CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Time is ticking for city leaders to come up with a solution after last week's proposed billion dollar capital budget failed to get enough votes.
Corpus Christi City Council will get another change to pass it during Tuesday's council meeting, but what if that doesn't happen?
The next fiscal budget is set to go into effect Oct. 1, but if leaders can't agree on a solution, a no-vote could essentially impact everything from street improvements to park projects. A big chunk of the pie is supposed to go to water projects including funding for desal.
Last week's vote on the capital budget failed 5-4.
City Manager Peter Zanoni remains hopeful this week's vote will be different.
"A week has gone by, we think that tomorrow we'll se a favorable outcome," he said.
Zanoni said he and city staff have spoken to council members who voted against the budget last time in order to help answer any questions they might have.
If council fails to reach a decision again, the charter states that the current year budget would stay in place resulting in a loss of millions of dollars and cuts to proposed projects.
"Today's capital budget is $700-million, the proposed is $1 billion so we would have to make some decisions on what gets funded, what doesn't get funded," Zanoni said.
"There would be a lot of messiness, decision making outside of the council realm."
There are 272 projects included in that proposed Capital Improvements Budget, 59 of which are currently not under contract.
Zanoni is not recommending taking any of the projects out of the budget.
A big chunk of the proposed funding, about 70 percent, would go to water and wastewater projects.
"It does include new water sources, our Inner Harbor Desal Plant has $200 million in that first year of the capital budget, a significant amount, but does provide water security much of what we need today," he said.
At-large City Council Member Jim Klein explained to 3NEWS why he voted no.
"My opposition just underscores how important I think this desalination question is," he said. "This is going to be a tipping point, it's going to turn us in one direction or another, and we have a very difficult, but also important decision to make regarding that."
3NEWS reached out to Councilman Mike Pusley who also voted against the proposed budget at the last council meeting.
He said he had a number of questions about the budget which he has since worked with city staff on and said most of his questions have been answered.
Whether that translates to a yes vote, we'll have to wait and see.
If council votes it down again, they could call a special or emergency meeting in the weeks between now and their Oct. 1 deadline.