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The Houston City Council held the first in-person agenda session at city hall since the beginning of COVID-19.
The meeting was focused on Houston's Fiscal Year 2022 budget, which it approved after hours of debate.
"It’s good to be back in the chambers," Council Member Letitia Plummer said in a June 2 post to her Twitter account. "It’s a busy day for us today with public session, voting on agenda items, discussion/vote of amendments and then the voting on the budget itself. Stay tuned!"
Debates surrounding how the budget should be allocated became heated and involved various figures from around the community.
"You have to be practical and look at your city," Houston Police Department Chief Troy Finner said. "We need more police and we need much more funding."
Others disagreed and wanted there to be less of an emphasis on law enforcement spending.
"I just think it’d be great to start reinvesting that money into housing and health care and putting money away from policing for mental health," said Christopher Rivera, a community outreach coordinator with the Texas Civil Rights Project.
There were also concerns that some of the money in the budget was coming from short term sources.
"I am ever so grateful for the $7.9 million that is being spent on much-needed police reform, something that I have been pushing since my last budget amendments, but the fact that the program is using American Rescue Plan Act funds tells me that that this again is a temporary fix," Plummer said. "It is a program that in three years has a potential of dying out. The 60,000 people who marched last year deserve better."
The $5.1 billion budget includes a pay increase for firefighters. Mayor Sylvester Turner stated that the biggest deficit in Houston history was a fair trade for the city not having to resort to layoffs or budget cuts. Abbie Kamin was the only council member to participate virtually, having recently given birth to a son.