Thursday, August 7, 2025, 9 a.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall, 301 W 2nd St, Austin, TX 78701
0:09 You are watching a meeting of the Austin City Council with Mayor Kirk Watson, Mayor pro, tim Vanessa
0:18 Fuentes, council members Natasha Harper Madison, José velazquez, che Vela, Ryan Alter, crystal lane, Mike Siegel, Paige Ellis, zoe
0:41 cadre, mark uchin, city attorney deborah thomas, city clerk erica brady, and city manager tc broad
1:01 on August 7th, 2025, and I will call to order the Austin City Council budget work session for this date.
1:08 Uh, we have a quorum of the City Council present and one, um, Council Member is, is joining
1:14 us virtually. We are meeting in the Austin City Hall in the City Council chambers, which is located
1:20 at 3 0 1 west second street.
1:24 Uh, so welcome everybody.
1:26 What we're gonna do today is the way we'll start this is we will start with our speakers
1:30 that have signed up to provide us with public comment.
1:33 Following those speakers, the council will go into a closed executive session, uh, pursuant to the texas government
1:40 code. When we come back out from that executive session members, what I anticipate we will do is
1:47 we will walk through, uh, proposed amendments and, and ifcs.
1:53 That's what this meeting has always been on the calendar for, is for us to have the opportunity
1:57 for us to lay out for our colleagues what proposed amendments and what proposed ifcs we might have
2:03 in the past. This has gone fairly routinely, but it's just an opportunity to get it out and
2:08 get it, uh, more transparent.
2:11 Um, the, the order that I would suggest we go in is that if there are any amendments
2:16 to the base budget, we start with that.
2:20 It is my understanding that there aren't any proposed amendments specifically to the base budget, that any of
2:27 the proposed amendments are amendments that would go beyond the voter approval rate and therefore be part of
2:33 a proposed tax rate election.
2:35 But I wanna say that out loud before we, you have something you want to, I have some
2:42 amendments that are revenue neutral.
2:44 Uh, then that's, that's exactly where I was headed.
2:46 Good. Uh, not exactly where I was headed, but that, that's helpful because what we might do is
2:51 take those up first, just the, the, the standalone amendments that are, because that's, that is functionally equivalent
2:59 to the base budget, I think.
3:00 So that, that gets to my point.
3:02 So thank you for that Council Member.
3:04 So what we'll do is we'll do that first, then we will go and, and what I thought
3:08 we would do is go lowest to highest, at least in terms of pennies, uh, for the, for,
3:14 for proposed amendments to the budget related that, that would take us above the voter approval rate and
3:21 therefore are related to, uh, potential for a tax rate election.
3:25 And then finally, I would, um, uh, we'll, we'll take up what I will just refer to as
3:32 other amendments. Those other amendments would be amendments that would not be, that are not in part of
3:39 any, uh, person or sub quorums proposed tax rate election amendment.
3:45 Uh, they're standalone and we'll take those up.
3:49 Uh, and at that point we will also take, take up after that any proposed items from counsel.
3:56 And, and again, the way we've done this in the past, it's worked out well is you just
4:00 lay out your amendment.
4:01 If somebody's got questions about it, they can ask it, but it's, it's, we're not debating this today.
4:07 We're just laying out the amendments to get them out there before we go to our speakers.
4:12 One other thing that I wanna mention, uh, related to this, this budget work session is that last
4:19 Thursday, I guess, well, no, I've lost track of my day.
4:22 So I guess it was Tuesday.
4:23 Uh, it wasn't all the way back to last Thursday.
4:25 It was last Tuesday.
4:27 The audit and finance committee, pursuant to the policy that has been adopted by the Austin City Council,
4:34 the audit finance committee met in a special called meeting of the audit finance committee.
4:39 And in that, in, at that meeting, the audit and finance committee passed a resolution, recommend making a
4:46 recommendation to the council, and, uh, so that we can get that on the record at a council
4:50 meeting, I want to, to read the motion that was made, seconded, and adopted by the audit and
4:57 finance committee unanimously and sent to the City Council.
5:00 The motion was that the Austin City Council audit and finance committee, having considered the policy of the
5:05 City Council and found that the items set forth in the council's decision tree have been met and
5:12 certifies to the council that these items have been met recommends to the full Austin City Council that
5:18 a tax rate election be conducted subject to the decision of the council regarding the actual conduct of
5:23 the tre and any amount.
5:26 So I wanna get that, uh, on the record as well.
5:29 So with that, unless there's questions or objection, uh, members, we will go to our public comment and
5:37 I'll look over at the city clerk's office and ask them to help us with that.
5:40 Thanks everybody. Thank you Mayor.
5:42 We'll start with remote speakers.
5:44 First we have denise baldwin.
5:52 Good morning, Mayor and council members.
5:54 Can you hear me?
5:55 Yes, we can. Okay, perfect.
5:59 My name is denise baldwin and I'm speaking on behalf of the success by six coalition.
6:04 First, thank you for your continued commitment to austin's children and families, your investments in programs like family
6:10 connects, which provides home visits by skilled nurses for families with new babies homegrown, which is supporting a
6:17 new family-based childcare network and a social service.
6:20 Contracts that support early childhood services are making a huge difference in the lives of our youngest residents.
6:26 Today I'm asking you to support the amendment to include funding for pre-k startup costs for two additional
6:31 classrooms. These funds are critical to help cover essential one-time expenses.
6:35 Early childhood classrooms are basically like a nice cte lab for littles, uh, classroom furniture, materials and curriculum,
6:43 all of that so that more three and four year olds can access high quality full day pre-k
6:47 in their neighborhoods. We also ask that you prioritize the family stabilization grant and continue to fund family
6:52 connects. This investment helps working families, support school readiness, and lays the foundation for long-term academic and economic
6:59 success. I myself have lived in Austin since I was five years old, and investments like this will
7:04 continue to make Austin a great place to raise kids.
7:06 Thank you for your time and for prioritizing the success of austin's children and families.
7:14 Next remote speaker is ivana neri.
7:21 Hey, good morning council members.
7:23 My name is ivana neri.
7:24 I am senior director of partnership startup together and a resident of district four.
7:29 I'm here to ask you to continue funding the family stabilization grant at $1.3 million, uh, an initiative that
7:36 you funded for two consecutive years and that is working.
7:40 Last week you heard from more than 20 people who showed up to, um, share their stories and
7:46 the real impact that this initiative has had just in the last, uh, 12 months from preventing families
7:52 from falling into homelessness to completing degrees, to improving educational outcomes for their children.
7:58 The family stabilization provides a stability.
8:01 It helps families to stay housed, reduce debt care for loved ones, and plan for the future.
8:07 It keeps people out of crisis and give them a chance to move forward.
8:10 And let's be clear, the cost of inaction is way more expensive than the cost of prevention.
8:16 When families fall into crisis, the city actually pays more in emergency housing, healthcare and public systems.
8:23 Family stabilization grant, um, helps prevent that.
8:27 It's not charity, it's a small, uh, smart, smart policy.
8:31 We need your leadership today, especially from district 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 your support.
8:37 Who make a d the difference.
8:38 Early this year, we worked to the feet at the, at the capital, then build 2010, protecting your
8:44 right to fund initiatives like this.
8:46 The decision today is yours.
8:48 If keeping a hundred families stable doesn't qualify as a strategic investment, then I don't know what those.
8:54 Thank you. Next speaker is nancy harris.
9:04 Good morning Mayor and council members.
9:07 My name is nancy harris and I'm here on behalf of keeping recycled reeds in the budget.
9:12 Library management has said they're working to make sure that what has made recycled reeds unique is replicable
9:18 throughout the system. They're missing the point of what makes it unique and valuable.
9:24 Most of us have heard the expression the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
9:28 This is the idea that when individual elements are combined, the resulting whole processes qualities, possesses qualities or
9:35 capabilities that the individual elements do not have on their own.
9:39 This is the concept of convergence and recycled reeds definitely is an example of this.
9:45 Its current form where patrons can find thousands of items in one location where they're categorized and alphabetized
9:51 is in no way, in no way compares to those same items spread out over 21 branch libraries.
9:58 Recycled reads is a destination for citizens who go there to buy books and other material.
10:03 People go to libraries to check out books or use the computers and perusing the sale books is
10:08 usually just a diversion.
10:10 Libraries staff is justifying closures saying the new recycled reeds will be more efficient and economical.
10:17 But what is efficient about asking people to go to 21 locations?
10:22 Management says it would reduce some of the costs associated with storing and transporting material to this location.
10:27 However, the library system already has a place to store materials and it's called recycled reeds, and it
10:34 already has an inter-library transportation system in place to convey materials from one library location to another.
10:42 We will be losing a well used well of service to the citizens of Austin whose integrity will
10:46 be destroyed by splitting it into fractional parts.
10:50 Some of the types of material that recycled reeds candles is not mainstream yet.
10:54 Patrons of recycled reeds are thrilled to find out, to find the ordinary and the unexpected.
11:00 The branches do not have the time or space to accommodate many of these materials.
11:05 This is not an expansion at all, but have fragmented.
11:07 Thank you, nancy. Your time has expired.
11:09 Recycled reeds unique and thank you, nancy.
11:15 Our next speaker will be chip harris.
11:26 Chip harris.
11:34 We'll try to get mr. Harris back.
11:38 Next speaker is beverly luna.
11:44 Hi, my name is beverly luna.
11:45 I'm with Austin, lost and found tess.
11:47 We're an 80, 87,000 member group that tries to reunite, lost and found tets in Austin and travis
11:54 county. We also try to do things that are actually the job of animal services in Austin, including
12:01 finding temporary fosters to take in stray dogs until they can get into the Austin animal center, which
12:07 is awai generally until until October I'm extremely concerned about the proposed cut that animal services is proposing
12:17 to cut over $400,000 from its budget for emergency vet services paid to an emergency vet for sick
12:24 and injured animals bound outside of shelter hours.
12:29 They're proposing to shift more of their job to the, to the public, including this burden of taking
12:35 care of the sick and injured animal.
12:37 This is a core public service and also it's not really a budget cut.
12:41 They're proposing to add two highly paid administrators and other physicians that our group cannot bear this burden
12:51 anymore. We do fundraisers at times to try to get help for sick and injured animals, but the
12:56 cost of vet care has become so enormous.
12:58 You're just gonna have dogs and cats out there that are suffering and dying in the streets, uh,
13:04 because they can't get vet care because the Austin animal center wants to cut it from the budget.
13:09 But the reason those animals are out there is generally because the Austin animal center five years ago
13:15 stopped following the law and stopped picking up stray and injured animals.
13:20 That's why they're out there.
13:21 They're getting hit, they're starving to death.
13:24 I was on the task force to come up with a, with a strategic plan for the Austin
13:29 animal services and nowhere that anyone mentioned that they needed more administrators, it was discussed that they needed
13:37 more vet services to get us out of this nightmare problem.
13:41 I strongly urge you to vote against this problem.
13:45 I would be happy to meet any of you speaker.