Austin City Council continues to work through proposed budget with $33M deficit

Austin City Council budget discussions

The City of Austin is continuing its budget discussion. What is the city planning on cutting?

AUSTIN, Texas - The city is continuing to work through its $6.3 billion budget proposal. $1.5 billion of that is from the general fund, which is where most of the city's tax revenue goes. The majority of it is for public safety.

There's a projected $33 million deficit because of less revenue.

To fix that, the city is proposing moving $14 million from the budget stabilization reserve fund, plus cutting $19 million from these areas: less funding for animal services emergency surgeries, a reduction in EMS medical software, less funding for fire inspection services and a reduction in small tools and travel training. $9 million would be cut from police overtime by restructuring patrol officers. $500,000 would be saved by moving the Blue Santa warehouse to a city building.

For a full breakdown, click here.

Earlier this week, the Austin Firefighters Association protested a proposal to cut their overtime budget by having three-person crews on some trucks instead of four.

There are also additions like new breathing equipment for AFD, plus new positions at the Canyon Creek Fire/EMS Station and wildfire shelters.

The budget has raises for police and EMS, which were agreed to in contract negotiations. There are also reforms to the firefighters retirement fund.

Council Member Marc Duchen (District 10) asked budget director Kerri Lang why so much is coming out of public safety.

"Can you expand on your thought process as to why those three organizations were disportionately used to help overcome that shortfall?" he said.

"We try to look at reductions that would not reduce service provision to the community," Lang said. "We didn't want to close recreation center hours or reduce library hours and those were some of the things that were under consideration or part of our conversation... when we looked at the reductions that for example, police was already making changes to their staffing model, and that would generate the annualized reduction that we see in police."

City considers restructuring AFD crews

Fewer firefighters could be responding to emergencies if the city goes through with a proposal to restructure crews to save money

Millions will go towards housing and homelessness. For a full breakdown, click here.

Many people in the public comments advocated for social service funding.

With the current budget proposal, the average Austin homeowner would see about a $154 increase a year in the city's portion of their property tax bill.

"As the recipients of funds ask for more and more, please consider the people that are paying for that. Because what's happening is we're strangling average people that cannot afford to live here anymore," one public commenter said.

Council will vote on the budget in mid-August.

The Source: Information from an Austin City Council meeting

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