Nothing took up more time at Thursday's meeting than the city's proposed $500,000 fund for women's reproductive health.
Although the newly created fund constituted just $500,000 of the budget, no topic was discussed with more emotion, nor took up as much time at Thursday's meeting. Whyte held up the budget vote for a half hour as he tried to tack on an amendment that would exclude groups that offer help accessing abortions from accessing the fund. Ultimately, he and District 9's John Courage were the only members to support that amendment.
In the end, Whyte was the only member who didn't vote in favor of passing the budget, instead opting to abstain.SAPD's $621.1 million in funding is an 8.5% increase from last year and the largest paid out in the department's history. Some of that money will go toward the department's San Antonio Community Outreach and Resilience Effort, also known as SA CORE, which response to mental-health crisis calls.