What Austin's $4.1 billion budget means for the average taxpayer

AUSTIN, Texas - When the Austin City Council gets into the final stages of the budget process the fine-tuning and adoption usually takes a few days.  But this fiscal year, they got it done on the first day.

"What I really like about this budget is it is fiscally responsible while also making some of the strategic investments that we really need to make as a city for our long-term financial and our social health as a community," said District 10 City Council Member Alison Alter.

Alter supported this budget that includes $4.1 billion in the all-funds budget, a 4% increase from last year.  "We provided tax relief, we raised the homestead exemption from 8 to 10%, we raised the senior homestead exemption and we kept the tax increases well below the maximum that we could have done," she said.

Here's some of what's included:

• $2.4 million in new funding for homeless programs.
• $5.7 million for 33 police officers and equipment.
• An initial $5.4 million for 2 new fire stations.

"The average homeowner is going to be experiencing about a 2% increase in what they're seeing between fees and taxes and that's pretty low," Alter said.

While the tax rate decreases, the city tax bill for the typical homeowner increases by about $67 a year.  Taken with rate and fee changes, it's a $77 increase. "Which means the average homeowner is paying in excess of $4,000 yearly to the city right now and that's just...at some point all they want is a break, a little breather," said District 8 Council Member Ellen Troxclair.

Troxclair was the only "no" vote on the budget.  

She's encouraged that the property tax increase was less than it has been in the past.  But it's still an increase. "The budget increases spending over 8% and when I talk to people in the community they're not getting pay raises of over 8% every single year so it's really time that the City of Austin live within its means just like we ask everybody else in this city to do," Troxclair said.

When speaking about setting the tax rate, Council Member Greg Casar pointed this out: "Regardless of what we do today, regardless of where we set it, I expect the Legislature to continue to place the blame on cities for the property tax burden people feel rather than appropriately on themselves," Casar said.

"They can point fingers all they want but the reality of the situation is it's the City Council and the City Council alone that sets the city property tax rate and that's the rate that's going up significantly every year," Troxclair said.

Troxclair says the budget process is kind of like choosing between buying 2 cars -- one is the base model and the other has all of the bells and whistles.

"The City of Austin kind of starts from the 'all the bells and whistles' model instead of starting with the base model so what we need to do is just really go back to what would our budget look like if we didn't increase taxes for once?" Troxclair said.

By the way, there is some level of uncertainty in the budget. There are placeholders for Austin Police. Because the City is still in the process of negotiating the labor contract with the Police Union.