The city of San Marcos is offering an additional way for the public to engage with the city’s annual budget process.
The new budget interaction opportunities come in two phases. The first phase was the Balancing Act budget prioritization tool, which closed on March 17. The second phase, which will be open from May 1 to 15, will allow residents to propose how money should be allocated.
“This tool was sought as part of our commitment to transparency and collaborative decision-making, allowing residents to directly contribute their insights and ensure that our spending decisions are aligned with their needs, creating a more responsive and inclusive government,” San Marcos City Manager Stephanie Reyes wrote in a press release.
The Balancing Act tool allowed residents to rank their top 10 priorities from a list of 26 topics such as community safety, housing affordability, public transit and more.
The second phase will utilize a budget simulation tool to allow residents to give their opinions of real-word scenarios and the trade-offs that go into balancing a city budget.
According to Trisha Patek, budget manager for the city of San Marcos, increases in staffing for the city’s finance are allowing to increase focus on community engagement where they previously have not been able to.
In the past, the public was able to provide feedback on budget proposals during public comments at city council meetings and work sessions, as well as by contacting members of the city council directly. The city hopes the additional ways to participate in the budget process will make it more accessible for San Marcos residents.
“We hope that this tool would also be another way for people to engage with the budget and the way that we decided to structure it was so much of the budget is tied to the strategic plan,” Community Resource and Engagement Coordinator Grisell Perez-Carey said. “So let’s launch this priorities tool to really ask for people to give us their priorities based off of the strategic plan, and then that information will be shared with city leaders as the budget kind of takes shape.”
According to Patek, the city also has “dream sessions” which are sessions where residents can openly communicate their desires for the budget process.
San Marcos Resident Chase Norris attends the San Marcos dream sessions. He said the sessions give him insight into the difficulties the city faces when deciding where to spend money.
“I went to the Community Development Block Grant dream session,” Norris said. “We were given a budget of $700,000 which is how much money the city is getting. It was challenging because San Marcos has a population of about 91,000 and 33,000 of them are in poverty. So if you do the math, that’s about $21 per person in poverty.”
The first real step of the budget process is to forecast how much money the city can actually budget for, Patek said. She said for FY2026, which is the year the city is currently budgeting for, the budget is expected to be lower than FY2025’s $342 million budget.
Patek said that means following resident recommendations this year would likely involve redirecting money and not spending more money.
“The idea of this tool this year is to get a sense from community members that participate, what kinds of things they’re looking for to see,” Patek said.
Patek said suggestions made this year will be kept so they can be used to make changes in the long term, not just for next year’s budget.
Norris said in the dream sessions city staff has made it clear that while they value the recommendations, the final budget allocations are ultimately up to city council to decide.
“We hope is that these things were taken into account when, when the decision makers put their stamp of approval on it or make any changes to [the budget],” Norris said. “But at the end of the day, if people are paying attention to this kind of policy, if you don’t agree with what the decision makers are making, they are elected.”
According to Nadine Cesak, San Marcos’ communications and IGR manager, the recommendations will also be used to make changes outside of the budget process.
“Even if there’s not dollar amount that’s tied to a priority that’s mentioned in this budget tool, if we get an overwhelming response from our community… are there other things that we can do within our acting capacity right now to help kind of meet that need or meet that priority?” Cesak said.
