IGR reviews draft 90th state legislative program emphasizing infrastructure, military protections and education

Sally Basurto, the city's director for government affairs, presented the draft 90th state legislative program and said the version before the committee incorporates prior IGR feedback. "These 4 priorities remain the same," she said, listing transportation, municipal utilities, local fiscal authority and Military City USA protections among the program's anchors.

The presentation included infrastructure and resilience items (flood mitigation, data-center impacts), a new community-development statement backing higher education investment and a public-health item that folded violent and nonviolent prevention language together and added behavioral-health/diversion-center support. Basurto said the government affairs team will pursue bill-tracking and individual council briefings as filing begins in November.

Council members praised the work but asked for more detail and one-pagers before full council consideration. Several members pressed for explicit funding asks for transportation projects (particularly downtown infrastructure) and for more data on health-system capacity and gaps in South and East sides of the city. Basurto said staff will return with district-level project lists and continue to refine language before the Oct. 7 IGR recommendation to council and the Oct. 29 session-level action.

The committee asked staff to provide more granular bill tracking and to schedule one-on-one briefings so council members can prepare for the full-council vote.