The details
The city has been making numerous efforts to lower its projected $330 million budget shortfall through its voluntary retirement program and consolidations of city departments. As part of this effort, Finance Director Melissa Dubowski revealed during a May 7 Budget and Fiscal Affairs presentation that the city requested department heads look at their budgets and see what can be reduced by 10% in their budget, which could save costs and bring more efficiencies to the departments.
“It was definitely not an across-the-board reduction,” Dubowski said. “Each of the department directors looked at their budgets and made a determination about what reductions they could make without impacting services.”
According to the presentation, departments such as the Houston Parks and Recreation, Houston Public Library and health departments saw large budget reductions, resulting in $16.1 million in savings for the city.
More details on what was cut from these budgets are expected to be discussed during each department's individual budget workshop this week.
Budget workshops will take place throughout the next two weeks, and during those workshops, department heads will explain why they made certain cuts to their budgets, Dubowski said.
What else?
The Department of Neighborhoods’ general fund budget was slashed by half, going from $14 million to $7 million, according to the proposed budget.
Dubowski said this is because of code enforcement operations moving from the Neighborhoods department to Houston Public Works, saving the city $7 million.
