Bond task force votes to roll climate-related projects into 2026 election

The city’s 2026 Bond Election Advisory Task Force has decided against pursuing a climate-focused bond election in 2025, opting instead to incorporate climate-related projects into a broader 2026 general obligation bond election. The decision followed discussion about funding availability for bond elections in consecutive years, the public engagement process for a 2025 election and the readiness of proposed climate projects.

City staff presented an overview of the Environmental Investment Plan, which outlines just over $7 billion in potential climate-related investments covering needs such as carbon emission reductions, land and water conservation, community resilience and municipal sustainability improvements. While the need for such investments is well documented, staff emphasized that a fully refined list of bond-eligible projects will not be finalized until at least April.

The uncertainty on project readiness was a key factor in the task force’s decision, with members acknowledging that many of the proposed projects require additional scoping, prioritization and cost analysis before being included in a bond package. Without this groundwork, a 2025 election risked presenting voters with proposals that lacked clarity or feasibility.

The city also has $1.3 billion in unspent bond funds from previous elections, further complicating the case for an early climate bond because of a pattern of challenges in executing previously approved projects. The long timelines for an array of capital projects approved by voters in recent elections caused some task force members to raise concerns about whether Austin’s departments have the capacity to quickly deploy additional funds if a new bond were passed in 2025.

Zach Baumer, director of the Office of Climate Action and Resilience, said staff is working to evaluate and rank the proposed projects based on their impact and cost, with no consideration for whether they’d work better as part of either proposed bond package.

“This next body of work that’s released in (late) March will have the next level of detail and specificity. … We’re not necessarily putting the timeline of 2025 on any of these projects because they’re all projects that are in plans that need to get completed,” he said. “If they’re in the Environmental Investment Plan or they were in this more focused, comprehensive climate implementation plan that you’re going to see within the next month, all of those projects need to get implemented at some time for us to make progress.”

Beyond the logistical and financial concerns, the task force also debated the political strategy of holding a climate-focused bond election separately from other city investments. Traditionally, the city’s bond packages cover a wide range of needs, from infrastructure and parks to public safety and housing, and tend to draw broader voter support, as they appeal to multiple interest groups.

“Because of what we heard about the public engagement piece of how limited public engagement could be with a 2025 bond versus a 2026, that would make me want to hold back and just wait until 2026 so that we can make sure that we are fulfilling that,” member Garry Merritt said. “Secondly, the confusion of two bonds two years in a row on the voters and on the communication piece of this, I just think that we’re stronger and we’re gonna have a better 2026 bond to just wait and include everything in there.”

Members also debated whether the urgency placed on climate-related needs by City Council members could end up putting an early bond package with limited scope at risk of opposition that would make it easier to defeat in an off-year election.

“There are no shortage of projects that we can do as a city and no shortages of needs that the community has both asked for or the staff has recommended. I just struggle with understanding why we’re fast-tracking one group of needs when we haven’t had a chance to actually review all of the needs,” member Tina Cannon said. “Is that really setting us up for a good 2026 bond strategy to get voter consent and approval of what would most likely be a much larger list of items? What I don’t want to do is to harm the strategy going into 2026 by fast-tracking one area of our city’s needs.”

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