Wednesday, February 4, 2026, 10 a.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall
Committee: Public Health Committee
The Public Health Committee, chaired by Council Member Fuentes, held public comment, approved its December 3, 2025 minutes, and heard a presentation from the Office of Budget and Organizational Excellence (Daniel Colletta and Director Carrie Lang) on the city manager's comprehensive review of the social services portfolio, including peer-city benchmarking, a three-tier contract evaluation framework, and a planned $16.8 million reduction in FY 27. Assistant City Manager Stephanie Hayden-Howard provided historical context on the city's social services funding. Six nonprofit leaders and agency representatives testified in opposition to the 10% retroactive contract cuts and a planned $1 million cut to I Belong in Austin eviction prevention. The committee discussed and approved, without objection, a chair's recommendation directing the city manager to create a comprehensive rubric using the Austin-Travis County Community Health Assessment, to explore sustainable funding sources and cost savings, and to conduct regular community engagement on the social services restructuring. Briefings on the homeless strategies strategic plan and the 2025 Community Health Assessment were deferred, the latter to March.
0:01 Thank you.
0:08 Alright. Good morning everyone.
0:10 I called to order this meeting of the Austin City Council public health committee.
0:14 It is 10:03 am on Wednesday, February 4th, 2026, and we are in City Hall council chambers.
0:22 Welcome everyone to our February public health committee meeting.
0:26 And, uh, we are joined today with our vice chair Council Member uchin, as well as Council Member
0:31 Alter is joining us online and also joined by Council Member crystal lane.
0:36 Uh, our other committee member Council Member Velásquez is not feeling well and we send him a swift
0:42 recovery as he gets better.
0:44 So thank everyone for joining us.
0:46 We have a packed agenda today.
0:48 Uh, we'll start with first with our public communications.
0:51 Then we'll move to considering the approval of meeting minutes from our December 3rd committee meeting.
0:56 From there, the committee will hold an important discussion and possible action on the city manager's comprehensive review
1:03 of the city's social services portfolio.
1:06 Then we'll receive a briefing on our homeless Austin homeless strategies and operations offices strategic plan for fy
1:15 25 26. And then we will have a briefing on the 2025 Austin travis county community health assessment.
1:23 Any questions on the agenda?
1:27 Okay, well then we will now move on to public communications.
1:29 Well welcome speakers from the community.
1:31 May the clerk's office please start us off with the first speaker.
1:34 Yes, if I can have dewey smith.
1:39 Yes. Good morning. I'm dewe smith.
1:42 Thank you for having me.
1:44 I'm an engaged Austin resident and a board member of the safe alliance.
1:48 I'm here to comment on item two.
1:51 I come as a steward of this organization in a constituent, deeply invested in the future safety and
1:57 health of Austin. To be very clear, the social services portfolio you are considering cutting is not supplemental
2:05 to Austin safety, safety infrastructure.
2:08 It is central. Safe operates at the intersection of public safety, public health, and community stability.
2:15 When the system works, it's difficult to tally what didn't happen.
2:19 A family that stayed housed, a survivor, a sexual assault or domestic violence who avoided emergency medical care,
2:26 a child who never entered foster care.
2:29 Those outcomes must be planned for.
2:31 They are the direct result of sustained intentional investment.
2:35 And right now, that investment feels as though it's at risk.
2:40 From a governance standpoint, the greatest danger is the compounding impact of instability.
2:46 Survivor safety systems cannot be paused and restarted when specialized staff leave.
2:51 When clinical capacity shrinks, when survivors lose trust in where they can go safely for help, those losses
2:59 take years and significantly more funding to rebuild.
3:03 Austin became a national leader because it invested early and consistently in survivor-centered infrastructure that created resilience across
3:11 our entire public safety ecosystem.
3:14 Eroding it now will not create savings.
3:17 It'll simply shift those costs to hospitals, law enforcement, housing systems, and most importantly, to the families in
3:23 crisis. Defunding survivor safety is not a neutral choice like water, electricity, e, and emergency response.
3:30 This is infrastructure that must work.
3:33 The moment is needed.
3:35 In closing, as you finalize the fiscal year 27 budget, I urge you to please treat safe and
3:41 social services as core risk mitigation infrastructure for this city.
3:46 Stable funding is not about growth, it's about preventing irreversible loss.
3:51 Thank you in advance for your thoughtful deliberation and for joining us in taking the long view of
3:58 austin's safety and help.
4:00 Thank you. Up next, I'll have dr.
4:04 Pierre bernstein,
4:15 chair Fuentes, members of the committee.
4:17 Thank you for letting me speak.
4:18 My name is dr.
4:19 Beta and I serve as the ceo of the safe alliance.
4:22 We are the largest provider of services for survivors of domestic sexual violence, sex trafficking, and child abuse
4:28 in the south and among the three largest in the united states.
4:32 I want to begin by acknowledging that just last week we heard and learned of the murder of
4:36 the denise tiina killed by her boyfriend.
4:39 We often say that one death is too many, but those words must be matched by the budget
4:45 choices that we make.
4:46 Budgets are moral documents.
4:48 They show who we are willing to protect and who's suffering.
4:52 We are willing to endure and absorb later at far greater cost.
4:56 This year's $145,000 cut to save translates to about $500,000 lost for us.
5:04 And it means that 345 survivors of domestic and sexual violence and their children will go without support.
5:11 Naming denise here matters because it shows what happens when, when we defund early intervention, people do not
5:20 disappear. They show up later in other systems when harm is greater and costs are higher.
5:28 In fact, this year's cut to save alone will shift an estimated 3.5 to $7 million in cost to
5:37 other public systems. That is a negative return of $29 to $57 lost for every dollar that we've
5:45 cut. That's not just a moral failure.
5:49 It is a fiscal one.
5:51 Saves work is an act of love, and it is also sound economic policy because it prevents avoidable
5:57 crisis spending. Looking ahead, my concern is the stability of core infrastructure that Austin relies on.
6:05 For example, we operate a city-owned shelter serving about 550 people a year.
6:10 The city contributes $2.1 million, but the true cost is closer to 3 million, which safe covers through philanthropic funding.
6:20 Our results speak for themselves.
6:22 Nearly a hundred people in safe shelters transition to a hundred percent of people in our shelters transition
6:28 to stable housing. By comparison, the city run marshaling yard is funded at over $8 million a year, and
6:34 it has housing exits around 30%.
6:37 Safe also conducts 85 to 95% of all sexual assault forensic exams in travis county.
6:44 We currently are carrying an $800,000 shortfall just to keep the program operating this year with no funding
6:51 secured beyond it. That leaves austin's forensic backbone one budget cycle away from collapse if it fails, exams
6:59 revert to hospitals and law enforcement within 30 days.
7:02 These are the conditions the city has spent years working to correct.
7:06 Safe is not alone as a member of one voice, central texas.
7:10 I can tell you this strain is being felt by organizations serving elders, immigrants, people with disabilities, and
7:16 families across the city.
7:18 We are just a microcosm of a system under compression.
7:21 Thank you for your time.
7:25 Doctor, if you wouldn't mind, would you share that data that you've got, the numbers that you shared
7:30 a moment ago with, uh, the public health committee?
7:33 I'm sorry, would you mind repeating the question?
7:35 Sure. Would you mind, you just shared a bunch of numbers regarding and and data that you put
7:39 together regarding the impacts of the cuts and the work that you do.
7:43 Can you share that information with the public health committee?
7:46 100%, Absolutely. I would also invite you to read, uh, a five page letter that I sent to,
7:51 uh, all of you, uh, further detailing these cuts.
7:54 But absolutely my office will send this to yours, uh, and to all of you.
7:58 That'd be great. Thank you for time.
8:01 Up next, we'll have dr. Rose.
8:03 Maria. Maria,
8:12 welcome.
8:21 Good morning. I'm dr. Rosa maria murillo, and today I'm here as a chair of one voice, central texas,
8:29 a coalition of over 80 nonprofit health and human services organizations who together employ over 8,000 central texans
8:41 and provide essential services across Austin.
8:45 Our organizations help keep Austin healthy house and working.
8:51 Today, I am here because the city reduced social services contracts by 10%, about $5 million retroactive to October 1st, 2025.
9:05 This is forcing immediate service reductions, breaking trust midstream.
9:12 We are requesting four things.
9:14 First, no further cuts to social services contracts.
9:19 Second, conduct an impact assessment of the current reductions.
9:25 Third, facilitate a budget cycle work session on social services, infrastructure and outcomes.
9:32 That includes providers at the table.
9:36 Fourth, convene a cross sector engagement that includes the city, the county, central health, philanthropy, and community to
9:45 develop stabilization, innovative ways to achieve, uh, equity and stabilization in Austin.
9:55 Let me just be clear that these cuts are not future.
9:59 They're retroactive. It is not, uh, a situation where agencies can plan.
10:12 Staff were already hired.
10:16 Programs were already offered to the community, and residents were told help was available.
10:23 Then funding was cut,
10:29 retroactive cuts, trust, retroactive cuts, break trust and force immediate crisis.
10:39 On top of that, the city reduced the I belong in Austin eviction prevention by $1 million.
10:46 That is a 25% reduction.
10:50 And pause. The project connect community initiated solutions procurement, which delays community design pathways to stabilize and in
11:02 and decrease the displacement that is happening our, in our city.
11:08 We understand fiscal con constraints.
11:12 Believe me, we live that every day, but we are alarmed that the impacts have not been fully
11:20 assessed, especially as we hear that next year there will be a
11:37 up next we'll have dr.
11:38 Aaron aorn, followed by verron verda durden and sharon vigil.
11:46 Your name has been called.
11:47 Please feel free to come to the front.
11:49 Grab a seat.
11:56 Do I, I thank you for the opportunity to speak.
12:02 My name is dr.
12:03 Erin alarcon and I come to you as ceo of fili elder care, a nonprofit organization serving Austin
12:09 for 44 years. Vice chair of one voice, representing more than 80 health and human services nonprofit, and
12:16 most importantly, as a fierce advocate for asking older adults our parents, neighbors, veterans, and long-term contributors who
12:25 are too often overlooked in policy priorities.
12:28 The data is clear across the nation and here in texas, including Austin, social services for older adults
12:36 are under resourced and failing to meet demand at the federal level, about $39, about 2.37 billion nationally, which
12:45 is about $39 per older adult per year.
12:49 Hardly enough to find the nutrition, transportation, caregiving supports, and in-home services.
12:56 So many rely on locally.
12:58 That poor funding translates into people waiting years for services that would allow them to at home.
13:05 Texas has one of the largest home and community-based services waiting lists in the country.
13:11 These waiting lists are not just names.
13:14 They represent real lives at risk, older adults being denied the support needed to avoid nursing home placement
13:23 or homelessness. What's more disturbing is that homelessness among older adults in central texas increased by 70% in
13:33 two years at family elder care.
13:36 Our financial advocacy program provides tailored financial tools and case management that help older astronauts age in place.
13:45 Our data shows that 85% of our clients report that if not for our services, they would not
13:53 live independently. Yet, this program faced a 10% cut this year and is threatened with deeper reductions next
14:01 year. Social isolation and loneliness among older adults are widespread and underdressed approximately one in four older adults
14:10 over the age of 65 report feeling socially isolated or lonely.
14:15 Isolation is linked to higher mortality, dementia, cardiovascular disease, and frequent hospitalizations.
14:23 Our in-home counseling program directly fights isolation.
14:28 These two suffer a 10% cut and faces farther.
14:32 Funding risks. This committee has the power to change outcome for Austin seniors.
14:39 I urge three immediate actions, no further cuts to social services contract funding, especially program serving older adults.
14:48 What we invest in now prevents far greater costs.
14:52 Later, engage the stakeholders to evaluate funding models that focus on return on investment programs like ours.
15:01 Save taxpayer dollars.
15:13 Good morning council members.
15:15 My name is veranda durden and I serve as ceo of any baby can.
15:20 I'm here today on behalf of the ready families collaborative, a partnership of eight trusted community rooted organizations,
15:28 communities in schools, Austin pbs avan, the jeremiah program, the literacy coalition safe alliance, the ymca and any
15:39 baby can for more than 11 years, the ready families collaborative has delivered coordinated evidence-based services to families
15:49 with children ages zero to five, who are living 250 cent below the federal poverty, poverty level.