Council Meeting Schedule 8/13/25

[Colleen Pate]

This is to outline how I think we’ll proceed tomorrow. So let me start by saying that tomorrow will be complicated with lots of moving parts. I will do my best to keep things orderly and consistent with rules and procedure. I may ask for some flexibility in specific circumstances that we might not anticipate until we’re in the moment. But we’ll get through what I anticipate will be a long day.

We have over 350 people signed up to speak tomorrow.

We will have six items that are on the agenda as “Public Hearings”. We will open and conduct each public hearing in order. Once all speakers have been called for the specific hearing, we will close the public hearing.

Before we vote on anything related to any public hearing, we will hear comments on the other agenda items. There are 23 agenda items that are not public hearings. We will hear comment on these like we do on our consent agenda at regular meetings. The clerk will call speakers for each item in order. For example, the first item that is not a public hearing is agenda item 5. After the public hearings, she will call speakers for item 5, then item 6, until the end.

After we conclude all public comment and when we begin voting, we will start with item 5, which is the ordinance to approve the city budget.

In an effort to begin treating this as all “one budget” and not two subparts (base and TRE), I’m suggesting that the primary motion be “a motion to adopt as the 2025-2026 Budget of the City of Austin the City Manager’s budget proposal as filed by the City Manager on July 11, 2025, and as presented to the Mayor and City Council by the City Manager at the July 15, 2025, City Council meeting with the addition of the document labelled BUDGET ADDITION 1.

This will allow us to have a single budget motion. Any amendments that are proposed and considered will be to this single budget motion.

The document that will be labelled BUDGET ADDITION 1 will be meant only as a starting point. It is not intended to gain any advantage over any other proposal. It is something that will allow us to have a primary motion, some structure for proposed amendments, and discussion. I chose to do this only so we could get started and because I can’t talk to everyone except here on the message board.

BUDGET ADDITION 1 is still being worked on by financial staff. You’ve seen some posts about this on the message board tonight. We will have something first thing tomorrow and can discuss it then.

Once we have the primary motion, the first amendments to the primary motion that we will consider are “staff amendments”, which are things our city finance staff consider clean up items. Think of them like changes and corrections.

The one staff amendment that’s not really a correction is the amendment needed to recognize and allocate the revenue from the final certified roles. As a reminder, that revenue is being allocated consistent with the memo that staff sent to us on July 30, 2025, and updated at the July 31, 2025, work session. This will also include allocation of dollars that the staff recommended to be put in the Housing Trust Fund.

The next set of amendments we will consider are amendments that are “cost neutral”. Staff is looking at all of those we previously considered as cost neutral (at the meeting where we laid out proposed amendments) to certify that they are, in fact, cost neutral.

Then, we will go to amendments that cost money. I anticipate that those proposals will primarily be amendments to BUDGET ADDITION 1.
There are likely to be a lot of proposed amendments.

Please offer any proposed amendment by referencing the line item. By that, I mean a description of the item that’s in the primary motion (BUDGET ADDITION 1) that you wish to remove or edit and a description, including the dollar amount, of the change. It is imperative that we have these proposed items in writing. My recommendation is that you write the amendments in such a way that they say something to the effect of:

“I move to amend line ___ of BUDGET ADDITION 1 referring to [insert the language of that line in BUDGET ADDITION 1] by replacing it with [insert the language you wish to put into BUDGET ADDITION 1]”.

Or

“I move to amend line ___ of BUDGET ADDITION 1 referring to [insert the language of that line in BUDGET ADDITION 1] by replacing the amount of money in line __ of BUDGET ADDITION 1 with an amount equal to ___.”

Or

“I move to amend line ___ of BUDGET ADDITION 1 referring to [insert the language of that line in BUDGET ADDITION 1] by removing the line item.”

If you’re wanting to identify where any new money is taken from (i.e., another item, including reserves) please add the language:

“The additional funding will come from ___”. Otherwise, it will be assumed it is added to the tax rate.

When we’ve finished hearing all the proposed amendments, we will recess for some period so that staff can assure calculations based on amendments and assure us of where we are.

Once we have the final count, we will vote on the primary motion as amended.

After that is completed, we will move in this order:

Item 4: Fee and Fine Ordinances (If we adopt item 4, that will include adopting the rates that had hearings in items 2, 3, 30 and 31.)

Items 6, 7 and 8: Sworn Service Classification

Items 9 and 1: Ratify Tax Increase (We will take up 9 first to ratify the tax increase in the budget and then item 1 is taken up to approve the ordinance adopting the tax rate.)

Items 11-27: IFCs and staff items

Item 10: the election ordinance calling a TRE election (this requires at least 8 votes)

We will then adjourn the Council meeting and call to order the AHFC meeting.

Following adjournment of the AHFC meeting, I’ll call the Mueller Local Government Corporation Meeting to order. Once concluded, we’ll adjourn.

With the large number of speakers and the potential number of amendments, it is very possible we could make it to 10:00 PM. Our procedures require us to vote to go past that time.

If we are still taking public comment, I recommend we go until all speakers have been heard and then recess until Thursday morning at 9:00 AM. We can recess on Wednesday and reconvene the next morning as part of the same meeting.

If we have started discussion of any item before 10:00, I recommend we discuss and vote if ready only up until 10:00. I recommend we not vote on items after 10:00 PM.

Thanks,

Kirk

On behalf of Mayor Watson