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🟪 Austin City Council Approves $6.6 Billion Budget for Fiscal Year 2026-2027 (City of Austin)

🟪 Austin adopts $6.6 billion budget, creates new emergency communication office (KUT)

🟪 Austin ISD community members await accountability grade release (CBS Austin)

🟪 Austin's housing fundamentals remain strong as sales season slows (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Texas High Court appoints judges in school funding challenge (Bloomberg)

READ ON!

🎙️ The BG Podcast is taking a two-part look at the future of the Austin–San Antonio megaregion.

Episode 269 features my conversation with former San Antonio Mayor and HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros about the case for greater regional cooperation in the Austin San Antonio megaregion.

Episode 270 continues the discussion with A.J. Rodriguez, CEO of the Central Texas Alliance. We discuss how the new organization plans to build consensus across 13 counties, develop a shared regional agenda and strengthen Central Texas’ voice at the state and federal levels.

Listen on:

✅ Austin City Council Approves $6.6 Billion Budget for Fiscal Year 2026-2027 (City of Austin)

The Austin City Council has adopted a $6.6 billion budget for Fiscal Year 2026-2027 ensuring continued investments in community priorities. The approved budget incorporates City Manager T.C. Broadnax’s proposed budget while adding a number of investments and directions to address ongoing social service funding, housing, homelessness, and public safety. 

“In the last few weeks, City staff and the Austin City Council have worked together to come up with solutions to the challenges we face as a community,” said City Manager T.C. Broadnax. “This budget takes us forward as a city in a thoughtful and strategic way, focusing on what is important to Austinites, what they value and prioritize.”  

The General Fund budget is $1.5 billion and the Capital Budget includes $4.3 billion in planned spending… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin adopts $6.6 billion budget, creates new emergency communication office (KUT)

The Austin City Council adopted a budget on Wednesday that makes cuts to several programs and services and sets up the framework for a new office aimed at speeding up emergency response times.

Austin Mayor Kirk Watson and Council Member Marc Duchen voted against the budget, citing concerns about the city's spending as residents struggle with affordability.

"At this point in time, we could have done more to meet the needs of people struggling in our community," Watson said.

The $6.6 billion budget includes more than $5 million in cutbacks to social service contracts, which are agreements the city makes with nonprofits and groups that serve people in need. But an unexpected $4.7 million in additional property tax revenue will allow the council to restore some of those contracts through one-time funding… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin ISD community members await accountability grade release (CBS Austin)

The countdown is on for the release of school accountability reports from the Texas Education Agency, with parents and educators in Austin bracing for what the grades could mean for Austin ISD.

The TEA is set to publicly release preliminary accountability grades Friday morning for schools across the state, including Dobie, Burnet and Webb Middle Schools. One more “F” rating at any of those schools could trigger state intervention and set off months of an appeals process and decisions about state intervention.

According to a TEA document, preliminary grades became available to districts on Wednesday, although Austin ISD has not shared any details publicly… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin's housing fundamentals remain strong as sales season slows (Austin Business Journal)

As school gets back into session and the summer homebuying season slows, the Austin housing market's fundamentals remain a cause for celebration for many.

Unlock MLS data shows July closely followed several of June's housing data trends, with 2,739 closed sales, up 4.4% year over year, and a slight pick up in median sales price at $435,000.

"Buyers and sellers ... continue to be resilient ... even in times that are not as flush as they've been in the past," Austin Board of Realtors and Unlock MLS president John Crowe said. "We do see the market moving at a pace that I'd say surprises me," considering ongoing geopolitical events and the health of the U.S. housing market at large… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas High Court appoints judges in school funding challenge (Bloomberg)

A special three-judge panel will preside over a school district’s constitutional challenge to Texas’s public education funding system that redistributes property tax revenue, according to a high court order issued Wednesday.

The Texas Supreme Court granted a petition from Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) under a state statute ordering the court to convene such a panel upon request when cases involve public school system financing. Midland Independent School District’s suit alleges aspects of the school funding system violate local government bodies’ constitutional authority to levy property taxes.

A Travis County Democrat assigned the case will be joined by two Republicans chosen by Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock. Blacklock's choices are Justice Emily Miskel of the Dallas Court of Appeals and District Court Judge Alfonso Charles of Longview. Aurora Martinez Jones of Travis County also on the panel… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Paxton, Talarico tap contrary versions of God and Christianity in appeal to Texas voters (Texas Tribune)

Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico portray their U.S. Senate campaigns as a fight for the soul of America — one in which God plays an active yet vastly different role.

Talarico, believing God is on the side of the oppressed and the marginalized, focuses his message to voters on equity and protecting personal freedom.

Paxton sees God as on his side — a force safeguarding his ability to protect Texas and the nation from disaster at the hands of the “radical left.”

“I truly believe that God just delivered me, not because I am a great person, because God is sovereign and he does what he wants to do,” Paxton said on Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s podcast, referring to tribulations that included an unsuccessful 2023 impeachment on corruption charges.

“I don’t take credit for it, it’s really by the grace of God,” Paxton said.

In Texas — where two-thirds of the adult population identifies as Christian and 45% say religion is “very important” in their life — the candidates are asking voters to choose between two dramatically different views of Christianity. Paxton’s version insists conservative Christian values — such as protecting the unborn and preserving the nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage — must prevail. Talarico’s Christianity celebrates pluralism, affirms LGBTQ+ individuals and believes God transcends all partisan divisions… 🟪 (READ MORE)