City of Austin Council Message Board

Colleagues,
As we move through the budget process, we must preserve our ability to meet the many needs our community faces. While the state and federal governments increasingly abandon their responsibilities to the public, Austin remains focused on serving its residents. To do that, we are going to have to make meaningful investments across a range of areas – parks, homelessness, public safety, and housing – just to name a few.

As discussed today, the first step in this process is setting a maximum tax rate at a level that allows for us to have this public conversation and weigh priorities. This means setting a maximum possible tax rate on Thursday that preserves our ability to fund any of the proposed budget alternatives put forth by the Manager, even if one or more of those is higher than the rate we ultimately adopt. In then crafting the final budget, we believe the Council will likely need to look in the upper range (5-7 cents) of the proposed alternative budgets to provide the essential services the public expects and deserves.

We look forward to working together toward a final budget that meets the moment and meets the needs of our community. We can’t afford anything less.

Sincerely,
MPT Fuentes
CM Velasquez
CM Vela
CM Alter

Dear colleagues, 

We write to express our support for a tax rate increase that ensures our City can maintain the quality of our programs and services, and that meets the needs of our community. 

We believe that means a tax rate increase of 7 pennies per $100 of property valuation. 

We knew this time would come. The 3.5% property tax cap imposed by the Texas Legislature in 2019 has now made its full impact over six years, limiting our ability to meet growing community needs—especially as new construction slows, the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) cliff is here, and volatile sales tax revenues fall short. We can no longer rely on an unstable framework of one-time funding and unpredictable revenue streams to fix and sustain core services. 

These state-imposed restrictions are now compounded by sweeping federal disinvestments: Austin Public Health has been cut nearly in half, with reductions tied to 650 positions providing essential services like vaccinations and disease surveillance. At the same time, $50 million in federal funding for flood protection was slashed, cancelling upgrades to critical utility infrastructure that supports over one-third of Austin’s power and water capacity—even as our region faces increasingly frequent and severe flooding. And we think it is safe to say this is only the beginning—these reversals have come before the Trump administration’s first year is complete.

Our duty as a body, as defined by state law, is to provide for the public health, safety, and general welfare of our community. We can do that—despite the harmful actions of our state and federal governments—only if voters approve a sufficient tax increase. 

We believe that the City of Austin can show up for our community and demonstrate how we can care for each other. That we can keep parks and pools open; that we can respond to emergencies in an effective and timely manner; that we can improve climate resiliency while creating green jobs; that we can repair roads and keep pedestrians and bicyclists safe. That we can do the things that make Austin a special place for so many of us. 

MPT Fuentes, CM Velásquez, CM Vela, and CM Alter—thank you for kickstarting this conversation so we have time to deliberate as a collective dais on the critical choice we face this Thursday.

To all of our colleagues, please let us know if you support this proposal. We look forward to the discussion ahead.

In community,

Mike Siegel, District 7
Zohaib “Zo” Qadri, District 9

Dear colleagues,

Writing briefly to clarify the number of positions threatened by federal cuts at Austin Public Health. As the Statesman reported yesterday, federal grants supported 51% of the health department's 650 positions in FY25, which informed our post. That said, per City staff, the current draft budget reduces grant-funded FTEs from 328.5 in FY25 to 278 in FY26.

Mike