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August 15, 2025

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 Austin City Council approves $6.3 billion budget and calls for tax rate election (KUT)

🟪 Spurs head back to Moody Center next year (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Austin spends millions on overtime pay for police officers. The city is scaling that back. (KUT)

🟪 Riding political wins, a once-restrained Gov. Greg Abbott is increasingly steamrolling foes (Texas Tribune)

🟪 Both parties claim victory as Texas’ legislative stalemate leaves redistricting undone (Dallas Morning News)

🟪 Texas Democrats set terms to end nearly 2-week walkout over GOP redistricting effort (PBS)

🟪 California pushes partisan plan for new Democratic districts to counter Texas in fight for US House (Associated Press)

[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]

✅ Austin City Council approves $6.3 billion budget and calls for tax rate election (KUT)

Austin City Council adopted a $6.3 billion budget for the next fiscal year and agreed to ask voters to approve a higher tax rate in November.

The budget includes millions of dollars for homelessness services, $2.5 million to support the Austin Infrastructure Academy, funding to enhance the EMS response system and a 4% pay increase for city staff.

Council Members debated the budget over two days, including what programs and other city services should be in the budget and tax rate increase package while maintaining a healthy reserve fund.

The council came to a consensus Thursday afternoon.

Council Member Zo Qadri said the budget protects the current and future needs of the city.

"That is what I hope this budget and the upcoming [tax rate election] will do," he said. "That we are going to be in a city that truly works for everyone."

When City Manager T.C. Broadnax put together the budget, the city was facing a $33 million shortfall due to a combination of flat sales tax revenue, limited property tax revenue and an end to some federal funding.

Broadnax's proposal includes money set aside for homelessness services, parks and public safety. To balance the budget, it also included a restructuring of the Austin Police Department and proposed reductions to fire truck staffing — both intended to reduce payouts for overtime.

The city also had to pull $14.1 million from its reserves for the next fiscal year.

While the budget addresses the looming deficit, many City Council members said it does not cover all the city's needs. The new budget relies on revenue from increased property taxes. The council set the property tax rate at 57.4 cents per $100 of taxable value, which is 5 cents above what state law allows without voter approval.

The measure triggers a tax rate election that will be put before voters this November… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Spurs head back to Moody Center next year (Austin Business Journal)

The San Antonio Spurs are headed back to Moody Center in February for the fourth annual I-35 Series.

Spurs Sports & Entertainment on Aug. 14 revealed that the National Basketball Association team will host the Phoenix Suns on Feb. 19 at 7:30 p.m. and the Sacramento Kings on Feb. 21 at 7 p.m. in Austin. That's during the annual Rodeo Road Trip for the second-straight year, breaking up an eight-game road stretch outside of Texas during the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo.

Brandon James, Austin-based senior vice president of strategic growth and deputy general counsel for Spurs Sports & Entertainment, called the I-35 Series "a signature fixture in Austin's vibrant sports and entertainment calendar."

“We’re proud to see this game evolve into more than just basketball — it’s about bringing people together through world-class competition, community impact, and shared experiences that reflect the energy and diversity of this region," James said. "We’re excited to continue building on this tradition at Moody Center and deepening our connection with fans across the I-35 corridor and throughout this entire region."… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin spends millions on overtime pay for police officers. The city is scaling that back. (KUT)

For Austin's fire, police and emergency medical professionals, overtime is just a fact of life. In the last budget year, overtime spending on those three departments was $84 million, according to city payroll data.

But after years of ballooning overtime payouts, Austin is throttling back some of that spending, asking its fire and police departments to cut millions in overtime, while pushing city staff to monitor how much the city spends and where it could spend smarter.

The biggest overtime spender – by far – is the Austin Police Department. It makes sense. Police staff cover Austin's special events like SXSW and ACL. On top of that, the department has been short-staffed for the better part of a decade.

APD had initially budgeted around $25 million for overtime for the 2024 budget, but spent nearly double that… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[TEXAS/US NEWS]

✅ Riding political wins, a once-restrained Gov. Greg Abbott is increasingly steamrolling foes (Texas Tribune)

Loaded with $43 million in his campaign coffers and facing no serious electoral threat, Gov. Greg Abbott in 2017 plunged into uncharted waters for a Texas governor: the state House primaries.

The first-term governor mobilized his support — an arsenal of endorsements, ads and stump speeches — behind three candidates taking on incumbent representatives he had clashed with in the state’s lower chamber. It was, at the time, somewhat remarkable for Texas’ top elected official to enter the trenches against lawmakers from his own party. The House speaker, a Republican, said Abbott was putting one of the seats at risk of falling into Democratic hands.

Ultimately only one of the Abbott-backed challengers won. But the anti-incumbent play laid the groundwork for a far more ambitious effort six years later, when the governor responded to the Legislature’s failure to deliver taxpayer dollars for private school tuition — his top priority — by targeting 15 anti-voucher incumbents and unseating 11 of them.

The strong-arming worked. Earlier this year, the Legislature passed a school voucher package with little GOP defection, and the governor unlocked a new effective strategy to accomplish his goals: playing hardball… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Both parties claim victory as Texas’ legislative stalemate leaves redistricting undone (Dallas Morning News)

Republicans and Democrats are both claiming victory after it was becoming clear that a special legislative session will come to an end Friday with a GOP-led effort to redistrict congressional seats undone. The House and Senate are expected to adjourn the session Friday after both Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, indicated Tuesday that is their intention.

The Senate passed all of the proposals Gov. Greg Abbott requested, while the House passed none, as the lower chamber remained hamstrung by House Democrats who denied a constitutionally required quorum by refusing to show up. Abbott said he will immediately call a second special session with a nearly identical agenda. Besides redistricting, the governor has called for the Legislature to pass flood relief bills, THC regulations and anti-abortion laws.

“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.” Democrats stopped short of saying they will participate in the second special session. House Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, said in a statement that House Democrats will issue legislative demands on Friday.

“What happens next is entirely up to Greg Abbott,” Wu said. “After deliberation among our caucus, we have reached a consensus: Texas House Democrats refuse to give him a quorum to pass his racist maps that silence more than 2 million Black and Latino Texans — in keeping with our original promise to Texans, the First Called Special Session will never make quorum again, defeating Abbott’s first attempt at passing his racial gerrymander.” Republicans had attempted to push through redistricting ahead of flood bills during the first special session, which many Democrats considered a tipping point that led to them leaving the state to block a vote on the partisan gerrymander... 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas Democrats set terms to end nearly 2-week walkout over GOP redistricting effort (PBS)

Texas Democrats on Thursday moved closer to ending a nearly two-week walkout that has blocked the GOP’s redrawing of U.S. House maps before the 2026 election and put them under escalating threats by Republicans back home.

The Democrats announced they will return so long as Texas Republicans end a special session and California releases its own redrawn map proposal, both of which were expected to happen Friday.

Democrats did not say what day they might return.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott still intends to push through new maps that would give the GOP five more winnable seats before next year’s midterm elections.

Texas House Democrats said in a statement that under the advice of legal counsel, they needed to return to the state to “build a strong public legislative record” for an upcoming legal battle against a new map… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ California pushes partisan plan for new Democratic districts to counter Texas in fight for US House (Associated Press)

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday his state will hold a Nov. 4 special election to seek approval of redrawn districts intended to give Democrats five more U.S. House seats in the fight for control of Congress.

The move is a direct response to a similar Republican-led effort in Texas, pushed by President Donald Trump as his party seeks to maintain its slim House majority in the midterm elections. The nation’s two most populous states have emerged as the center of a partisan turf war in the House that could spiral into other states — as well as the courts — in what amounts to a proxy war ahead of the 2026 elections.

Texas lawmakers are considering a new map that could help them send five more Republicans to Washington. Democrats who so far have halted a vote by leaving the state announced Thursday that they will return home if Texas Republicans end their current special session and California releases its own recast map proposal. Both were expected to happen Friday.

However, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is expected to call another special session to push through new maps… 🟪 (READ MORE)

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