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August 14, 2025

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 Today @10AM: Austin City Council Budget Reading - Livestream Link

🟪 Council settles on tax rate election, with more amendments to come (Austin Monitor)

🟪 Central Health hospital district to ask Austin, county tax payers to pay more (Austin American-Statesman)

🟪 Tamara Atkinson is joining Goodwill Central Texas (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Texas GOP to start second special session if Democrats don’t come back by Friday (Dallas Morning News)

🟪 Texas economic indicators are pointing toward a slowdown, Dallas Fed says (KERA)

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🏛️ City Manager Executives and Advisors Staff Visual Chart

🏛️ City of Austin Org Chart (as of July 2025)

💰 2026 City of Austin Bond - Public Input

ℹ️ 2025 Essential Resources for Navigating the City of Austin

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

✅ Council settles on tax rate election, with more amendments to come (Austin Monitor)

After a marathon public comment session yesterday that lasted from 10am till 10pm, Council passed a 5-cent tax rate election (TRE) on top of the base budget, with more discussion to come today. 

Speakers were split between homeowners admonishing Council for past spending – and those specifically peeved at Council Member Mike Siegel’s proposal to cut spending to basic municipal services like public safety, even if a TRE should not pass – and those nobly pledging to advocate to their neighbors the urgency of ponying up $20 or so in property taxes each year in the face of draconian federal funding cuts. 

Council has been raising property taxes from 1 to 8 cents each budget prior to 2019, when the state legislature capped its ability to levy taxes at 3.5 percent without an election. The Lege is currently trying to tighten that to 2.5 percent in its special session.  

A late “omnibus” motion from Mayor Pro Tem Vanessa Fuentes and Council members Ryan Alter, Chito Vela and José Velásquez passing made a significant portion of Council angry when it passed, and brought the base motion to 5 cents, which is the highest that most on Council, including the mayor, will support. Council members Krista Laine and Paige Ellis were concerned about keeping the city’s reserves – or rainy day fund – at 17 percent by 2029… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Central Health hospital district to ask Austin, county tax payers to pay more (Austin American-Statesman)

Central Health, the hospital district for Austin and Travis County, like many local government entities, will be asking property owners to pay more this next fiscal that begins in October. Central Health plans to go to the Travis County commissioners in September asking for a total rate of 11.8023 cents per $100 valuation. Last year, the tax rate was 10.7969 cents per $100 valuation. The average annual tax bill will increase $64 to $608.33 on an average homestead value of $515,433.

The tax increase adds an additional $30 million to the revenue but at the same time Central Health's expenses will go up $51 million because of increasing services and funding changes and uncertainties at the state and federal levels.

Central Health is calling 2026 its Year of Access as it focuses on cutting down on wait times for services from six months at one point to two weeks or less, increasing the number of people enrolled in health coverage by 5% from current rates, increasing services for people experiencing homelessness by 600% since 2023, improving cancer diagnosis and prevention, and improving patient navigation support throughout the health care system. It's also focusing on reducing duplications in the health care system it oversees.

Dr. Pat Lee, the CEO and president of Central Health, at a Travis County Commissioners Court meeting. The district, which was created in 2004 by a public vote, is charged with providing health care for people making less than 200% of the federal poverty level, which is $31,300 for an individual and $64,300 for a family of four… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Tamara Atkinson is joining Goodwill Central Texas (Austin Business Journal)

Tamara Atkinson is going to Goodwill for her next job. 

Atkinson will join the executive team for Goodwill Central Texas and lead the nonprofit’s workforce development efforts as chief impact officer and president of workforce advancement strategy, according to an Aug. 13 announcement. She will take on the role on Oct. 29. 

Atkinson is currently CEO of Workforce Solutions Capital Area. It was announced earlier in August that she would step down from that position, which she has held since 2016, on Sept. 19.

“(Atkinson is) not just joining our team; she’s helping to lead a movement,” said Rob Neville, the president and CEO of Goodwill Central Texas, in a statement. “Her proven leadership in workforce development combined with her heart for the community will supercharge our ability to transform lives. With (Atkinson) at the helm of our workforce strategy, we’re not only doubling down on our mission, we’re accelerating our vision.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Applied Materials seeks trade zone designation for Central Texas operations (Austin Business Journal)

Applied Materials Inc. is seeking a foreign trade zone designation for its operations in Central Texas, which could help it avoid tariffs.

The maker of semiconductor manufacturing equipment said in a letter to the city of Pflugerville that it’s seeking a foreign trade zone designation for several of its sites in Travis and Williamson counties. The letter said the company employs 5,500 people in the Austin area and views this designation "as a crucial element" for its U.S. operations.

This designation may provide a boost to Applied Materials' operations in Central Texas and make it easier for the company to sell the products it makes in the area across the globe. The foreign trade zone program is supervised by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and it applies to areas close to CBP ports of entry where merchandise isn’t subject to duty or excise taxes, which means goods can be traded more easily and are exempt from some taxes or tariffs. Officials anticipate more companies will do the same amid President Donald Trump's tariff plans.

Pflugerville City Council approved a letter of non-objection for the foreign trade zone designation in its jurisdiction at its Aug. 12 meeting… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Cedar Park authorizes establishment of Central Texas Spaceport Development Corporation (Community Impact)

Cedar Park City Council voted Aug. 7 at a special meeting to authorize the establishment of the Central Texas Spaceport Development Corporation in partnership with Williamson County.

The corporation will be a nonprofit focused on infrastructure and development in specialized launching and landing facilities for spacecraft, rockets and satellites, according to agenda documents.

There are currently five other SDCs, which are eligible to apply for state and federal grants to support the spaceport industry, in Texas.

Cedar Park is home to Firefly Aerospace, which operated the first commercial mission to successfully land on the moon earlier in 2025. Since then, the company has secured hundreds of millions of dollars toward a future lunar landing and other projects… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

[TEXAS/US NEWS]

✅ Texas GOP to start second special session if Democrats don’t come back by Friday (Dallas Morning News)

The Texas Legislature will adjourn its special session on Friday and Gov. Greg Abbott will immediately call a new one if the House cannot gather enough lawmakers to vote on congressional redistricting before then, Republican leaders said Tuesday. “Let this be a warning. The second session is coming,” Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows said, addressing at least 50 absent House Democrats who have held the House at a standstill since Aug. 4. “It is time to get home and take your seats.” Abbott said in a statement the second session would again have redistricting among its priorities, “with the potential to add more items critical to Texans.” “There will be no reprieve for the derelict Democrats who fled the state and abandoned their duty to the people who elected them,” Abbott said. “I will continue to call special session after special session until we get this Texas first agenda passed.”

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Tuesday the Senate would continue to pass bills the governor has outlined in his priorities. If they don’t land on the governor’s desk before the session ends, the bills have to go through the process — from filing to floor vote — all over again in a new session. The standoff can “continue in perpetuity” because Abbott will keep calling special sessions, Patrick said in a statement. “House Democrats have made their point and now face a choice. They should return from their ‘vacation’ before Friday and pass the bills on the governor’s special session call,” Patrick said. “Let me be clear: The Texas Senate will pass the bills on Gov. Abbott’s special session call over and over and over again until the House Democrats return from their ‘vacation’ to do the people’s business. The decision is theirs.” The Texas House ended its 7-minute floor meeting with no action on Tuesday, the beginning of the final full week of a 30-day special session derailed by the fight over congressional redistricting. A roll call established that the 150-member chamber was five members shy of the needed two-thirds present to conduct official business… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Texas economic indicators are pointing toward a slowdown, Dallas Fed says (KERA)

Low job growth, less construction activity and inflation numbers are all indicating the Texas economy is slowing down, according to an Aug. 11 report out of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

The economic slowdown comes during a time when the Trump administration is reshaping global trade and immigration policy – two key factors in the Texas economy.

Texas employment in June – job data usually lags a few months behind – fell by 1.3% from the month before. Job growth since the beginning of the year has slowed to 1.8%, which is higher than the .7% rate nationally, but lower than the 2.5% increase Texas saw in May.

“Other labor market indicators have remained healthy,” according to the report. “The Texas unemployment rate declined to 4.0 percent, and average hourly earnings increased 4.9 percent year-over-year in June.”

Report author Luis Torres told KERA News this is likely because while businesses are slowing down on creating new jobs, they are holding on to the ones they have… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas DA once paid for abortion — then charged a woman who had one with murder, court filing claims (Houston Chronicle)

Three years after Starr County prosecutors charged 26-year-old Lizelle Gonzalez with murder for inducing her own abortion, District Attorney Gocha Ramirez swore under oath that when his office brought the case in early 2022 he didn’t know about the section of state law that forbids charging a woman with homicide for ending her own pregnancy.

It wasn’t until another local attorney sent him a screenshot of that snippet of penal code that Ramirez spotted the problem and moved to dismiss the case. But new court filings in Gonzalez’s lawsuit against the county officials who prosecuted her argue that Ramirez must have known much earlier that Gonzalez inducing her own abortion was not a crime — in part because he allegedly paid for one in the mid-1990s while having extramarital affairs with a pair of sisters, before he became the D.A.

“It was Gocha's child,” one of the women said in a sworn deposition reviewed by the Houston Chronicle, adding that Ramirez asked her sister “not to have the child” and allegedly paid for the abortion, then took them both out to eat at Red Lobster.

The startling deposition was one of several Gonzalez’s legal team filed in federal court on Tuesday, along with a 70-page brief arguing that Ramirez, another prosecutor in his office and the county sheriff should all be held personally liable for “maliciously abusing their power to concoct charges” against the South Texas mother of two.

It’s tough to sue police and prosecutors for bad behavior because they’re usually shielded by controversial doctrines known as qualified immunity and prosecutorial immunity, legal rules that protect them from personal liability. Lawyers for the three county officials have repeatedly argued that those rules apply, so the case should be tossed out. But immunity has its limits.

Prosecutors aren’t immune when they take on certain roles outside the courtroom, such as giving legal advice to police or acting as investigators. And police don’t get qualified immunity if their conduct is so egregious it violates a constitutional right that’s been “clearly established,” usually by a past court decision. In this week’s court filings, attorneys for Gonzalez said evidence showed that Ramirez and his first assistant prosecutor, Alexandria Barrera, had been involved in the investigation more deeply than they’d previously admitted. At times, Barrera allegedly gave specific direction to sheriff’s office investigators about what evidence to collect and offered legal advice on how to move forward… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ White House to vet Smithsonian museums to fit Trump’s historical vision (Wall Street Journal)

The White House plans to conduct a far-reaching review of Smithsonian museum exhibitions, materials and operations ahead of America’s 250th anniversary to ensure the museums align with President Trump’s interpretation of American history.

In a letter sent to Lonnie Bunch, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, three top White House officials said they want to ensure the museums present the “unity, progress, and enduring values that define the American story” and reflect the president’s executive order calling for “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” Areas under scrutiny range from public-facing exhibition text and online content to internal curatorial processes, exhibition planning, the use of collections and artist grants. “This initiative aims to ensure alignment with the president’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions,” the letter states.

The letter, dated Tuesday, Aug. 12, and viewed by The Wall Street Journal, was signed by White House senior associate Lindsey Halligan, the director of the domestic policy council, Vince Haley, and the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought. “

This is about preserving trust in one of our most cherished institutions,” Halligan said in a statement. “The Smithsonian museums and exhibits should be accurate, patriotic, and enlightening—ensuring they remain places of learning, wonder, and national pride for generations to come.” “The Smithsonian’s work is grounded in a deep commitment to scholarly excellence, rigorous research, and the accurate, factual presentation of history,” the Smithsonian said. “We are reviewing the letter with this commitment in mind and will continue to collaborate constructively with the White House, Congress, and our governing Board of Regents.”

The White House review of the Smithsonian’s extensive collection of art and historical artifacts comes as the president has sought to reorient the country’s cultural institutions, including top universities, and demonstrates Trump’s efforts to recast parts of American history in a more positive light. The Smithsonian’s Board of Regents agreed to conduct a thorough review of all its museum and zoo content to eliminate political influence and bias, the Journal previously reported. Sarah Weicksel, executive director of the American Historical Association, said the White House’s effort was an affront to the historians and curators trained to ensure historical accuracy. “If those things are taken out of the hands of historians, the public stands to lose a great deal in having reliable and engaging content that tells a whole and complex story of the American past,” she said… 🟪 (READ MORE)

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