aren’t doing their jobs and asking questions,” Hollins said. “If I had to guess, council is not going to push back very hard on this because they rarely do.”
At-Large Council Member Sallie Alcorn, who chairs the Budget and Fiscal Affairs Committee, said she’s confident that the budget is financially sound and that the mayor’s office has been transparent about what it includes and what it doesn’t.
“It’s tough and tight,” Alcorn said, adding that even though the proposal doesn’t include a tax increase, such a measure could go before voters in November. “It’s a fine budget for this year. I think everything was done that could be done to address the deficit. This budget is kind of a bridge-year budget. We’ll be facing deficits again in the coming years.”
After reviewing amendments this week, the City of Houston is poised to adopt the budget June 4, and as it stands today, Hollins is refusing to certify it. The new fiscal year begins July 1. Hollins said he doesn’t certify the budget itself, which is a policy document, but he does have veto power over the ordinance that serves as an appropriation of funds.
If Hollins does not certify the budget ordinance, elected officials may need to revise or rewrite parts of the budget to address his concerns and “ensure it complies with legal and financial requirements,” a spokesman from the controller’s office said Thursday.
“It’s not my job to say whether I like [the budget] or not,” Hollins said. “It is my job to talk about fiscal responsibility and fiscal sustainability. My job is to say whether there is money in the account to be able to pay for this.”
Whitmire said through a spokeswoman he was unavailable for a phone interview on the budget. It’s clear from his public comments thus far this year that the mayor doesn’t put much stock in Hollins’ assertions.
“The mayor has presented a balanced budget for FY 2026 that funds city services, includes more money for infrastructure and boosts public safety with no tax increase,” according to an email sent by Communications Director Mary Benton. “Mayor Whitmire is committed to ensuring Houstonians that he has eliminated waste, fraud, duplication and corruption before having a discussion about additional revenue sources in the future.”
It’s not uncommon for the mayor and controller to be at odds. Both are elected and report to the residents of Houston. Hollins filed to run against Whitmire for the mayor’s seat in 2023 but withdrew when former Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee entered the race.
“My role is set up to be an accountability role, so it’s not shocking to me that we end up being adversarial,” Hollins said. “They’re going to do things the best way they see fit, and it’s my job to look at things and point out where best practices might not align or they might be doing things that are fiscally irresponsible.
“Every person who has been in this seat and every mayor who has been in that seat has had friction in one way or another. How it plays out publicly has varied,” he added.
Taxes, Fees, Service Cuts and the Big, Bad Deficit
No. 2 on Hollins’ “10 hard truths” list is an assertion that the proposed budget is dependent on a property tax increase. The administration plans to increase property tax revenue by 5.7 percent, Hollins said, noting that the value of the property tax base is projected to be 1.9 percent, implying a necessary tax rate hike of 2 to 5 percent.
“Revenue projections exceed what the current tax rate would generate,” he said. “That’s not a balanced budget — it’s a built-in assumption that your taxes will be going up this fall.”
The budget also includes a 6 percent water rate increase, Hollins says.
“Whether labeled a new fee or not, your bill is going up,” he said. “Let’s just be honest about that.”
The proposed budget “quietly reduces services,” the controller added. Whitmire has said he is improving efficiencies by consolidating departments and eliminating duplication but the 647-page budget document shows, for example, numerous cuts in the Parks department that Hollins said indicate a reduction in services.
And about that deficit: even the documents provided by the Mayor’s office show a “final budgetary gap” of $107 million.
“This is not just us saying this,” Hollins said. “This is literally in their own documentation, but then the mayor goes out and says there’s no budget gap. It’s just not true.”
There’s only one way to right the ship, the controller says.
“At the end of the day, it’s about balance,” he said. “You’re going to have to see drastic cuts in costs or significant increases in sources of revenue or some combination of both to bring this thing into balance. If we don’t have that, we’ve got ourselves a problem.”
Alcorn said she expects residents will be asked to either lift a revenue cap, which would require a charter amendment, or support a tax increase “so the other services in the city don’t get choked out.”
Hollins said the budget was “problematic” last year, but the city had more money in its reserves at the time.
“Last year, we said, you’re spending a bunch of money, this is crazy, but the cash is there, so if that’s what you want to do, you’re entitled to do that,” he said. “Now we’re getting to a place where not only is it crazy but we may not have the money to pay for it, so it’s my job to say, stop.”
Streets and Drainage
In a mid-April council meeting, Mayor Whitmire announced that a $330 million budget deficit problem had been drastically reduced, due to an agreement with engineers Bob Jones and Allen Watson, who sued the city in 2019, accusing Houston of not following its own charter, which includes a 2010 voter-approved special fund for streets and drainage.
Although city leaders were supposed to dedicate 11.8 cents per $100 assessed valuation of property taxes to “rebuild Houston,” the lawsuit alleged that didn’t happen.
“The truth is that has never been done,” Whitmire said. “All you have to do is drive down our streets and you see the results of not following the public’s support for [the] rebuild Houston measure. This morning, we have approximately 1,000 broken water mains.”
Jones and Watson agreed in April to allow the fund to be made whole incrementally over the next three budget cycles rather than paid out immediately in a lump sum. The payment plan will close a gap in the city’s budget deficit to the tune of about $110 million, Whitmire said. Weeks prior to the settlement, the city had a $330 million budget deficit; it would be reduced to about $220 million, officials said at the time.
“We’re going to fix Houston, we’re going to be transparent, and we’re going to address the shortfall,” Whitmire said.
Further deficit reductions were announced later due to the consolidation of departments and early retirement packages.
“They did a lot to chip away at the deficit,” Alcorn said of Whitmire’s office.
There are problems, however, with approving a budget contingent on a court order that may not happen, according to Hollins. A judge still has to sign off on the agreement over the streets and drainage lawsuit. Without that blessing, Hollins said he won’t certify the budget ordinance.
“The court has not yet approved the drainage settlement,” Hollins said. “Without the approval, the city is on the hook for an additional $183 million investment in roads and drainage that it might not have if the budget remains in its current form.
“The whole purpose of certification is putting a stamp and saying we can afford this,” he added. “It’s not saying this is a good budget or a bad budget, but it’s saying if we were to effectuate this budget, we have money in our accounts that can pay the bills. Because there’s so much money at stake and because they’ve spent down our savings account so quickly in the past year, I can’t say for certain that we actually have the money to pay the bills if the judge does not approve the settlement.”
The controller added that even if the agreement goes through, the city still will be taking a considerable dip out of its savings account to cover the budget deficit.
“If we get to June 30 and the court hasn’t approved it yet, we have to put that money in the drainage fund, and that’s a $92 million transfer,” Hollins said, referring to the amount that would be due immediately for the current fiscal year. “We’re running record deficits and our savings is dwindling. That’s real money that we should want to protect.”
Whitmire and his staff said last week that they weren’t worried about a judge’s order because the agreement with the engineers is binding and all parties have to comply. Alcorn said she has heard from the City Attorney’s Office that it’s highly unlikely a judge won’t affirm the agreement.
“I’m confident the judge is going to sign off on that; I’m confident we can count on that,” she said.
Update: 5:30 p.m. May 30, 2025: Following publication of this story, Hollins’ office announced that a court approved the drainage settlement and issued the following statement:
“The court’s approval of the drainage settlement removes a major obstacle to adopting a responsible budget. It’s a step forward, but Houston still faces serious financial challenges. Hard truths remain, and my office will continue providing the transparency and accountability needed to move the city toward long-term stability.”
Several council members lauded Mayor Whitmire at the April council meeting for successfully negotiating an agreement that not only improved the deficit but also will provide incremental funding for much-needed street and drainage projects.
“It’s one of the top issues when I go out in my district,” said Vice Mayor Pro Tem Amy Peck. “People are asking, where’s my flooding mitigation project?”
But residents with the nonprofit group West Street Recovery weren’t impressed with Whitmire’s “closed-room deal” to spread out the streets and drainage fund over a period of years, and they circulated a petition to “say no” to the proposed budget.
“The Whitmire administration has had ample time to develop a thoughtful plan to comply with the court’s order, honor the will of Houston voters and keep us safe from storms,” West Street Recovery officials said in a press release. “Instead, Mayor Whitmire relied on a closed-room deal with two men in a city of millions to subvert the will of voters and kick the can down the road on life-saving infrastructure investments.”
Overtime Pay and the Police Salaries
In a March City Council meeting, Hollins and Whitmire argued about overtime pay, with Hollins pointing out that the city is poised to spend a record $137 million in overtime, primarily for police officers, firefighters, and civilian solid waste workers.
But the city only set aside about $65 million to cover overtime pay, officials said in the March meeting. At the time, officials in the finance department were already grappling with a $330 million budget deficit.
The controller said the numbers were alarming; Whitmire said Hollins’ report was unacceptable, not an apples-to-apples comparison, and that the overtime allocation is similar to that of previous years. Whitmire added that the “political report” presented by Hollins’ team did not account for revenues contributed by federal funding sources.
“The truth of the matter is, we have three new directors in each of those departments,” Whitmire said. “We’ve had two storms, we’ve had 260,000 suspended HPD cases. There are so many reasons why we’ve reached into overtime. To say that it’s an alarming amount … it’s just about where it’s been.”
“If you’re not alarmed by these overtime figures, we’ve got a real problem,” Hollins said. “Those are the facts. It’s not an opinion.”
Finance Director Melissa Dubowksi, who reports to Whitmire, acknowledged that the city has gone over budget in overtime pay in recent years and has had to pull more from the general fund as federal dollars have decreased. Dubowski did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
While it does appear a council majority will support the mayor’s proposal when it comes time for a vote next week, it hasn’t been without a little pushback. Councilman Edward Pollard, who frequently spars with Whitmire, said the controller’s report on overtime pay was shocking.
“If you have any business, you have to either increase your revenue or cut your expenditures,” he said. “If we know that the funding source is no longer there, then we have to change our strategy and how we allocate dollars.”
“And we have,” Dubowski said, noting that the city is bringing in about $50 million from METRO to help with expenditures in the general fund.
Pollard said it seems as if the city is spending “way more than what we’re bringing in.”
“We’re going in the wrong direction when it comes to our city finances,” he said. “The mayor mentioned last year that we were broke. He may want to make that statement this year because we’re going backwards.”
Hollins noted at the time that overtime has exceeded budget for the last 10 years.
“We’re not making up stuff; this is the data,” he said. “That was plugged in the past with vacancy savings. That option is either not available or less available to us right now.”
Whitmire has repeatedly emphasized that public safety is a priority and backed that with salary increases for law enforcement that he says make Houston No. 1 in entry-level pay. Under a new five-year police contract approved last week, Houston officers will receive 36.5 percent salary increases.
“It’s an exciting day to become the best-paid first-year officers in the state of Texas, and we’re not through,” Whitmire said earlier this month. “We have a five-year contract. This is going to improve public safety. In any job, particularly when you’re putting your life on the line, morale matters. Morale is good in HPD, but this is reaching all-time highs. They want to work for Mayor Whitmire.”
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.
