Thursday, July 16, 2026, 10 a.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall
This was the Austin City Council's first work session on the proposed FY 2026-2027 budget, held July 16, 2026. Mayor Watson laid out the budget calendar, including work sessions on July 22, 28, and 30, a public hearing and maximum tax rate setting on July 30, amendment filings by August 4, and budget adoption August 12-14. Roughly two dozen members of the public testified on items one and two, most urging full funding of community violence intervention, social services, harm reduction, and immigrant legal services, while others urged fiscal discipline and taxpayer protection. City Manager T.C. Broadnax and budget staff presented the $6.6 billion all-funds budget, including a $1.5 billion general fund, a 3% civilian wage increase, a living wage of $22.15/hour, $13.3 million in reductions/reallocations, and a $5.1 million reduction to social service grants. Council members questioned staff on housing vouchers, police budget increases, debt service growth, sales tax trends, and reserve levels. The Council then adopted, without objection and with Council Members Fuentes and Harper-Madison absent, a motion setting the budget public hearing for July 30, 2026 at 3:00 pm at City Hall.
0:06 You are watching a meeting of the Austin City Council with Mayor Kirk Watson, Mayor pro, tim cheadle,
0:16 Vela council members Natasha Harper Madison, Vanessa Fuentes, José velazquez, Ryan Alter, crystal lane, Mike Siegel, Paige Ellis, zoe
0:39 cadre, mark uchin, city attorney, deborah thomas, city clerk erica brady, and city manager tc broad.
0:59 Well, good morning everybody.
1:00 I'll call to order the Austin City Council meeting for this work session on July 16th, 2026 at it's 10
1:07 o'clock in the morning.
1:09 Uh, we have a quorum of the Austin City Council present, uh, and we have a new sound
1:14 system, so it sounds a little weird to me, but that's, uh, we, we'll get used to that,
1:18 won't we? Um, the, this is a work session.
1:22 It'll be our first work session on the budget.
1:25 I wanna say a couple of things.
1:26 One is, I want to say that, uh, last week, uh, Council Member Ellis, who now sits over
1:32 here, uh, she had a birthday, uh, so let's wish her a happy birthday for those that don't
1:41 know. Seated next to her is Council Member Velásquez, and I believe that we are celebrating his birthday
1:46 by having this meeting.
1:47 No, uh, next week.
1:48 Next week. Okay. Whole council agenda.
1:50 I'm so thankful that we plan.
1:51 Yeah. July 23rd works out.
1:52 Yeah. Good. Well, we want, we wanted to make sure it was a special gift, but let's start,
1:56 let's start celebrating it now.
1:57 We got a nice agenda, so, yeah, that's right.
2:00 Anyway, so, uh, this is the first meeting after, uh, we have had a little bit of break
2:04 from meetings. What I wanna do is run through a couple of things.
2:08 One is I wanna run through the schedule that we're going to have with regard to the budget
2:14 as Council Member Velásquez just pointed out.
2:16 Next week, we will have a work session on the 21st.
2:20 That will be a work session like we do in anticipation of a regular schedule, regularly scheduled council
2:26 meeting, and that will be on the 23rd.
2:28 But we also have a series of meetings that are set up so that we can discuss the
2:34 budget, the public can see the budget, and the public will have opportunity to comment on the budget.
2:38 So let me just walk through a little bit of that.
2:41 Uh, of course, today's July 16th, and we will have a, uh, budget presentation on the proposed budget, uh,
2:48 and it'll relate to all departments on Wednesday, July 22nd, beginning at 10 o'clock in the morning, we're gonna
2:56 hold another work session, and it will include the city strategic prior discussion on the city, strategic priorities
3:03 related to community health and sustainability, homelessness and housing, and social services contracts.
3:12 On Tuesday, July 28th, again, 10:00 am uh, we'll have another work session, and it will address items related to
3:21 economic and workforce development, mobility and critical infrastructure, and, uh, issues related to high performance in, in our
3:29 government. On Thursday, July 30th, at 10:00 am we will begin a work session that is focused on public safety
3:38 and, uh, any, uh, final strategic priorities.
3:42 Um, we will also, on that day, July 30th, at 3:00 pm we will have a public hearing on the
3:50 budget, and we will hear public comment related to the maximum tax rate on that date, we will
3:58 set the maximum tax rate, and I want everybody to understand that setting the maximum tax rate is
4:05 a requirement that the City Council, uh, needs to follow under the texas state's truth and taxation process,
4:13 in which the city's governing body publicly declares the maximum property tax rate, it will consider in the
4:20 upcoming budget process, and it has to be done by a vote of the governing body.
4:25 So we will begin that day at 10:00 am we will have the briefings, but we will also have
4:31 a public hearing at three o'clock that day.
4:34 And that day we will set the maximum tax rate on Tuesday, August 4th at 10 o'clock, we will
4:42 have, we have tentatively scheduled a budget work session in case there's the need for some additional time.
4:50 Uh, if we have final questions that need to be worked through or wanna try to address some
4:55 sort, sort of specific topic of interest, uh, we May not need that date, but it is scheduled,
5:00 so we'll have that on that date.
5:02 However, we're requesting that we set the goal of counsel filing proposed budget amendments and budget ifcs by
5:12 Tuesday, August 4th at 6:00 pm uh, that will give us some time for all the council members to see
5:19 them. It'll also give some time, hopefully, for the financial staff to look at those and, and create
5:25 any fiscal notes. I'll give more information, uh, to council.
5:30 Uh, it's on the message board, but there'll be more information about how you can file your budget
5:33 amendments, proposed budget amendments, and how you can file your proposed, uh, ifcs.
5:39 Uh, as we go along on Thursday, August 6th, we will have another council work session that begins at
5:47 10:00 am that will be when we discuss those potential budget amendments, and when we discuss the ifcs on
5:54 Wednesday, August 12th, Thursday, August 13th, and Friday August 14th, we are scheduled so that we can vote on the budget.
6:05 So Wednesday, August 12th, Thursday, August 13th, and August 14th, we will also, during that time, have a tax rate, public
6:14 hearing, utility rate, hearings, and budget and tax adoption, as I've, I've just indicated.
6:21 So that's the, the schedule, uh, in a nutshell, uh, I will do this over and over again
6:27 so that members of the public have more than one opportunity to hear me kinda lay that out.
6:32 It is also on the message board, uh, by, from a memo that I've put on the message
6:38 board in case anybody wants to go to that and look at that as well.
6:42 Um, we're getting ready to start, and the way we're gonna go today is we will have the,
6:48 uh, people that have signed up to give public comment.
6:51 First, we will hear from the speakers, and then we will go to the presentation from our, uh,
6:57 financial staff. One thing that I would point out to council is that one of the things we're
7:03 going to try, uh, maybe experiment with a little bit is, uh, in the past couple of years,
7:10 the number of questions and answers on the, uh, on the q and a board has gotten to
7:16 where it, it, it takes a whole lot of staff time.
7:19 There's a lot of redundancy in those questions there.
7:23 Um, a lot of give back and forth, back and forth.
7:26 And so one of the things that we're gonna experiment with is if you can ask your questions
7:33 here in these work sessions, what we'll do and, and, and keep in mind that you May have
7:40 a lot more questions than other council members.
7:43 Um, keep in mind, keep that in mind.
7:45 What I'm gonna try to do is I will try to keep time on that and we'll do,
7:49 like we've done in the past where we'll rotate, uh, probably with 10 minutes, uh, a 10 minute
7:56 question and answer period, and then go to the next Council Member.
7:59 But with the idea that we will come back to somebody if they haven't gotten their questions, uh,
8:03 answered. So with that, um, unless there's questions now of, of me on how we'll we'll conduct this
8:11 or any comments that anybody wants to make regarding what I've just laid out, we'll go to our
8:17 speakers and I don't see anything, any, so I'm gonna turn to the city clerk and ask you
8:22 to help walk us through this.
8:23 Thank you, Mayor. We'll start with item one, calling remote speakers first.
8:29 Nadia barbo.
8:36 Hi, this is nadia barbo from moms demand action dream together 2030, and I'm a resident of district
8:43 one. Today I want to emphasize the importance of fully funding the city's investment in community violence dvi
8:52 programs to reduce gun violence.
8:55 Um, we cannot reduce these programs by the amount proposed on Friday.
9:00 We need to expand our investment.
9:02 This work saves lives.
9:04 Community violence, intervention and prevention is an evidence-based practice, which is, um, undertaken by many cities throughout the
9:12 country. And Austin has done a great job of this in the recent years.
9:16 Um, driving down our homicide from, I believe 90 and 20, 21 to 55 last year.
9:24 Um, we can continue driving that number down with an investment in this upcoming budget, but we cannot,
9:32 um, save those slides if we drop the budget at the proposed amount.
9:37 Um, I have participated in some, um, efforts, um, with the trusted messengers on burton drive, and that
9:45 has, um, built community, it has increased the safety of individuals there, and I think we can do
9:53 more at the city.
9:54 Um, and I challenge the City Council members to, um, fully fund these efforts because the organizations that
10:02 are doing this work are integral to the safety of our community.
10:07 Thank you. And we have monica guzman for item one.
10:16 Monica, good morning, Mayor and council.
10:21 I'm monica guzman, policy director at gava.
10:24 Go. Austin, ba Austin first gava and gava resident again, meeting with council offices last week and thank
10:30 you and your staff for the opportunity.
10:33 We look forward to our meetings tomorrow and in the following weeks with the remaining council offices, we
10:39 urge you to invest in early childhood education and development, the workforce behind the workforce, while much is
10:45 now being funded by reagan, travis county, or rtc, there are three priorities that are not funded by
10:51 rtc and urge counsel to approve funding 75,000 sustained funding for the Austin travis county family childcare educator network
11:01 to, uh, in partnership with homegrown support strategies for home-based childcare, $100,000 for a program coordinator role at
11:09 boston economic development to sustain the city's commitment to home-based childcare and to build partnerships to ensure the
11:16 impactful network implementation already begun.
11:19 And it's fully realized, $325,000 implementation of a direct assistance program pilot for childcare providers.
11:27 Partner with homegrown thriving providers project to address their economic instability of home-based childcare providers caused by low
11:34 wages and their care, work and options affordability crisis.
11:38 In the current economy, many residents are facing difficulty invest 1.3 million in the family stabilization grant, providing an
11:46 opportunity for an improved quality of life for 80 households.
11:51 In the current political climate, climate, there is a daily threat of detention, excuse me, detention and deportation.
11:57 Residents are afraid to leave home for work, send their children to school, or even shop for groceries,
12:03 invest in immigrant support with 570,000 for legal representation services, and 250,000 for mental health services.
12:12 Invest $750,000 for implementation of a dedicated community health worker strike team that can engage and inform communities
12:20 on blue sky days and engage vulnerable communities during.
12:23 Thank you ms. And ms.
12:26 Next we have lily ann ortiz.
12:32 Lily, hello, good morning, City Council members, um, thank you for your attention and for listening.
12:41 My name is lily.
12:42 I wanted to speak today to you all because I care about the people and the places in
12:47 our city, and I wanna make sure that council members know what we know and what we, um,
12:54 you know, as simple residents on our own are learning and understanding.
12:58 So I now live in district two, but I used to live in district four.
13:02 I lived in district four for four years.
13:05 It was while I was living there that I began to really notice and care, um, honestly, quite
13:11 frankly, about people that were unhoused people dealing with mental health issues and gun violence because it was
13:18 very common to hear gunshots, which I was not accustomed to and hadn't experienced in Austin yet at
13:25 that level. So I'm a uu, a unitarian universalist.
13:29 We're a group of people who focus on social justice and what and interdependency and what we can
13:35 do to help. So I did my research, I did my homework.
13:39 I found the groups and the people that are doing what is called cbi work in Austin.
13:43 So really quickly, let's just talk facts.
13:46 It is a fact, right?
13:47 That cvi work has actually helped Austin decrease its violence.
13:52 We are assisting the police, we are assisting ems.
13:56 We are just as central and integral to the ecosystem as anyone else.
14:00 It is a fact that other cities in the nation are following the same models and doing the
14:06 same thing and showing results.
14:08 It is it, you know, common sense for us to not cut any money going towards community violence
14:15 intervention work. We are just as essential.