Tuesday, November 18, 2025, 9 a.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall
The Austin City Council work session of November 18, 2025 covered two main items: an update on the fire tentative agreement with the Austin Firefighters Association, and a briefing on proposed amendments to the FY26 budget following the failure of the Proposition Q tax rate election. On the fire item, city labor relations staff asked for and received direction from the Mayor and council to seek a return to the bargaining table to address issues raised by the AFA's proposed charter amendment on four-person staffing and budget limitations, with multiple council members stating they could not support the contract while the charter amendment was pending. The budget briefing detailed a roughly $110 million general fund revenue reduction, proposed reductions across departments, a 10% cut to non-HSO social service contracts, and use of reserves. Public comment included calls to cut police vacancies to fund social services, EMS, and mental health response, and appeals to protect specific programs. No budget votes were taken; the council emphasized priorities of EMS and homelessness services and directed staff to propose funding sources, with further meetings scheduled for November 19-25. Item B-1 (PUD briefing at 1100 W. Cesar Chavez) was postponed to December 9.
0:08 You are watching a meeting of the Austin City Council with Mayor Kirk Watson, Mayor pro, tim Vanessa
0:17 Fuentes, council members Natasha Harper Madison, José velazquez, cheeto Vela, Ryan Alter, crystal lane, Mike Siegel, Paige Ellis, zoe
0:40 cadre, mark uchin, city attorney, deborah thomas, city clerk erica brady, and city manager tc broadnax.
0:59 Good morning, everybody. It's nine o'clock in the morning on November 18th, 2025, and I will call to order the
1:06 Austin City Council work session.
1:09 Uh, we have, well, I can't really call us to order.
1:16 There are two coming up right now.
1:17 Okay. Hang on one second.
1:19 Council Member Siegel was, oh, he's here.
1:22 He's here. Oh, there he is.
1:24 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6. We got, we have a quorum present, so I will, uh, go ahead and call us to
1:29 order. What I'm gonna do is, uh, I'll walk through what the, uh, the plan for the day
1:36 is. Uh, we also have an Austin energy oversight committee meeting, and we're gonna take it up before
1:43 we actually take up the substance of the work session.
1:46 But I wanna walk through what the day will look like so that everybody will know.
1:51 Um, as soon as we get through this little informational part, I will turn it over to chair
1:58 Vela, who is chair of the Austin energy oversight committee.
2:01 We will take up that item.
2:03 Once that is complete, then we will come back and I'll, we will reconvene the Austin City Council.
2:10 And, and that is when we will, uh, hear, we will hear the issues for briefing and we
2:17 will hear from speakers.
2:18 Uh, what we will do is we will call the speakers up on the item.
2:24 So, uh, we, I know we have somebody signed up, for example, on, uh, item forty eight forty eight.
2:29 We will call somebody, call that person up at that point in time.
2:33 I also wanna say for the record that item b one, which is a briefing regarding the development
2:38 assessment for a proposed plan unit development, or pud, located in 1100 west ces chavez street, um, and
2:47 north lamar boulevard within the lady bird lake watershed urban watershed.
2:51 That item is postponed.
2:56 So if you're paying attention, because that's the briefing you wanted to hear about, that item will not
3:00 be taken up today.
3:03 Um, once we are finished with the budget discussion, we'll go to the budget discussion after, uh, after
3:09 we hear, uh, and the way we're gonna do the budget discussion is I will have, uh, our
3:16 professional staff come up.
3:18 Uh, I will have a couple of questions just to set things up, at which point we will
3:23 have a presentation from them, and that's when we will go to the speakers because we thought it
3:29 was in the best interest of everyone to hear what the presentation is before the speakers, because it
3:33 May change what you think or what you say.
3:38 I also wanna say for the record, and I will say this over and over again, many of
3:42 you that follow stuff like this, uh, religiously will get tired of hearing me say this, but I'm
3:48 going to say it over and over again because I'm trying to get notice out to everybody, is
3:52 that in addition to the meeting that we're having today, we're going to have additional opportunities for the
3:58 public to speak on the proposed budget amendments tomorrow, starting at 10 o'clock in the morning, we have
4:05 a council meeting, which will begin with a presentation on the proposed amended budget, and it will continue
4:12 at 3:00 pm with a public hearing on the proposed amended budget.
4:17 So on Wednesday, we will have another presentation on the budget, and at three o'clock we will have
4:24 a public hearing on the proposed amended budget.
4:27 If you're interested in speaking on the proposed amendment budget, amended budget, I highly encourage you to do
4:33 so at the 3:00 pm public hearing tomorrow on Wednesday online, online registration for that meeting closes at noon
4:43 today with in-person registration closing tomorrow at 9:15 am lemme say that again.
4:51 Tomorrow, Wednesday, we will have a public hearing on the proposed budget amendments at three o'clock online registration,
5:03 online registration for that meeting, uh, closes at noon today with in-person registration closing tomorrow at nine 15
5:14 on Thursday the 20th.
5:16 So the day after tomorrow, starting at 10:00 am we will have a council meeting at which council will
5:22 be taking up the items to vote on amending the budget and adopting the updated tax rate ordinance
5:29 in res in response to prop q not being approved, we will be taking speakers on the 20th
5:36 as well. That's looking like it's going to be a long council meeting.
5:40 I just want to let everybody know that's why I'm highlighting, and I wanna continue to highlight the
5:46 opportunity for people interested in speaking on the budget amendments to do so at the public hearing tomorrow,
5:53 the 19th, if you can.
5:56 We also have posted council meetings for Friday, the 21st, this coming Friday, Monday the 24th, and Tuesday
6:05 the 25th. However, for members of the public, I want to emphasize that those meetings will only be
6:12 held if the council does not get to the needed number of votes in favor of the proposed
6:18 budget amendments beforehand. In other words, on Thursday.
6:23 And, and as a result of not having the needed number of votes, we will have to have
6:28 additional meetings. So we, we have posted those meetings for the budget ordinance to pass by the required
6:34 votes. If council gets the needed votes before any of those meetings, we will be canceling those remaining
6:43 meetings. So, in other words, if the council has all of the votes to pass on all three
6:48 readings, the budget on Thursday, then we will not have the, the meetings that are, that we're posting
6:55 for Friday, Monday, and Tuesday that is being done to make sure we're properly posted and make sure
7:02 we're in a position to vote on the budget amendments.
7:06 Also, on the 20th, if the count, which, which is Thursday at the regular meeting, if the council
7:14 can't get to a vote on the amend amended budget before the end of the day, which is,
7:19 uh, 10 30, if the council can't get to the amended budget, uh, vote on the amended budget
7:28 before the end of the day, we would recess that meeting to the next day, which is Friday,
7:34 which we have done before.
7:37 But it is not the custom and practice of this council to vote on big items like this
7:43 late at night. Uh, we are, we will come back the next day if that happens.
7:50 If we recess the Thursday meeting in order to come back on Friday.
7:55 If that happens, we will cancel the separate meeting posted for Friday so that we don't have two
8:01 overlapping meetings. And if we recess, there will not be speaking again on Friday.
8:10 The speaking for the Thursday meeting will occur on Thursday.
8:15 Uh, to sum up, if you want to be guaranteed an opportunity to speak on the proposed budget
8:19 amendments, and you're not signed up to speak today, um, you can speak at the council meeting on
8:26 the 19th or the 20th, but I highly encourage that you sign up and speak, uh, Wednesday, which
8:35 is tomorrow, and again, o online registration for that meeting closes at noon today with in-person registration closing
8:44 tomorrow at nine 15.
8:46 Council members, any questions before we recess and yes, member, tim?
8:51 Yes. The fire contract, when will that briefing take place?
8:54 It will, will take place after, um, we do the Austin energy oversight committee meeting.
9:00 Okay, very good. Thank you.
9:01 Alright, and, and I wanna make sure, uh, apparently I didn't say what I was in my head,
9:07 which probably is a good thing most of the time.
9:10 Uh, but in this case it's not.
9:12 And that is the item that I indicated was being postponed.
9:17 And for the record, that is item b one, which is the pud briefing.
9:22 The development assessment assessment item b one will be postponed to December 9th.
9:29 It will be postponed to December 9th.
9:32 With that, unless there's objection, we will recess at 9:09 am the Austin City Council work session.
9:39 So that, uh, the Mayor, uh, the chair, chair Vela will be in a position to call to
9:45 order the Austin energy oversight committee meeting, uh, without objection, we are recessed at nine oh nine, call back to
9:53 order at 10 o'clock.
9:54 The 10:00 am the work session of the Austin City Council members, as I've indicated, uh, what we'll do
10:01 now is we will have a briefing with regard to the budget, uh, proposed budget amendments.
10:08 So I'm looking for any movement.
10:15 Well, that's right. We're gonna have, you're right.
10:16 Um, the fire contract.
10:18 Well, I hope they're that close.
10:20 Okay. Yeah. Um, uh, what we're going to do is, is we're gonna hear from the speaker on
10:25 the fire contract and, and that and that, because we don't have the need to take up the
10:31 briefing on that. Is that correct?
10:35 That, that that's the recommendation.
10:39 Why don't you come up and give us a brief status of where we are and, and that
10:43 that'll work. Please come forward.
10:56 Thank you, Mayor roxanne is stevens deputy labor relations officer.
11:01 Um, we have on the agenda today, uh, an item that was pulled from the regular agenda on
11:08 the, uh, fire tentative agreement between the city of Austin and the a fa.
11:14 Um, I do, it, it, I do have a presentation.
11:17 I'm not gonna go through it right now.
11:19 Um, what I'm gonna do is give an update, but the presentation that outlines all of the elements
11:24 of the tentative agreement that had been agreed to and were negotiated, are uploaded in the backup documents.
11:30 And I'll make sure that they're available to the public.
11:32 And the powerpoint that outlines all the summary of the tentative agreement is available to everybody.
11:37 And if you, you can look through that, and I will go through that at a later time.
11:41 Um, if there's any other questions, what I would like to do is give a brief update on
11:46 where we are with the tentative agreement.
11:48 Uh, we did negotiate that for a course of, um, 60 days that began on July 30th, and we
11:56 reached a septe, um, an tentative agreement on September 25th.
12:00 Uh, after we reached a tentative agreement, we agreed to mediation on a few details that we needed
12:05 to work out with regard to the major issues that we had agreed to.
12:09 The tentative agreement was published on October 24th, uh, 2025.
12:14 But upon the announcement of the, uh, tentative agreement agreement, uh, that we made on September 25th, 2025, uh, the
12:23 a fa had announced that they had launched a petition for a charter amendment regarding the foreperson staffing,
12:29 uh, that goes beyond what the current four person staffing ordinance is by including a significant budget limitation
12:37 that does not currently exist.
12:39 When we negotiated the tentative agreement, the city was under the understanding that we were addressing all outstanding
12:44 issues, uh, and moving forward into a new era of working together and cohesively with the a fa,
12:51 obviously, um, with the charter, proposed charter amendment, there are outstanding issues and the city would like the
12:57 opportunity to explore solutions to get us all on the same page and achieve labor peace with the
13:02 a fa and between the city.
13:05 Before the council considers the tentative agreement, we would like to seek direction, uh, from the Mayor and
13:11 the City Council to request that the a fa meet us back at the table at the bargaining
13:15 table to address the issues that are brought forth by the afas proposed charter amendment.
13:20 In an effort to resolve those issues through the collective bargaining process and the collective bargaining agreement, if
13:27 the a fa had an issue with the staffing, which is a mandatory subject of bargaining, we believe
13:32 as a city, that they should have brought it to the bargaining table as an outstanding issue, but
13:37 they didn't, and instead bypass a collective bargaining process without giving the city an opportunity to be able
13:42 to discuss and bargain the issue.
13:45 Um, although the tentative agreement was negotiated with the assumption that a four-person, uh, staffing ordinance would be
13:51 in place, the additional significant budget limitations sought by the proposed charter amendment was not considered in the
13:58 negotiations. The a fa only brought that proposed charter amendment after we had already, um, completed our negotiations
14:04 and announced a tentative agreement.
14:06 Uh, so what we're looking for today is that our recommendation, um, is number one, we did negotiate
14:13 a great contract, but there are still outstanding issues, and we would like the opportunity to be able
14:18 to try to resolve those, uh, within the collective bargaining process.