Proposed City Budget Raises Taxes and Utility Bills, but Doesn’t Spend Enough on Priorities, Advocates Say

City Manager T.C. Broadnax (photo by Katherine Irwin)

Austin’s budget is officially balanced – which is an accomplishment for a large Texas city this year. It places a strong emphasis on retaining city workers by providing them an across-the-board 4% salary increase. It continues investments in the airport and convention center. And it includes $121 million for affordable housing projects.

But social justice advocates say the budget unveiled by City Manager T. C. Broadnax last week shortchanges community needs and unnecessarily spends $18 million more on police. This spring, local activist Kathy Mitchell helped organize an array of community groups to create an alternative budget – the Community Investment Budget – with $79.5 million worth of requests. These include $15 million for neighborhood resilience hubs, $10 million for emergency rental assistance, $4.5 million for the city’s inclement weather shelters, $2.4 million to hire parent support specialists to help keep kids in school, $2 million for park maintenance, and much else.

Mitchell said Broadnax’s proposed budget doesn’t adequately address these needs. She considers it a product of recently departed interim City Manager Jesús Garza, who activists say was a roadblock to reform.

“Mr. Broadnax just arrived, and this budget was no doubt mostly done before he even finished moving into his office,” Mitchell said. “Jesús Garza has set him up. But Mr. Broadnax doesn’t need to own this artificial austerity. He needs to listen to the community and then prepare a serious revision to this budget.”

There is time for that to happen. Though most of Broadnax’s proposed budget will undoubtedly make it into the final product, the document is just the beginning of the public portion of the process. Citizens will be able to comment and ask questions about the proposal on the city’s Q&A message board for the next two weeks. On July 24, City Council will hear input from community groups. On Aug. 1, it will hold a public hearing. From Aug. 14 to 16, it will finalize and adopt the budget, which will go into effect in October.

The city described the $5.9 billion budget in a press release as prioritizing affordable housing and city services. The proposal bumps the property tax rate to 44.93 cents per $100 of taxable value, which would raise the city portion of the average homeowner’s property tax bill by about $100 a year. It also increases city fees for electricity, water, trash pickup, and other services by $170 a year per household. Council Member Mackenzie Kelly argued against the hikes in remarks after Broadnax’s presentation. “Over the next few weeks, I’d like to see a strong effort to finalize a budget that includes no increase in property taxes and utility bills,” she said.

Other Council members reacted differently. Alison Alter agreed on the need to increase pay for city workers but worried that park maintenance funding is “going backward.” Vanessa Fuentes said she was thrilled to see some of the community’s priorities receive funding, singling out the $3.6 million allocated to make the city’s tenant assistance program permanent. But she said not enough was being spent on homelessness and recommended that the Council incorporate more of the suggestions in the Community Investment Budget.

The groups behind the CIB, including Austin Mutual Aid, Go Austin/Vamos Austin, Texas Harm Reduction Alliance, and others, sent out their own press release after the budget reveal. They applauded the proposal’s funding for rental assistance but said the amount appropriated is half of what had been promised. They acknowledged what they called a “modest increase” for EMS to fund non-police responses to 911 calls involving unhoused people and those experiencing a mental health crisis, but said the increase is less than what is needed. They also noted that no new money seems to have been allocated for the city’s Climate Equity Plan, sustainable food plan, and park maintenance.

And they wondered why Broadnax felt compelled to offer more money to the Austin Police Department when APD can’t hire enough cadets to soak up the funding it already has on hand. “We don’t know why $18 million has been added to the police budget, and that doesn’t even include some undetermined amount for a future police contract,” Chris Harris of Austin Justice Coalition said. “This increase in the police budget simply adds more unusable dollars to the department’s surplus.”

The advocates also argued that Broadnax’s proposal constitutes an “austerity budget” that only allows Council $4 million of discretionary spending. “We are not broke,” Yasmine Smith of the Austin Area Urban League said. “What we need is a city prepared to use our hard-earned taxpayer dollars on the priorities that unite people across this community: assistance for the most vulnerable, functioning parks, libraries, community centers, the right first responders for different kinds of crises, and long-term commitment to an effective inclement weather ecosystem that reflects the utmost respect of humanity and lived experience. These programs work. They stabilize families and help people get back on their feet. It is time to put our money where our mouth is.”