Karthik Soora isn’t opposed to Houston’s proposed $5 monthly garbage pickup fee; he just doesn’t like the way it appears to tax the poor at the same rate as the wealthy.
Soora and the organization he cofounded, Houston Progressive Caucus, is one of many groups closely watching city government to see how it will close the $174 million general fund gap it’s facing.
Soora acknowledged that the trash fee could net $24 million in its initial stages of operation but questioned where the rest of the needed funding would come from and why, in the midst of Houston’s budget woes, the mayor is spending $60,000 in taxpayer dollars on a podcast?
Members of the Caucus tuned in Tuesday as Mayor John Whitmire announced some details of his proposed city budget without assigning a dollar figure to it. A hearing is scheduled for 2 p.m. Wednesday, chaired by Budget and Fiscal Affairs Committee chair Sallie Alcorn, to further discuss the proposed budget with CFO Melissa Dubowski and department directors.
Whitmire didn’t address the criticism of his new podcast, 901 Bagby: Inside the Mayor’s Office, but he did talk about the trash fee and his plans to eliminate waste and inefficiency without raising taxes.
Houston’s 311 call center received about 36,000 complaints about garbage pickup last year, more than any other grievance. Whitmire’s budget proposes to move Solid Waste out of the general fund and into the Public Works utility system. Solid Waste would be funded by the new trash fee, along with water and sewer bills, rather than by property and sales taxes. Whitmire said the transaction would boost the general fund by $116 million.
Houston is implementing an administrative fee, not a “trash fee,” Whitmire said, taking a dig at local media with whom he’s had an adversarial relationship for the past several months.
“State law says you cannot provide a utility, which Solid Waste is becoming, without a charge,” he said. “It’ll create a $24 million revenue the first year, we’ll keep it at $5 the next two years, and then council, in future budgets, will determine where we go from there. We’re not going to do what I would call a genuine garbage fee until we can improve services.”
If Whitmire’s budget is approved by the city council in June, Houston would become the last major city in Texas to implement a fee associated with solid waste. Whitmire called it a practical solution and questioned why Houston hadn’t done it under previous administrations.
Dallas charges $40.09 a month for trash pick-up, while San Antonio charges $35.75, and Austin charges $23.80. Pearland and Sugar Land also have monthly trash fees, at $22.86 and $21.88, respectively.
Soora says the fee itself isn’t a problem but it’s not being rolled out in a progressive way.
“You’re going to make people in Acres Homes, who are struggling, pay the same as people near Atascocita?” Soora said, adding that Houston has been, since the 1980s, subsidizing trash fees for HOAs in affluent neighborhoods, covering the costs of private companies to remove garbage for 47,000 households. “The mayor seems to forget that working-class people are struggling.”
Whitmire said Tuesday that alternatives and exemptions for those unable to pay the monthly fee will be “part of the discussion if we go above the $5.”
Corisha Rogers, a Caucus member and Harris County Democratic Party precinct chair, said there’s no evidence that the new trash fees will actually improve garbage service. “People are constantly complaining about their garbage not being picked up,” she said. “If we’re going to have to pay garbage fees, we’ve got to make the Solid Waste department work more efficiently.”
The Houston City Council approved in 2025 new five-year contracts for police and fire that amount to roughly 35 percent raises. Those salaries and overtime pay come out of the general fund.
Advocacy groups West Street Recovery, Northeast Action Collective and Pure Justice say the “police overspending” comes at a cost to social services and things like trash pickup and streets and drainage. The groups were already poised to protest Whitmire’s budget before it was released, holding a town hall meeting on April 9 to educate Houstonians about the budget process ahead of public hearings.
Critics say last year’s budget cuts, including voluntary retirement packages for more than 1,000 employees, didn’t create efficiencies but rather resulted in fewer employees needed to execute city services.
Concerns about an $832 million police contract and cuts to staff and services were brought up last year but only three council members — Abbie Kamin, Edward Pollard and Tiffany Thomas — voted against Whitmire’s $7 billion budget. None of those who voted against last year’s budget attended Whitmire’s press conference on Tuesday.
The mayor said his proposed Fiscal Year 2027 budget emphasizes infrastructure, public safety and quality of life issues. “We’re listening to the public,” he said, nothing that the budget proposes an additional $31 million into the dedicated drainage fund.
And while $60,000 may not sound like a lot when hundreds of millions are being budgeted, Soora says the mayor’s new podcast represents “blatant, giant waste when all you really need is a microphone and your comms staffer.”
Soora said the Caucus is in talks with Texas legislators and considering proposing a bill to “ban this type of self-promotional taxpayer-funded advocacy in the next session.”
Audrey Nath, a former city council and school board candidate, said the mayor’s podcast reeks of a lack of transparency similar to that of Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles, who, through his staff, directs media and parents to watch his HISD Now channel rather than communicating with them directly.
“It’s a propaganda source,” Nath said. “I know with HISD and the unelected Superintendent Mike Miles, they spent $2 million on a ‘news source’ that can be favorable to Mike Miles but does not have the true accountability of speaking with the free press. That is a problem because that’s not really news, in addition to money being wasted. These two situations are parallel and synonymous.”
Nath said the red flags were up as soon as she saw on social media that Whitmire was starting a podcast. “It was kind of a sanity check,” she said. “I think a lot of us have been on podcasts or done them ourselves. It just does not make any sense to cost that much money. It doesn’t pass the sniff test.”
The Houston Progressive Caucus filed grievances last month with the Texas Ethics Commission, Houston’s Office of Inspector General, and City Controller Chris Hollins’ waste, fraud and abuse division. The Caucus members say they brought up ethics because they don’t think the mayor should use taxpayer money to talk about his re-election campaign, something he briefly mentioned in the first episode of 901 Bagby.
To date, five episodes of the podcast have been released, covering topics such as homelessness, public safety, and the city’s contentious immigration policy.
Hollins, who has frequently argued with Whitmire over expenditures and overtime pay, said recently that Houston is sinking deeper into a financial hole and the budget is “nowhere close to being balanced.”
Hollins responded to the Caucus’ ethics complaint by releasing a statement saying he would investigate the alleged $60,000 contract. “Houstonians work hard for every dollar they send to City Hall, and they deserve to know those dollars are being spent responsibly, transparently and for their benefit,” the controller said.
Whitmire said on social media last month that the podcast contract was conducted in accordance with city ordinances and procurement guidelines, and it serves as another channel to keep the public informed. “The podcast is not a campaign communication,” Whitmire wrote, adding that the Texas Ethics Commission defines campaign communication as “express advocacy.”
“The podcast will be informative and feature guests beyond the mayor but will not feature any campaign content,” he added.
There’s not much Whitmire can say at this point to win over people who are concerned about the financial pinch occurring not just in Houston but across the country. In the latest area survey from Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research, Houstonians said the economy is the region’s biggest problem, fueled by shrinking confidence in job opportunities and growing financial pressures.
Rogers said she’s frustrated because Whitmire keeps saying the city is broke.
“Where did you get $60,000 from?” she asked. “It’s such a disrespect to the citizens of Houston that you claim to represent. If you’re trying to maximize the budget to be more efficient but you spend $60,000, it’s just not making sense from a guy who claims to be so transparent.”
When Whitmire was elected mayor in December 2023, he pledged to address long-standing inefficiencies and financial mismanagement. Houston spent roughly $4 million, according to Soora, on consulting contracts to identify inefficiencies. Whitmire said last year’s budget reflected systemic reforms, no service cuts and no tax hikes.
Soora disputes that. “All they got were a couple of dashboards and minimum efficiencies, maybe $200,000 in savings,” he said. “The city is spending $4 million to pay all these fancy-pants consultants to just put stuff in that AI could probably do.”
Others have rejected the statement that no taxes were raised. Hollins pointed out an additional water fee that was baked into last year’s budget. West Street Recovery co-director Alice Liu claims that while police pay increased by $67 million, drainage projects were underfunded by $9.5 million, and public health, libraries, and parks budgets were reduced.
“When he says ‘no impact to services,’ what about city workers and residents who are already suffering under the current budget with $122 million of cuts to essential departments?” Liu wrote in an email to reporters on Tuesday morning. “When he says ‘public safety,’ does he really mean police and other overtime for corporate interests? Does clean water and protection from flooding count as public safety?”
Nath said a city budget should reflect its priorities, the same way a family budget does. “I think it’s unethical to waste money when we’re facing such a massive deficit,” she said.
Rogers pointed out that Harris County Democrats “have been on Whitmire’s neck” since he was admonished last year for attending a fundraiser for Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw. The party voted 186-80 to withhold any future endorsements of Whitmire, also citing concerns over how HPD interacts with ICE.
“The way Whitmire is handling this administration is not for the betterment of Houstonians,” Rogers said. “Until the day he gets out of office, we’re going to be on his neck.”
Hollins and Pollard are rumored to be considering bids for mayor in November 2027 but neither has made a formal announcement.
Whitmire acknowledged Tuesday that he has critics but would ask them what their plan is to balance the budget. “I wasn’t asked to run for this job because I needed a political career,” he said. “I’m here to fix Houston.”
