Austin leaders continue budget talks
Austin’s proposed budget for the new year is $4.2 billion. $61 million of which would be spent on the homeless, $15 million on sidewalk repairs, and city employees would get 2% pay raises. Additionally, nearly $41 million would be used to prop up the Austin Convention Center and boost hotel tax revenue, which, for the year, is down 33%. Austin’s proposed tax rate for the new year, 3.5%, is the highest allowed by law without public approval. The city says this would mean about $12 more in the average tax bill. It was widely expected that the city would use a loophole created by the state’s COVID-19 disaster declaration and spike that tax rate up to 8%. This 3.5% is only a recommendation from city staff, and the City Council. They could certainly go against the recommendations and vote for a higher rate, although anything above 3.5% would require approval.
Within the newly proposed budget, the Austin Police Department is taking a sizable hit. Austin City Manager Spencer Cronk tells the council the city is focused on reforming the department in this budget.
“This budget continues to look at public safety holistically, reducing the plan number of police officers by 100 and reallocating just over $11 million in police department funding to other community safety needs,” Cronk says
He says those funds will help create seven new community health paramedics and further strengthen other departments, like the Office of Police Oversight and the city’s equity office.
Police advocates and police opponents alike say they don’t approve of these changes being made for the Austin Police Department. Cary Roberts, with the Greater Austin Crime Commission, says they don’t like the loss of 100 cops.
“Taxpayer funded studies have repeatedly shown that the Austin Police Department is understaffed for a rapidly growing city, and we know that emergency response times are slower aggravated assaults, property crimes, robberies and traffic,” says Roberts
Activists say Austin police losing $11 million in the budget is just the council being tone deaf. They’re demanding no less than $100 million be slashed.
Districts detail plans for new school year
A Round Rock school district plans to offer the online courses for at least the first three weeks of the new year. However, the district is also asking the Texas Education Agency for more resources to shift all classes online for the entire semester. Chief of Schools Daniel Presley says there are too many factors playing into this, including safety.
“If you’re in a hybrid model, if you bring all your kids in some time, everybody’s in school sometimes, which creates a little bit of an issue,” says Presley.
The district says it wants online-only classes until the local seven day rolling average of new hospitalizations is below five. That would basically put us back into stage two on the COVID-19 risk charge.
Similarly, the Leander district is also asking the TEA for more money and resources to shift courses completely online until the rate of new hospitalizations drops. Superintendent Bruce Gearing says the district cannot risk putting its teachers or students’ health at risk.
With the debate continuing to surge over whether or not kids and teachers should really return to the classroom, there’s still plenty of unknowns and Dr. John Carlo with the Texas Medical Association’s COVID-19 task force says there will always be a risk, so parents really need to stay as informed as possible.
“I think we still have to make some very, very important decisions over a very, very short amount of time. So my first advice is to make sure that everybody stays up to date, and as current as they possibly can be well,” Carlos says
Safety remains the top priority, but he also says it’s almost equally important that kids do get back to school as soon as they’re able to.
Williamson County sees a spike in recoveries
Williamson Counties updated coronavirus dashboard is reflecting a massive spike in terms of recoveries. 1,102 cases currently active, 56 have died and 106 people are hospitalized as of this morning, but the county is now reporting 2,901 people that have made a recovery from their illness. Hospital bed space has also increased from the weekend now up to 32% overall.
This news and more on News Radio KLBJ:
https://omny.fm/shows/klbjam-flash-briefing-1/am-newscast-7-14-20
