In a flash flood of dollar signs reminiscent of the tempest that assaulted
the city only a few days earlier, the council ratified next year’s $1.2 billion
budget in less than three hours on Monday, September 11. The plan, disapproved
of by Max Nofziger and Brigid Shea, is effective October 1. It will cost the
average homeowner an extra $33.45 in the next fiscal year, the result of a
half-cent property tax increase which will bring $1.2 million into city
coffers. Also, residential utility ratepayers will see an increase in the
transportation fee, offset by a decrease in the drainage fee.
Only Brigid Shea and Jackie Goodman attempted to stave off higher taxes,
the rest of the council holding fast to the city manager’s refrain that a tax
hike would prevent further deterioration of the city’s infrastructure. This,
despite the newfound availability of some $5.2 million in orphan money,
accumulated primarily through lower-than-expected employee health benefits
(saving $1.15 million), and a $3.9 million windfall in sales tax revenue due to
a change in accounting guidelines set by the Governmental Accounting Standards
Board which added an extra month of sales tax revenue to this fiscal
year.
With the latter overage, the city manager proposed establishing a
just-in-case capital reserve fund, in case next year’s expected sales tax
revenue takes a nose-dive. A city staff entreaty that the council safeguard the
cash for at least six months was challenged almost immediately. Just after the
meeting got underway, Goodman seconded a Shea motion that some of the fund
counterbalance the proposed tax increase. It withered quickly in the face of a
five-vote opposition.
Shea raised her hand again. The motion: Apply some of the
$1.65 million
in sales tax revenue previously earmarked for the baseball stadium to offset
the tax hike. The conclusion: a 6-1 slaughter. The rest of the council followed
the city manager’s plea to use $1.575 million of the money to acquire
right-of-way along Manchaca Rd., between Slaughter and Matthews Rd. The state
decided to begin extending the road this year; the city is legally obligated to
do its part. The other $75,000 will pay for undetermined amenities for senior
citizens at Bartholomew park.
The council’s decision to ask voters on Oct. 7 to spend $10 mil-lion in
general obligation bonds for the stadium, instead of issuing them this month
without voter approval, also preserved $800,000, the previously expected debt
service. The savings will be credited to the general obligation debt service
fund.
Back to the meeting. With a semblance of Shea’s frugality, Goodman threw in
her own two cents, a $46,000 savings transferable to the EMS operating budget.
Most were discovered by the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal
Employees (AFSCME), including a $38,000 cut from employee benefits in Public
Works and Human Resources. Goodman’s package passed unanimously, allowing EMS
employees more basic training, says EMS Jefe Sue Edwards.
Many of those employees – and all city employees “period,” says AFSCME Prez
Carol Guthrie – feel slighted that their suggested savings were not used for an
across-the-board, 3% raise. It would have cost $4 million; according to
Guthrie, the union found $6 million in savings, including the aforementioned
$1.15 million in reduced health care expenses.
They got nowhere on that, but Max Nofziger did proffer a motion to take
$185,000 from a test program that offers skill-based raises and use it for
longevity-based raises, meaning about 700 employees instead of 300 would see a
heftier paycheck.
Four departments offer the skill-based raises to some employees. Edwards,
whose department offers the prototype, presented a humorous and somewhat
frightening defense to retain the program: “Not everyone in the city knows what
their jobs are.” It didn’t work; the transfer passed with Gus Garcia, Bruce
Todd, and Ronney Reynolds opposed.
Next up was another Nofziger item: to use $40,000 from the capital reserve
fund to repair trees felled by the mini-hurricane that popped out windows at
the city hall annex shortly after the Sept. 7 council meeting. Todd said no
way, jealously guarding the reserve. Reynolds beseeched the council to wait for
a damage assessment from the Parks Department. Without missing a beat, Nofziger
casually pulled out a PARD memo calling for the replacement of 100 trees, a
$40,000 expenditure. Reynolds was stumped; the item passed, Reynolds, Mitchell,
and Todd against.
Reynolds gets credit for leading an uncontended charge to lower the
drainage fee, assessed on utility bills for drainage and erosion control. The
unanimously approved decision means $2.2 million less in revenue, a sum the
utility will reimburse from a fat reserve account that city auditors say has no
explicit purpose. As a result, residential customers will see their monthly
bill decrease from $3.82 to $3.30 a month. Business rates will fall from $45.84
for each acre occupied to $35.67.
The decrease will help offset an increase in the transportation fee, which
replenishes a fund used for street maintenance. The vote proved that all things
are possible at council chambers. Responding to implications from Shea that
past fees collected by the Transportation Department have not brought adequate
results, Reynolds said, memorably, “Brigid Shea is correct.” Both made
overtures for an audit of the fund. But a vote to suspend the increase drew
only the support of Goodman and Shea; Reynolds and Nofziger abstained, and the
rest of the council dissapproved.
The approval of other programs once marked for elimination accounted for
the $1.2 million tax increase. Shea voted thumbs-down for each one. They
include:
* A $300,000 expenditure to match a $1.65 million federal grant for 22 new
police officers.
* Almost $13,000 to perform taxicab inspections, an item pushed by Mitchell
to ensure that tourists have a pleasant experience with the city’s taxicab
franchisees.
* A $100,000 allowance to Jourdan-Bachman Pioneer Farm, about half what the
park got last year. The microcosm of life in the old days is currently in
search of additional funding.
* Around $200,000 apiece for the VICTORY tutoring program (Nofzig-er joined
Shea in opposition) and the David Powell AIDS clinic.
Late in the meeting, Mitchell called for an additional $20,000 from the
contingency reserve, to go to the Black Arts Alliance. Black artists have
traditionally received only a morsel of the city’s arts endowment. In fact,
blacks represented less than a 3% share of $1.9 million awarded this year.
Officials with the Parks Department, from whence the funds come, say the small
figure is due to a dearth of black applicants, 12 from a total of 181. Still,
on the average, black grantees received about $5,000 in funding compared to
around $12,000 for other applicants.
Nofziger argued that the Alliance should shoulder the blame; they’ve funded
just one artist in two years. After Nofziger’s rant petered out, Mitchell
replied civilly that black artists are discouraged from applying because they
know “the deck is stacked against them.” unanimously checkmarked the
increase, Nofziger was off the dais.
Finally, as the council readied to vote on the entire budget, Shea let
fly yet a third attempt to steady taxes. She asked for $500,000 from the
capital reserve, $571,000 in cuts proposed by AFSCME, and a $150,000 proposal
to axe one assistant city manager and his/her assistant. Shea opines that the recent transfer of one of the city’s biggest entities, Brackenridge
Hospital, to a private entity should result in less top-level staff. Staff says
not so, since hospital oversight was the domain of the city manager himself.
Shea did not propose cutting the city manager. Had she, her proposal would
still have failed without a second.
n
With the mayor in Washington attending an inter-governmental
relations conference, Garcia emceed last week’s regular councilmeeting, a drab
little affair that lacked much news value. All but two items passed on consent.
For one of those, the council, in their role as the Austin Housing Finance
Corporation, unanimously gifted six city-owned Eastside lots to a neighborhood
development entity, the Anderson Community Development Corporation. (Shea too
was in Washington for a sustainable cities conference.)
The ACDC wants to use the lots, at East 12th near Angelina St., for
duplexes, says Gene Watkins, former city housing director and a partner in the
proposed development. The duplexes will be proximate to, but separate from, the
ACDC’s proposed 75-unit development of single-family houses called the
Scattered Cooperative In-fill Housing Program II (SCIP II).
In opposition to the wishes of an adjacent Hispanic neighborhood,
represented by GAIN (Guadalupe Association of Independent Neighborhoods), both
developments will be rental, rather than owner-occupied. No GAIN members
attended the council meeting; perhaps because the meeting’s backup material
contained no information that duplexes, often considered multi-family housing
with less stable tenants, are now a part of ACDC’s plans.
This week in council: A week off. The next meeting is Sept. 28. n
This article appears in September 22 • 1995 and September 22 • 1995 (Cover).