Tuesday, July 15, 2025, 9 a.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall
The Austin City Council held a budget work session on the proposed FY 2025-26 budget, taking public comment first and then hearing City Manager T.C. Broadnax's presentation of a balanced budget despite a $33 million general fund shortfall. The proposed budget totals $6.3 billion across all funds, includes a 4% civilian wage increase with the living wage rising to $22.05, and uses $14.1 million from the budget stabilization reserve to preserve social service contracts for FY 26, with about $16.8 million in social service contract cuts planned for FY 27. Council members questioned staff on reserves, lagging sales tax, the living wage calculation, fire staffing restructuring, depletion of the housing trust fund, federal reimbursements, utility transfers, and IT spending. The Mayor clarified that the proposed budget raises the tax rate to the maximum allowed by law and requested manager alternative budgets at incremental tax rates up to about 8 cents. The council adopted, without objection and on a motion by Council Member Qadri with a second from Council Member Vela, setting a public hearing on the budget for July 31, 2025 at 3:00 pm, and the Mayor laid out the remaining budget timeline through adoption in mid-August.
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.