Tuesday, July 15, 2025, 9 a.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall
0:05 You are watching a meeting of the Austin City Council with Mayor Kirk Watson, Mayor pro, tim Vanessa
0:14 Fuentes, council members Natasha Harper, Madison, José velazquez, cheat, cheeto Vela, Ryan Alter, crystal lane, Mike Siegel, Paige Ellis,
0:37 zoe cadre, mark uchin, city attorney deborah thomas, city clerk erica brady, and city manager tc broad,
0:56 nine o'clock in the morning and I will call to order the Austin City Council budget meeting.
1:01 This is Tuesday, July 15th, 2025, and we are meeting at the Austin City Hall in the council chambers, which
1:09 is located at 3 0 1 west second street.
1:11 And we have, uh, all of the council members present, um, members and members of the public.
1:17 Uh, the way we will, uh, operate today is the first thing we're gonna do is we're going
1:21 to call up, uh, people that have signed up to speak as part of the public testimony and
1:27 public comment. Then we will take, have a presentation and discussion of the city managers, uh, proposed fiscal
1:35 year 20 25, 26 budget, and then we will take up item number two, which is, uh, to set public
1:42 hearings. That's the order that we will go in today.
1:45 Uh, with that being said, uh, let me just point out on behalf of, uh, the council and,
1:51 and for the public that's paying attention to this, uh, the count.
1:55 This council and our community have had conversations now over the, uh, past few weeks, and we will
2:02 have conversations, uh, and meeting multiple meetings over the next few weeks about this proposed budget and how
2:08 to navigate the current, uh, financial situation.
2:11 The city's facing. Uh, everybody up here knows that the city has very real needs and responsibilities that
2:17 need to be met.
2:19 Uh, everything from parks and libraries to safe neighborhoods, uh, to our unhoused neighbors, finding stability, and most
2:27 importantly, how people want to live in a city that provides them essential services.
2:32 At the same time, there's everyone up here has been working very hard, uh, to make sure that
2:37 Austin remains an affordable city, and recognizes that there are economic forces out there that, uh, are impacting
2:45 how our budget at the local level gets put together that we will have to address.
2:51 I think it's fair to say that there are at least th at least three lenses that we
2:56 will be looking at as we go forward.
2:57 One is the lens of transparency, making sure that we are, uh, providing the public with an opportunity
3:04 to look at everything.
3:05 That's one of the reasons you will see us talking about, uh, and, and using numbers that May
3:11 not even be numbers that ultimately, uh, become a part of what we talk about, but we want
3:15 all of it out there so that everybody will be able to assess that.
3:19 The other lens, of course, is affordability and how we, uh, build on the success of this council
3:26 and, and the manager's office in terms of helping to try to make Austin affordable, and of course,
3:33 of focusing on the, through the lens of the needs of our community.
3:38 Uh, we're at the very beginning of this process, uh, what the outcome of this process is like
3:45 no one, uh, should try to completely predict, but, uh, other than there will be a budget.
3:51 And, but the, this council is dedicated to following a very transparent, open process, and that's why you
3:58 will see us meeting so much, and you'll see lots of discussion.
4:02 So with that, I, I'll turn it over to our city manager, uh, to lay out and, and
4:08 begin the process of laying out, uh, the proposed budget manager.
4:17 Good idea. Let's have those that have signed up to public speak, and then I'll turn it over
4:22 to the manager. I'll look to the city clerk.
4:26 Thank you, Mayor doris adams, monica guzman, robin schneider, and scott cobb.
4:36 If your name's been called, please come down and state your name right into the podium.
4:41 If your name's been called, please come forward.
4:45 Mr. Cobb, I see you there.
4:46 Please, uh, take the microphone
4:53 after she does. It's all yours.
4:57 All mine. Okay. Good morning, uh, City Council members and Mayor Watson.
5:01 My name is doris adams, and I live in City Council district five, and speak today as a member
5:08 of undoing white supremacy Austin.
5:11 My remarks focus on the budget of the office of equity and inclusion, and particularly on the decrease
5:18 in the equity inclusion budget of 140,249 for, I quote, contractuals due to identified operational deficiencies.
5:28 This is a vague term used fairly often in the budget.
5:33 We are at us are concern that this decrease could affect the contracts for equities divisions to continue
5:41 conducting workshops such as undoing racism and latinx challenge that include both city staff and community members.
5:50 This concern has been heightened because since May in this budget cycle, these trainings have been paused.
5:58 The equity offices undoing racism and other workshops provided for years are one of the central strategies required
6:05 to effectively do the long-term inside outside work to uproot systemic ra racism embedded in our institutions, including
6:14 the city of Austin.
6:17 It brings city employees, and that's the government of the city.
6:20 It brings city employees and those in the community most impacted by racism together to do difficult work.
6:28 This is not your ordinary corporate working, ordinary corporate workshop.
6:33 It is a carefully curated multiracial space held by multiracial facilitators where people shared lived experience grapple with
6:42 internalized racism and understand the impact of racial prejudice and power, and ways of working together to undo
6:51 racism. Most importantly, people build relationships as a member of wildflower unitarian universalist church.
7:00 Do I do I I'm sorry.
7:02 Your time has expired you, and you took the two minutes.
7:06 No, that's all right.
7:07 Thank you very much for being here.
7:12 Hello, my name is scott cobb.
7:13 I work for the city of Austin as a lifeguard.
7:16 The top story on the new york times today says us inflation accelerated in June as trump's terrorists pushed
7:23 up prices. This is an avocado.
7:28 87% Of these are produced in mexico.
7:31 70% Of tomatoes are produced in mexico.
7:35 Trump has threatened a 30% tariff on mexico already imposed a 17% tariff on tomatoes.
7:43 Lower income people spend a disproportionate amount of their income on basics like food as opposed to higher
7:50 income people. We all eat the same amount of food.
7:54 What concerns me is the budget that proposed to you has a 4% increase for all basic pay
8:05 workers for the city of Austin.
8:08 However, the living wage only goes up 1.97%, so the people making $114,000, like ashley wells, the director of
8:20 aquatics, gets a 4% raise.
8:24 She's gonna be able to afford this avocado pretty easily if it goes up.
8:30 Lifeguards get a 1.97% raise from 2163 to 2205.
8:39 Last year, almost one year ago, Vanessa Fuentes submitted a q and a to the budget office, and
8:46 they said that next year, the living wage would go up to 22.28, a 3% raise.
8:54 It did not. It is 2205.
8:57 They also said the basic wage would go up 3%.
9:02 It went up 4%.
9:04 The last two years, it has gone up 4%.
9:07 The last two years, living wage has gone up 4%.
9:10 Why this year? Living wage 1.97.
9:16 Thank you, sir. Ms. Guzman.
9:26 Excuse me. Good morning, marion counsel.
9:30 I'm monica guzman, policy director at gava.
9:33 Go. Austin. Vau. I wanna start out by saying we did submit our budget recommendations in late May,
9:39 and an updated version will be submitted later this morning.
9:43 Um, I just wanna say, in order to have both an equitable budget and an economically stable, Austin
9:49 council needs to ensure a robust budget, despite the fact that the city is facing a massive dec
9:56 deficit. I, I understand that's a momentous task, but you need to remember to invest in the the
10:04 critical needs. While we do need our first responders, they are not the ones who support people who
10:11 need assistance when their rent is running late or they don't have the money to pay for groceries,
10:16 especially with the rising prices, as was just spoken about by the previous speaker.
10:21 Because of tariffs and inflation, we need you to ensure funding in our local childcare providers, the workforce
10:31 behind the workforce. They provide not just standard hours, Monday through Friday, eight to five or nine to
10:37 six. Some of them are also doing outside of that in the evening weekends overnight, which is important
10:44 for many city staffers such as our first responders who do not work those standard hours.
10:50 We need funding for the office of equity and inclusion, specifically the equity division investments, undoing racism, local
10:57 bipoc owned businesses to cater the equity action team meetings and restarting the equity assessments of city departments.
11:04 Continuation of the family stabilization grant is also needed, especially at this time.
11:10 And for Austin public health, we an investment of 500,000 for continued immigrant support, specifically legal and mental
11:18 health services, especially in the current political climate, and also $733,069, uh, for implementation of climate resistance and
11:29 disaster preparedness commitments, community health workers being part.
11:34 Thank you, ms. Guzman. Ms. Schneider.
11:42 Good morning, Mayor and council.
11:44 Robin schneider, also with undoing white supremacy Austin.
11:48 Um, if you look at the budget, it looks like there's a big increase in the equity and
11:52 inclusion, that new combined division.
11:55 Um, but with, uh, the handout that you just got, I looked at kind of what that increase
12:01 is, and more than 90% of it is, at least 90% of it does not relate to the
12:08 equity part of the budget.
12:12 It's, you know, great stuff, human rights division, um, anti hate crimes, public campaign, more money for accessibility.
12:21 Um, but, uh, aside from salary increases for the existing staff, it doesn't look like there's any expansion.
12:31 And I wanna echo what my colleague dee, um, doris adams said is that it looks like the only
12:36 cut that is proposed is 140,000 for contractuals.
12:42 It's unclear in the budget, kind of what that is, is that the undoing racism and latinx challenge,
12:50 uh, uh, workshops or something else.
12:53 It's not divided by what's equity, what's, uh, human rights, uh, what's the civil rights part.
12:59 So I would encourage you to press for more detail.
13:03 Um, I, um, I don't think that the staff in the division has had much opportunity to even
13:10 know what, what the budget, uh, includes.
13:13 So I think that we need more information so that both the staff and the community can know
13:18 what's, what's being cut, what's being increased.
13:21 There's some detail, but we need more.
13:23 Thank you. Thank you.
13:28 The last speaker for item one is michael lofton.
13:37 Welcome mr. Lofton. All right, good morning.
13:39 Good morning. Good morning.
13:40 Uh, Mayor Watson, uh, city manager, uh, all of our great city councils.
13:45 For those that don't know, I'm michael lofton.
13:47 I'm the founder and executive director for the african american youth harvest foundation, as well as, uh, the
13:53 harvest trauma recovery center.
13:54 Um, I'm a native austinite.
13:56 I've been here going on 68 years.
13:58 Basically, what I wanted to do is to share with the council that I have, uh, submitted a
14:04 increase, uh, in the budget for the harvest trauma recovery center.
14:08 And the reason being is that we are, uh, receiving three times our contractual, I was just putting
14:14 goal of clients is coming to see us, uh, on an annual basis.
14:19 And the concern that I have is, of course, the first year we were funded by the city
14:24 of Austin. This year we were funded by, uh, travis county, and the next year is to be
14:30 supported by federal support.
14:33 What I would like to ask council to do today is to consider making us a line item
14:39 in the city of Austin budget, because right now, we are seeing three x amount of clients that
14:45 we are funded for.
14:47 It's a struggling act, and I, I have sent data, but I would like to invite each and
14:53 every one of you to come out and tour the resource center.
14:56 And also, not only just look at the data, but I would like for you all to talk
15:00 to the actual clients that we are serving, because I think that at the end of the day
15:06 would garner the support.
15:08 I, I hate to say this here.
15:10 Uh, just this past week, uh, we had a client, uh, of course I won't give names, but
15:17 we had a client that came to us, uh, of the 61 clients that came and areas of
15:24 suicidal ideations. Uh, we had 12 that we had to do an intervention on and have 'em to
15:30 go to, uh, emergency hospital.