In the process of crafting its annual budget to present to City Council, city of Austin staff held 11 events throughout the city in an effort to hear what Austinites think about how their tax dollars should be spent. In a lengthy memo addressed to Mayor Steve Adler and Council, Deputy Chief Financial Officer Ed […]
Budget
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City to help Cap Metro fund studies
City Council at its June 28 meeting voted to use money the city collected from the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority last decade to help pay for the transit agency’s ongoing Project Connect initiative. The move will reallocate $6 million from the quarter-cent fund to preliminary engineering work for the high-capacity transit planning effort. Established through […]
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Safety, transit planning among priorities at start of budget input sessions
If the opinions expressed during the second of the city’s 11 community budget input sessions is any indication, City Council members will be considering sizable shifts in public safety resources later this summer before adoption of the city’s next $3.9 billion budget. In an interactive session that saw feedback offered digitally by attendees and those […]
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Council braces for another tight budget cycle amid threats from Legislature
City Council will have to raise property taxes by 5 percent in the Fiscal Year 2018-19 budget just to continue funding existing programs, according to a financial forecast prepared by the city budget office. In a presentation to Council members on Wednesday, Deputy Chief Financial Officer Ed Van Eenoo projected that Council will have a […]
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Split Commissioners Court endorses higher exemption for some homeowners
The Travis County Commissioners Court on Tuesday took a preliminary step toward enlarging the property tax exemption for homeowning residents over the age of 65 or living with a disability. The court voted 3-2 to direct Planning and Budget Office staff to begin preparing next year’s budget based on the assumption that the exemption will […]
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Council tries ‘outcome-based’ budgeting
Last year, City Council talked about the idea of doing “outcome-based” budgeting. 2018 is the first year that it is giving it a try. The idea is based on six strategic outcomes that Council developed last year: Having economic opportunities and resources that enable us to thrive in our community. Getting us where we want […]
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Council OKs reduced budget for Visit Austin
Visit Austin, formerly known as the Austin Convention & Visitors Bureau, will no longer be paying for alcohol to entertain would-be Austin conventioneers with city Hotel Occupancy Tax collections. The group promised the mayor and City Council that in the future it would only use private funds for alcohol purchases. In addition, Visit Austin will […]
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Capital Metro board approves new budget
The Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority will cruise through its next fiscal year with a budget of $419 million. The agency’s board of directors approved that budget with a unanimous vote – minus an absent Board Member Terry Mitchell – during its regular monthly meeting on Friday. The new budget reflects the tenuous position the agency […]
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Lower county tax rate will bring higher bills
In its last regular voting session before the deadline, the Travis County Commissioners Court on Tuesday approved a $1.04 billion budget for Fiscal Year 2017-18. And, despite the court adopting a nominally lower tax rate, property owners will pay slightly more next year to keep their county government in the black. At 36.9 cents per […]
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How much do Council members spend on travel?
Late last Wednesday, as City Council neared the end of its wrangling over the Fiscal Year 2017-18 budget, Council Member Ellen Troxclair made what she framed as a modest request of her colleagues. The budget presented by staff included a $6,000 increase in the office budget of every Council member and a $10,000 increase to […]
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First progress and then postponement as Central Health returns to Commissioners Court
The Travis County Commissioners Court on Tuesday signed off on Central Health’s proposed $238 million budget for Fiscal Year 2017-18, but came up short on reaching an accord between the hospital district and activists who demand more transparency from it. State law requires the court to approve the budget created by staff at Central Health, […]
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Council approves $3.9 billion budget
Twelve hours after kicking off its final day of budget deliberations, City Council gave approval to a roughly $3.9 billion budget, including approximately $1 billion of General Fund spending. Council approved a 7.9 percent tax rate increase, just below the 8 percent “rollback rate” that would allow taxpayers to challenge the rate via referendum. As […]