🟪 Dog's Head development details emerge (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 City of Austin proposes $6.6 billion budget (KXAN)

🟪 With a CapMetro strike on the table, workers say better training would improve bus service (KUT)

🟪 Austin Community College passes budget, retains tuition costs for 13th year (Community Impact)

🟪 Texas Hispanics swung hard to Trump. A new poll shows they’re furious at his deportations. (Politico)

🟪 New housing law targets affordability — what it means for homebuyers and sellers (CNBC)

🟪 Fed report cites 'stepped-up' inflation due to tariffs, Iran war, AI buildout (Reuters)

READ ON!

🏛️ Austin City Council July 23rd Regular Meeting Agenda

💰 FY 2026/27 Proposed Budget

The City of Austin's proposed FY 2026/27 budget was released Friday night.

The $6.6 billion operating budget represents a $301 million increase over the current amended budget and calls for higher property taxes, increased utility rates and cuts to social services.

Review the Fiscal Year 2026-27 budget documents here

🟪 Thursday, July 16 at 10AM : City manager will present draft budget to mayor and council

🟪 Wednesday, July 22: Work session (social service contracts will be discussed at this meeting)

🟪 Tuesday, July 28: Work session

🟪 Thursday, July 30: Work session

🟪 Thursday, Aug. 6: Work session and bond discussion

🟪 Wednesday, Aug. 12 – Friday, Aug. 14: Final vote approving budget

As Austin (MSA) continues to grow, more and more development is happening beyond the famed Austin City Limits. This Monthly LinkedGlenn event series highlights a single fast growing Austin suburb and July's stop is all about Hutto.... Hippos, Co-Op, Data Centers, Industrial, Retail, Downtown Redevelopment, Rooftops, Transportation and so much more...All things growth.

Full event details and ticket information here.

✅ Dog's Head development details emerge (Austin Business Journal)

More details are emerging about what could be built out at the massive Dog’s Head site in East Austin.

Plans for the site's future have been held close to the vest by developers at Endeavor Real Estate Group for years, but it's long been known that the swath of land between downtown and Austin's airport has huge development potential.

A draft agenda for the July 23 Austin City Council meeting includes an economic feasibility study that details what the total scope of development could look like for the 2,645-acre area that resembles a dog's head along the Colorado River in Southeast Austin. The study discloses that 12,395 residential units and 9 million square feet of commercial, industrial and hospitality space could be built out over a 28-year period by Endeavor, which owns the land and plans to develop it.

Endeavor has built huge developments in the area such as Southpark Meadows and The Domain.

The economic feasibility study was conducted by Hayat Brown, an engineering and development advisory firm. The study estimates the first parts of the Dog’s Head development could be delivered by 2030. The overall development could be complete by 2057… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ City of Austin proposes $6.6 billion budget (KXAN)

Austin City Manager T.C. Broadnax has proposed a $6.625 billion budget for fiscal year 2026-27 that increases spending on public safety, homelessness services, housing and parks while raising the city’s property tax rate and utility bills.

The proposal calls for a property tax rate of 57.953 cents per $100 of valuation, up from 52.4017 cents this year. City officials estimate the median non-senior homestead would pay about $2,248 in city property taxes annually, an increase of roughly $174, or 8.4%, from the current fiscal year.

The budget also includes increases for several city utilities and fees.

Austin Energy’s typical residential customer would see an average monthly bill increase of $3.66, or 3.1%, while Austin Water’s typical residential customer would pay about $7.76 more per month, a 7.8% increase.

The proposed budget includes $6.625 billion in citywide operating expenditures, up about $301 million, or 4.8%, from the current year’s amended budget. The General Fund, which pays for core city services such as police, fire, EMS, parks and libraries, would increase to nearly $1.54 billion… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ With a CapMetro strike on the table, workers say better training would improve bus service (KUT)

In 2023, Keolis was awarded a $754 million contract to run the agency's fixed-route bus service for five years. The deal was approved by CapMetro's board of directors over the objections of union leaders, who warned that Keolis had a "history of anti-union conduct."

Now, that labor strife has arrived in Austin.

"Wish they would have listened to us," said Brent Payne, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1091. ATU represents about 1,400 drivers and mechanics.

After months of negotiations with Keolis, union members voted 99.5% in late June to authorize a strike.

A walkout would shut down virtually all public bus service citywide, leaving thousands of people scrambling to get to work, school, medical appointments and grocery stores. People board CapMetro buses more than 60,000 times a day, on average.

For most of those CapMetro customers, taking the bus isn't a choice. A 2023 survey found 85% of respondents had no household vehicle available for the trip they were taking.

A strike by Keolis workers wouldn't affect CapMetro Access, a service for people with disabilities, or the on-demand shuttle known as Pickup. Those are run by MTM Transit. The Red Line commuter train would also be unaffected. It's operated by Herzog… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin Community College passes budget, retains tuition costs for 13th year (Community Impact)

The Austin Community College district board of trustees unanimously approved a balanced budget for fiscal year 2026-27, keeping the district's tuition and mandatory fees unchanged for the 13th consecutive year while continuing to fund the college’s free tuition program.

The $583 million budget is made up of investments that “position ACC to meet the evolving educational and workforce needs of one of the nation’s fastest-growing regions,” including employee raises and $10.4 million in campus renovations, according to a July 7 news release from the district.

Under this budget, local students will continue to pay $67 per credit hour—or $85 including mandatory fees—while the out-of-district price is held at $201 per credit hour, according to the district website… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas Hispanics swung hard to Trump. A new poll shows they’re furious at his deportations. (Politico)

One in five Hispanic business owners in Texas say they’ve had an employee deported in the past year, according to a new survey commissioned by the U.S. Hispanic Business Council and shared first with POLITICO. Seven in ten said their businesses had been impacted by Trump’s tariffs. Among those surveyed, Talarico holds a seven-point lead over Attorney General Ken Paxton, the GOP nominee, even though a plurality of the over 1,000 respondents self-identify as Republican. Almost one quarter who supported Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican primary now say they’ll back Talarico, while over half say they’ll back Paxton.

The survey is the clearest sign yet of Paxton’s vulnerability among Texas’ robust Hispanic business community amidst broader signs that Hispanic voters around the country are swinging hard against him, thanks to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and the shaky economy. The survey was conducted from June 2 to 15 and included 1,012 Texas-based USHBC members. Respondents included business owners in construction, food services, retail, manufacturing and other industries.

Those business owners pointed to the fear the deportation push created in the community, as well as their bottom lines, for why they were turning on Trump and toward Talarico.

“The fear factor that it creates, the disruption that it creates, the environment that it creates, is debilitating,” said Javier Palomarez, president and CEO of USHBC. “If you’ve got a small business of 10 people or so, and you get even one person deported, you can imagine what that does to the morale of that business unit and to the fear of the business owner.”

Meanwhile, Paxton, long an immigration hardliner, has doubled down, touting his support for a controversial Texas immigration law and suing to stop publicly funded legal defense for undocumented immigrants… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Houston mayor vows local investigation into ICE shooting but says feds aren’t sharing information (Texas Tribune)

Houston Mayor John Whitmire vowed Friday to “pursue an independent and transparent” local investigation into Tuesday’s deadly ICE shooting but said federal control over evidence is proving difficult to overcome. 

Whitmire said he directed Houston Police Chief Noe Diaz to be “proactive” in pursuing an investigation amid witness statements that contradict ICE’s account of the fatal shooting of 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.

Diaz has a meeting with Houston’s FBI bureau chief next week, Whitmire said, adding that the chief asked the federal agency to “start sharing information.”

“Our hands have been tied, but I’ve instructed the chief [and] city attorney to untie those hands,” Whitmire said in an afternoon news conference.

Democratic leaders from across Texas and the country have called for an independent investigation into Tuesday’s shooting death of Salgado Araujo by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent during an “enforcement operation” in Houston. The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General is leading a federal investigation into the shooting… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ New housing law targets affordability — what it means for homebuyers and sellers (CNBC)

Bipartisan legislation intended to increase the U.S. housing supply and improve affordability is now law — but experts say homebuyers and sellers shouldn’t expect fast relief. The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act automatically became law on Saturday after President Donald Trump neither signed it nor vetoed it within a set timeframe. The legislation combines dozens of housing measures aimed at encouraging home construction, expanding access to financing and restricting purchases by large institutional investors.

The legislation “will help expand the nation’s housing supply by reducing regulatory barriers and encouraging local governments to reform zoning and land-use policies that have limited home building,” said Bill Owens, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders, in a statement after the measure cleared Congress on June 23.

The new law arrives as housing affordability remains strained. Home prices are near record highs and 30-year fixed mortgage rates continue to hover above 6.5%. The median price of an existing home in the U.S. reached $440,600 in June, up 49.2% from June 2020, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. There’s also an estimated housing supply deficit of about 4 million homes, according to Realtor.com. “This bill directly targets some of the biggest drivers of housing costs: land-use restrictions, permitting delays, financing constraints and regulatory hurdles,” said Selma Hepp, chief economist at Cotality, a real estate data company. “Unfortunately, homebuyers should not expect immediate relief,” Hepp said, adding that “housing development takes time and many of the benefits would likely materialize gradually rather than overnight.”

Among the new law’s many technical and policy changes, several provisions are likely to matter most to consumers. A key provision would prohibit large institutional investors that own at least 350 single-family homes from purchasing additional single-family homes, subject to several exceptions. Those exceptions include certain build-to-rent and renovate-to-rent projects, as well as programs that help renters build credit and eventually purchase homes... 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Fed report cites 'stepped-up' inflation due to tariffs, Iran war, AI buildout (Reuters)

U.S. inflation "stepped up further this spring" as the ​evolving impact of tariffs, a war-related rise in energy costs, and the booming artificial intelligence buildout boosted price pressures that took root last year, the Federal Reserve said on Friday ‌in a monetary policy report, opens new tab to Congress.

"Inflation has risen this year and remains elevated relative to the Federal Open Market Committee's longer-run objective of 2%," with the most recent data showing the U.S. central bank's preferred Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index running about double that rate as of May, the report said.

By contrast, "the labor market has stabilized, with demand and supply roughly in balance," and the June unemployment rate of 4.2% still "low," the Fed report ​said while noting the shifting demographic and hiring trends that are helping keep it that way.

Job vacancies have been "flat," the report noted, layoffs have been similarly "subdued," and ​the labor force itself — the pool of people available to work and contribute to economic output — has stagnated.

"A marked slowdown in immigration and ⁠ongoing declines in labor force participation due to the aging of the population led to a slowdown in labor supply growth," the document said… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Trump ally and foreign policy hawk, dies at 71 (NPR)

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., died late Saturday night following a "brief and sudden illness," according to a statement released by his office. He was 71.

Preliminary findings from the District of Columbia medical examiner showed the cause of death as aortic dissection due to a type of heart disease, Graham's office shared on Sunday.

An adaptable and sometimes controversial dealmaker, Graham was the last surviving member of an influential group of Senate defense hawks. During his near-quarter century in the Senate, Graham was also instrumental in enacting President Trump's policy and staffing priorities — after first starting out as a fierce Trump critic… 🟪 (READ MORE)