Where do Your Property Taxes Go? Community Initiative in SA

A Recap of City of San Antonio revenues and spending. So $1,074.42 of your property taxes goes to the City of San Antonio.

The City of San Antonio receives revenues from several sources: Property taxes (25%), Charges and fees (20%), Revenues from Utilities (17%), Grants (usually federal) (15%), Sales Tax (14%), Hotel/Motel Tax (4%), Other Taxes (Short Term Rental Tax, Bingo Tax, etc) (2%), Fines (Library Fines, Traffic Tickets) (1%), Miscellaneous (1%), Intergovernment (0.6%), Permits/Licenses (0.4%)

The 2010 Budget for the City divides general fund expenditures in the following ways: Police (36%), Fire/EMS (26%), other services (Aviation, Community Initiatives, Historic Preservation, Solid Waste Management, Military Affairs, etc) (11%), Convention, Tourism and Culture (9%), Streets and Infrastructure (7%), Environmental (5%), Parks & Recreation (6%), Agencies (4%), Library (3%), Health (1%), Municipal Courts (1%), Neighborhood Services (1%), Economic Development (0.5%), Animal Care (0.5%). I will take you through each of these items in separate posts. If you feel that you have a better way to spend the money you can post your suggestions on the online Budget suggestion box for the 2011 budget.
(For links to all items in the CSA budget, see past posts.)

The Community Initiatives department is responsible for helping to form government-community agency partnerships to promote economic self-sufficiency, stonger families and to enhance the quality of life for children, families and seniors.  Community Initiatives promotes programs like Project Cool that provides fans for senior citizens, Making Connections, an Annie E. Casey foundation program that helps to improve the lives of children on the west side, Haven for Hope, the new homeless shelter campus that also provides job training and medical and dental services to help the homeless to become economically independent, and free smoke detectors. 

Community Initiatives also keeps tabs on agencies using government funds to make sure the money is being used properly.  If you represent a nonprofit agency that would like to partner with the city fill out the delegate agency form that applies to your mission.