What It Costs the City
CPS Energy pays the City of San Antonio $492 million a year — 29.88% of the General Fund, more than property tax. Here is where that money goes and what happens if it shrinks.
The largest single source of city money
The City of San Antonio’s General Fund took in $1,647,012,323 in FY 2025. The largest source is not a tax. It is the payment from CPS Energy — the utility the city owns — made in place of the property taxes a private company would pay.
| Revenue source | Amount | Share |
|---|---|---|
| CPS Energy | $492,160,673 | 29.88% |
| Property tax | $473,496,757 | 28.75% |
| Sales tax | $409,570,656 | 24.87% |
| All other sources | $271,784,237 | 16.50% |
| Total | $1,647,012,323 | 100.00% |
CPS Energy supplies more of the General Fund than property tax, and nearly five percentage points more than sales tax.Source: City of San Antonio
Where it goes: mostly police and fire
FY 2025 General Fund spending was $1,657,319,363 — already $10,307,040 more than revenue, before any change to CPS income. Public safety consumes just over 62 cents of every dollar.
| Category | Amount | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Public safety | $1,028,255,224 | 62.04% |
| Other operating departments | $435,617,822 | 26.28% |
| Streets & infrastructure | $118,669,152 | 7.16% |
| Parks & recreation | $74,775,484 | 4.51% |
Public safety is three departments, and Police ($609,081,560) and Fire ($397,685,356) are about 98% of it. No other category is big enough to absorb a large shortfall — the biggest single department outside public safety is the Library, at $53,712,232.Source: City of San Antonio
What a reduction would actually do
Because CPS supplies nearly 30% of revenue and public safety consumes 62% of spending, a cut to the CPS payment lands on police and fire by arithmetic, whether or not anyone intends it to.
The scenarios below reduce only the CPS line, hold every other revenue source constant, close the entire gap on the expense side, and allocate the cut pro-rata by each category’s share of spending. It is straight-line arithmetic, not a forecast: it does not account for fixed costs, contracts, collective bargaining, or the existing operating deficit.
| Measure | FY 2025 | CPS −5% | CPS −15% | CPS −75% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPS Energy revenue | $492,160,673 | $467,552,639 | $418,336,572 | $123,040,168 |
| Revenue lost | — | ($24,608,034) | ($73,824,101) | ($369,120,505) |
| General Fund retained | 100.00% | 98.51% | 95.52% | 77.59% |
| Public safety reduction | — | ($15,267,630) | ($45,802,891) | ($229,014,453) |
| Public safety % cut | — | 1.48% | 4.45% | 22.27% |
A 5% reduction
Removes $24,608,034. Public safety absorbs $15,267,630 — a 1.48% cut. For scale, public safety grew $64,489,953 between FY 2024 and FY 2025, so this erases about a quarter of one year of growth. That is the kind of gap closed by holding vacancies open or deferring an academy class rather than by cutting service.
A 15% reduction
Removes $73,824,101. Public safety absorbs $45,802,891 — 4.45%. This is past what growth-trimming covers: it consumes 71% of the entire FY 2024–25 public safety increase and is more than double the whole Parks Police budget. Because Police and Fire are 98% of the category and their costs are overwhelmingly personnel, it lands as smaller academy classes, hiring freezes, overtime restrictions, or station brownouts.
A 75% reduction
Removes $369,120,505 — nearly a quarter of all General Fund revenue. Public safety absorbs $229,014,453, a 22.27% cut. There is no version of this that is absorbed administratively.
The part that is easy to miss
If households save money on electricity but the city loses this revenue, the money has not been created. It has been moved. It comes back as property taxes, sales taxes, or fewer services — and the households that save the most under competition are the ones who shop hardest, while the costs are spread across everyone.
All figures are FY 2025 actuals from the City of San Antonio OpenGov transparency portal. Departmental figures sum to $1 less than the category total due to rounding in the source. See Sources.