On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Dufilho San Antonio is a fast growing, fast moving city with something new happening every day.

That's why each week we go on the record with Randy Beamer and the newsmakers who are driving this change.

Then we gather at the reporters roundtable to talk about the latest news stories with the journalist behind those stories.

Join us now as we go on the record with Randy Beamer.

Hi, everybody, and thank you for joining us for On the Record this Week.

I'm Randy Beamer, and we are starting this week with a big change at the top of the public housing agency here.

Used to be called San Antonio Housing Authority or Sahar.

Now it is opportunity home.

Big change at the top.

And here to explain what happened is Gabe Lopez who is a board chairman.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Now last week, the board fired the president and CEO, Ed Hinojosa.

And that was a shock to a lot of people.

Why did you fire him?

Sure.

So, a decision, was discussed for several months, leading up to this, but in a unanimous board decision, we decided to take the agency a different direction.

the reason for taking the agency to a different direction is San Antonio continues to be on a path forward of exponential growth.

Over a million new people will be approved, will be living in the city, and we have to do our part.

And that is in two forms.

One, we have to protect the viability and sustainability of this organization, coupled with its growing needs to house, our families in this community.

Okay.

Now, I guess that means two things.

The deficit has increased quite a bit, up to 18 million, over the period that Ed Hinojosa was there.

At the same time, the waiting list for public housing has really ballooned from the time of the pandemic.

What can you do about both of those things, and why has the deficit and the waiting list increased?

So, specifically since 2021, when Mr. Hinojosa took over, we have we have seen a year over year over year a budget deficit in our public housing portfolio, specifically, $6 million, the first year in a deficit, 11.2 million, approximately in the second year.

And this year, approaching over $18 million our fiscal year.

It's important to note our fiscal year runs July 1st through June 30th.

So we're at the end of the fiscal year.

hence the reasoning for let's change the direction.

What were the biggest reasons for the deficit?

I know, back a couple of years ago, there was some controversy over the eyelets on Apache Cortes.

There was originally a plan to raise those, tear them down, and then to have that changed to had the housing Authority or the opportunity home, do some work on them themselves and keep them.

What what happened?

Well, so that was a decision made in the past.

So the decision moving forward, has been what can we do as an organization to redevelop or reimagine as we refer to it?

Alison, specifically or what can we bring in in terms of new units?

as an organization, we've been on a track to where we would self-developed, but just the skyrocketing costs of construction since the pandemic, as well as interest rate increases, just it's putting that in a situation where that's just not attainable.

As an agency with no other outsource outside sources.

We have to be careful in that.

You know, back to my comment about protecting the viability and sustainability.

We have to make sure that we're spending the money in its best place that's, you know, highest and best use, of our organization to serve our families that are housed within our community.

It's been a lot of talk about housing and public housing, using private developers who get tax breaks and give some of their, apartments.

Then or units as public housing.

Is that something you're pushing more toward or less?

we already have a significant amount in our portfolio already.

as an as an agency.

It is incumbent upon us to look for opportunities wherever they are.

because every dollar that is earned by this organization goes directly to serve our families.

And that's probably the most important thing.

And that contributes, by the way, to maintaining our, our viability.

All this came up, at least in the media and the, maybe the connection isn't there, but after many tenants got, notices to vacate, even if they had just a dollar that they hadn't paid up to several $10,000 plus, that they had accumulated in debt, nonpayment of rent over those years.

And there are a lot of outrage, as I understand on the board, that people with those lower amounts still got a notice to vacate the first step of the process was that a big part of this?

it was so, part of maintaining or figuring out ways to, mitigate those losses in our deficit is that we had to fulfill our basic responsibility in policy, in rent collection.

And what we had found was that there was significant numbers.

now it's not enough to cover the deficit, but it's certainly a contributing factor.

so the decision was made to fulfill, our policy requirements and our policy requirements were to collect rent.

We had even recently been cited, there was a finding in an audit that we didn't follow our policy by federal law federally.

Right.

So the the when HUD did that, we made the decision we need to move forward.

What's the timeline now moving forward to hire someone new?

Your, public affairs director is right now the acting president, where are you in the search?

And is that going to take a while and leave everything in limbo?

In some, to some degree.

So unanimously, also, the board chose Michael Reyes, announced to be promoted to the next level and serve as CEO president.

in his first few days, he is already instigated some change.

That is, we are welcoming.

I mean, he was we made the decision because he we look for somebody that can be transformative.

will he be the final?

That's really dependent upon our search.

that search probably will begin sometime in the fall.

but the board needs to meet the next time the board will meet, will be in July.

And then those decisions will be made that will set the track moving forward.

All right, well, we think, we hope everything works out for again.

This is opportunity home.

The old San Antonio housing Authority, Gabe Lopez, board chair, thanks for coming in.

Thank you for having me.

There have been several high profile road construction projects here in San Antonio that have taken a lot longer than expected, some of them years, some of them still ongoing right now.

But the city council is looking at making some changes so we don't have to endure that.

City council or a city councilwoman in district one, Dr. Sukh Kaur joins us to talk about her proposal.

Thank you very much for coming in, and thank you for having me.

Tell us about this proposal that would change what, the timelines would be for developers.

Yeah.

So when I was campaigning, the number one issue that came up was infrastructure.

No one on Saint Mary's or in the Tobin Hill neighborhood will ever forget the trauma that's associated with that project.

Yes.

And we really wanted to figure out why are these projects going so array.

And how can we assess the situation better on the front end to make sure that streets aren't open for years at a time?

That's causing a lot of disruption for all of our residents and our small business, and a lot of it is the history of what's under that road.

Developers don't know they will discover something like on Saint Mary's, there was a, remnants of a creek.

Oh, yeah.

That slowed things down.

Exactly.

So the problem is that we don't really know in this old infrastructure what's underground and where it's located.

So whether the water line is on the right side or the left side of the street may not be clear, and the pot hauling requirements right now haven't been strict enough to allow for really understanding where things are for our deep reconstruction projects.

So that was the problem we were trying to address with this CCR and this City Council consideration request.

you're going to talk about it when and then what would be the timeline on making some changes?

Yeah.

So it'll go to governance next and so on the next available governance agenda, the mayor will schedule this.

And thanks to the CCR process update that happened this earlier this year, we're hopeful that it'll get on with the next couple of months.

We're heading in July and we know that's a break, but after it goes through governance, it'll probably go through the, another committee if it's, being pushed forward and then hopefully to city council soon thereafter.

And this would require businesses to do what they would have to, write up and detail as built projects instead of just what the plans were, because that's what you have to go by now.

Yeah.

So this is actually more so for construction, on big reconstruction bond projects.

So the idea is that public works would decide what level of subsurface utility engineering is required based on the project.

So if it's an easier project, we don't have to do as much research on the front end.

But if it's a full reconstruction, like a major street project, we'd have to do a lot more analyzation of what's underground before we start.

So that's the big part of the CCR is requiring each project to have a certain level that then necessitates what type of analysis will happen before the project.

Somebody working on one of the projects told me.

It's amazing how many jurisdictions there are, you know, you have electricity, you have, gas.

You have water.

All of these different, quasi governmental organizations and some private working together.

And there's there is communication.

Yeah, but there are no records.

Is that the main thing?

Well, also accountability, right.

So a part of the CCR was also when we talked to city staff and all of our utility companies was deciding who's responsible for the payment of this subsurface, because a lot of it the reason why it hasn't happened so far is it costs a little bit of money to do this.

And so a part of the CCR is requiring that the utility companies responsible for those lines.

So if it's a water line source, will be responsible for the payment for the engineering costs on the front end.

And also the CCR also requires that all utility companies apply and comply with this new regulation to make sure that whether it's private or a public entity, we have good records.

And how about the communication and the cooperation beforehand?

Will there be a requirement of people sitting together saying, okay, this is our pipeline.

It's below the other one who starts and that kind of thing.

Yeah, that kind of happens right now already.

But the challenge really is, making sure we have everyone accountable and, the funding mechanism for it too.

Right?

Does it come all out of city, city, dollars in public works, or are our utility companies also responsible?

So that will city staff will, once they do research into the CCR, they'll make sure they have specific policy updates for us on each of those components.

And as you looked at, say, what happened on Broadway, the downtown district here, how do you explain to people what went wrong and why this they're still seeing this construction?

Yeah, it's it's a lot because we didn't know what was underground and there wasn't enough pre-planning.

So we want to make sure that what happens, what happened at Saint Mary's, what happened on Broadway isn't the case for all of our future bond projects, because we're going to continue to redo our streets, right?

Streets required maintenance.

And so we want to make sure the as built drawings occur so that now when we have record.

So this councilwoman or council person sitting here 20 years from now doesn't have the same problem that we're having today.

And they will be more maybe accessible and publicly so people can go in and see what's there.

Absolutely.

And is this, going to change the the cost of these projects as well as the timeline, you know, longer, earlier, maybe shorter on the back end?

That's our hope.

And so it might we might have to have additional dollars for projects, specifically big projects to ensure that we're getting enough research and analysis on the front end.

But what we're hopeful is that we're not sitting with open streets for an excessively long time, which really impacts residents and businesses.

And what kind of support do you think this has on council right now?

Talking to others?

I mean, I think everyone is excited to see some movement around public works, right?

We even even the mayor at our budget session that was mid-year talked about how can we incentivize projects to go faster?

So every time a small business, we talk to a small business and they're like, what we are like, what can we do to help support you for construction to like get the projects done faster.

And so we'll have you on when Broadway is done right off here.

Yes.

So it'll be like next week.

yeah.

Just next week.

No big deal.

All right.

Thanks very much.

Dr. Sukh Kaur councilwoman, district one.

Thanks very much for that.

Thanks for having me, Randy.

Schools may be out for the summer, but school districts are hard at work right now trying to come up with the money for things like teacher pay increases and for school security officers now required at each school by the state.

The state law.

Joining us to talk about that is Doctor John Craft, Superintendent of the Northside ISD.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you for to be here.

It's tough.

We can get to, raises shortly, but the issue of school security officers at every single school came up after Uvalde.

The state legislature didn't want to pass gun legislation, but they passed this, though.

How realistic is it that every school will have a security officer?

Yeah.

So let me begin, with House Bill three as it was, authored.

I think it was well-intentioned.

Senator Nichols, representative Burrows, I think that put a lot of thought into the overall comprehensive safety bill.

Part of that is to provide armed security officers at every campus.

As you just articulated, the board of trustees and Northside ISD elected to use our own commission, police officers.

And so, as you well know, there's a shortage of police officers similar to the shortage of teachers.

And so it's become really challenging to fill the vacancies that we really need in order to be able to meet the letter of the law, i.e.

providing those officers across campus.

And so there's, what's called a good cause exception, which it seems like at least half the schools in Texas are going to have to use right now, because nobody can find enough officers.

That's correct.

Yeah.

So our board passed a good cause exception resolution, last year.

and what that outlines is, in essence, not only the lack of funding, because the legislation is not appropriately funded, adequately funded, but also, like I say, just a shortage of personnel.

and so that has caused us to create a rotation so that we have officers that are on campuses every day, but not through the duration of the entire instructional day.

And so, we've been creative to ensure, like, say, our own police officers, we're very fortunate to have our own police department.

Northside.

they contact, and spend time, on those campuses each and every day.

It's got to be frustrating because, as you mentioned, those not appropriately funded, it was basically an unfunded mandate.

The state said do this didn't really provide you with the money, but at the same time, they're sitting on this budget surplus that is not going to schools, and it'll be even bigger next year.

Do you expect to get more money next year for this, as well as for students?

Well, to be determined.

I think that this will be a piece of legislation that will be revisited.

the state did increase the school safety allotment, $0.18 per student to $10 and then a $15,000 allotment, per campus.

But that comes far short, about for us, $10 million short to fully fund just the maintenance and operations associated with everything outlined in House Bill three, whether this will be increased, in what form?

Whether it comes through formula funding is really going to be, to be determined.

we'll be, looking at a legislative session here in January.

And I think that this, along with school choice vouchers, along with increasing the basic allotment, potentially property tax compression, again, home affordability across the state, Texas, are all going to be important topics that will have an impact.

Basic allotment meaning per student spending for the state didn't go up at all last session and it hasn't gone up in some time.

It's been stagnant basically for ten years in terms of, you know, inflation.

Do you expect it to go up because, you know, Governor Abbott pushed for school vouchers for three sessions, didn't get it.

But then he says he now has enough legislators to to push for that.

Well, we'll see what happens in November.

we need to navigate obviously, the general election.

I do think that, there is going to be this somewhat of a, contentious debate in regards to leveraging school choice vouchers, with the increase in a very much needed increase in school funding.

So, again, to be determined, I think that a lot of it will be contingent upon what happens in November.

A lot will be contingent upon what happens to House leadership, particularly with the speaker, race.

and then we'll, we'll we'll see.

I do think that, without some form of school choice, it's going to be really difficult, particularly for House legislators, to really push any type of sizable, much needed, increase to the basic allotment or some form of school funding the increase.

In the meantime, you have to deal with budgeting at the same time, pay raises for teachers or even incentive pay.

Any kind of increase for teachers is been increasingly tough for all districts here.

Some aren't, some are.

You are?

Absolutely.

And, we just feel like it's so important to not only, acknowledge the hard work that our particularly classroom teachers are putting in each and every day.

but from a recruitment and retention standpoint, we just felt like we needed to go ahead and, and, and push the envelope knowing that we're going to be in a deficit budget again.

And that's one of those things people are going to hear about and say, wait, now, these school districts, many of them are going to be in a deficit situation.

Is that even possible?

it absolutely is.

In fact, this upcoming fiscal year budget will include probably between a 95 and $100 million deficit budget.

luckily, through financial planning, from a long term standpoint, we're in a position that we can weather the storm for a year.

But beyond that, we're going to have some real challenges, and we're going to have to look at programing.

We're going to probably have to look at personnel, to make ends meet.

and so we're hopeful, and like I say, we're to some degree hedging a bet that the legislators are going to acknowledge this incredible need, which we have not seen an increase in school funding since 2019, sizable, increase, that they're going to come through, and that will help us, like, say put together the future year budgets, going forward.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

And good luck with that.

Doctor.

John Kraft, superintendent of the Northside ISD.

Thanks.

Thank you.

On reporters roundtable this week, we're talking about a couple of issues dealing with water around San Antonio.

Joining us to talk about that is Lindsey Carnett, who is an environment reporter for the San Antonio Report.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you for having me.

First of all, this week, the council is voting on some proposed new rules by the San Antonio water system.

That should, well do a number of things.

First of all, what are what are these changes that we may see giving the council?

Well, the biggest one is that the way that, solves finds people for watering when they're not supposed to change.

So currently, the way that salt does that is by giving you municipal ticket, you have to go down to the county courthouse and, deal with it there.

Now, they're going to just you rectly on your bill.

That way they can do everybody that they serve, not just folks that live in San Antonio.

the other big one is drip irrigation.

They will be changing.

How often of, the week that is allowed.

So it'll go from being allowed every day to three days a week.

Lastly, they'll be changing how they align their stages so that they align more with the Edwards Aquifer Authority.

And the, the mayor has been talking about developers and that they should be more in line.

They should be or are, restrictions or policy should be more in line with what developers are doing as we grow so quickly.

where are we on that?

What may happen, at least down the road if not right now?

So, the mayor is saying that we definitely need to impose more restrictions on developers as much as they're allowed to irrigate, because they come in with these new houses, put down sprinkler systems that use a ton of water, and are watering every single day.

and then they get these little, you know, tickets that are slap on the wrist to them.

They don't care because they're trying to sell these homes for hundreds of thousands of dollars versus, you know, a $100 ticket.

so they don't care.

So they're trying to change the mayor saying we should change how, we regulate the developers allowing their irrigation.

And is it really going to change if you say instead of a citation, a ticket, you have to go down and pay?

It's just going to be on your bill.

Some of those same people, developers or people who just individually want to go ahead and pay, it actually makes it easier for them if they don't mind that fee.

But are the fees going up?

That is a great move.

Yes.

So the surcharge is also going to be a part of this.

So Sars's implementing a surcharge once it is in stage three.

So people that water during stage three outside of the rules and regulations will be charged a increasing fee depending on how much water they're using, outside of what is allowed.

And right now we're getting some rain this week, but we are historically or low fairly historically low for the aquifer as well as some of the lakes around here.

So this is an important issue.

Definitely.

water is always going to be an important issue for us here in central Texas, where drought strikes is really hard.

And we've seen that the last few years.

even with the rain that we've had this year, we're still historically very low.

And another kind of related, topic to this is from the state legislature and some of the changes they made to, what's called the extraterritorial jurisdictions of cities and what they can and can't do in those extra aerial ter extraterritorial jurisdictions if the people don't want to.

And that will affect water and water quality as well.

What is, what's happening there?

Sure.

So, a Senate bill that passed this past session was the 2038 Senate bill that, basically allows people living in an ET to, to be exempt from rules and regulations of the nearby city that they live near.

so that is also going to affect how they protect their water sources on their land.

And already, you know, hundreds of people are filing for these exemptions to the tune of, you know, 17,000 acres of, land in the central Texas area is now exempt from rules and regulations that we're helping protect the Edwards and Trinity aquifers and those, you know, that a lot of development, a lot of land over the aquifer isn't developed yet.

That's going to be the sprawl out from here to Austin and here northwest.

and they just have to have either over 50% of the people in that area or 50% of the money ownership of that land.

Is that right?

Yes.

So 50% by the title, holders and that's it.

So it's really easy for these people to basically, get exempt from their EC regulations.

And there's talk of a, some kind of amendment to that bill.

What could that look like, and would it be likely?

Yeah.

the environmental advocates for the area are saying that there should be, you know, people should be held to those standards even if they, apply for this as far as it goes to water protections.

the legislature also showed that they know that these protections are beneficial because they gave people, that are 15 miles away from a military radius, not being allowed to apply for this.

So it shows they know it's beneficial and, you know, they give a specific reason for that or it was just implied that, well, it's important to the military.

So we'll do it.

Yes, the latter for sure.

And the greater Edwards Aquifer Authority, Annalise and peace and others, they are really pushing for some changes in this bill.

Yes.

but that's really, I guess, one of the only lobbies against all the developers who are going to be lobbying the state.

Yes.

That's correct.

So, developers are very much in favor of this, right?

It gives them more space to just go by state and county regulations, which tend to be a lot less stringent than, city regulations.

So developers, you know, are probably going to jump on this.

And already we're seeing that already.

Annalise a piece and.

Yeah.

Rachel Haynes, the person who did this study, they're all saying that this is going to be potentially very bad for the Edwards aquifer.

which, again, is where we get most of our drinking water here in San Antonio.

All right, well, I know you have a lot to report in the next few weeks, months, years.

Thank you very much.

Lindsay Carnett, who is an environment reporter for the San Antonio Report.

Thanks.

Thank you.

And thank you for joining us for this edition of On the Record.

You can see this show again or any previous shows.

You can also download the podcast.

Just go to klrn.org and search for that.

I'm Randy Beamer and we'll see you next time.

On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Dufilho