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🟪 Austin police response times lag amid chronic staffing shortage (Austn American-Statesman)

🟪 Austin ISD releases proposed budget cuts, starting with central reductions, campus cuts (CBS Austin)

🟪 Austin outlines expanded approach to homeless encampment closures (Community Impact)

🟪 Travis County approves $17.6M in childcare contracts to expand access (Austin American-Statesman)

🟪 Controversial Austin proposal could quietly extend housing rules into more neighborhoods (Austin American-Statesman)

🟪 Criminal allegations against Travis County District Attorney and top staff dismissed (CBS Austin)

🟪 ‘All hat and no cattle’: Dallas City Council pushes back on mayor’s criticism of city spending (Dallas Morning News)

🟪 Ken Paxton narrowly leads John Cornyn in new poll of Texas’ Senate GOP runoff (Texas Tribune)

✅ Austin police response times lag amid chronic staffing shortage (Austin American-Statesman)

Last month, Austinites and officials alike heaped praise on the Austin Police Department after officers responded to a mass shooting on West Sixth Street in 57 seconds and took down the gunman minutes later. The praise for the speedy response was rare for the Austin Police Department, which has struggled for years with slow response times and regularly faces online criticism and complaints. The rapid intervention also raised a question: Is the Police Department getting faster?

An American-Statesman analysis of median response times over the past decade shows that the swift reaction to the Buford’s Bar shooting was an outlier. Since 2017, response times – while seeing some improvement in the last year under Police Chief Lisa Davis – have lagged even as 911 call volumes have decreased.

The findings are reflected in public complaints. Since the city’s police oversight agency began categorizing grievances in 2022, the most common type has been “no assistance,” which includes slow responses and alleged no-shows. “It’s a large problem for APD,” Nelly Ramirez, a member of the city’s Public Safety Commission, said in an interview. “We’ve all been in a situation where we see a group of officers sitting around in their cars and we think: What are they doing? Why aren’t they responding to calls?” The Police Department also faces constant criticism on sites like Reddit, where users on the Austin forum regularly accuse police of being "useless" and “quiet quitting.”

“I for one am grateful for APDs quiet quitting bc my vehicle tags are 3 years expired,” one user quipped in a post that racked up more than 400 comments. In a recent interview, Davis flatly denied such accusations while also acknowledging slow response times as a problem and emphasizing her department’s chronic, yearslong struggle with understaffing. She also pointed to response time improvements during her 18-month tenure. “No one is quiet-quitting here,” Davis told the Statesman. “It is just the opposite.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin ISD releases proposed budget cuts, starting with central reductions, campus cuts (CBS Austin)

Austin ISD has released a summary of proposed budget cuts as the district works to close a $181 million deficit.

District leaders say they have identified $73.8 million in central office reductions, which includes eliminating vacancies such as the Deputy Superintendent of Business and Operations.

They have also identified $33.9 million in campus-level cuts, with more still needed.

According to the district, they are prioritizing campus staffing and student services, including bilingual and special education stipends, following weeks of community feedback focused on staffing concerns.

New details also show possible changes to staffing ratios, with some campuses having to change student to teacher ratios to increase class sizes… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin outlines expanded approach to homeless encampment closures (Community Impact)

Austin officials are increasing the scope and frequency of public homeless encampment clearings this spring.

Public camping is illegal in Austin under both Proposition B, a local ban reinstated by city voters in 2021, and a Texas law passed the same year.

City enforcement was ramped up after Proposition B's passage and has continued since then, including a three-week initiative by Austin Homeless Strategies and Operations last October alongside unrelated state cleanups. But widespread encampments and high public demand to address them is outstripping available resources, according to AHSO, leading to this year's recalibration.

Austin currently fields more than 700 resident 3-1-1 requests related to encampments every month, while the city's management program is only active three days per week. That structure results in "periodic" responses that don't address all identified areas or allow for follow-ups at cleared sites, often resulting in repeat camping, AHSO Director David Gray said… 🟪 (READ MORE)  

✅ Travis County approves $17.6M in childcare contracts to expand access (Austin American-Statesman)

Travis County Commissioners on Tuesday approved millions in contracts that they said would expand childcare access in the county, with a particular focus on after-school and summer programs, as part of a funding initiative voters approved in 2024.

 The contracts with more than a dozen local nonprofits — including United Way for Greater Austin, Austin Sunshine Camps, Latinitas and the Greater Austin YMCA — collectively represent a $17.65 million investment in childcare across the county.

Eleven of the organizations will provide care for school-aged children outside of school hours, according to Travis County Judge Andy Brown, creating 5,200 spots for families who might not otherwise be able to afford it.

“For children to thrive into adulthood, they need opportunities to continue exploring their talents, learning new skills, exercising, developing friendships and just having fun after school and over school breaks,” Brown said at a news conference Tuesday. “Having access to care when kids aren’t in school is critical for working parents, too.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)  

✅ Controversial Austin proposal could quietly extend housing rules into more neighborhoods (Austin American-Statesman)

A City Council resolution up for a vote Thursday could set in motion changes to Austin’s zoning rules that would significantly expand controversial land use regulations into historically exempted neighborhoods  — a measure critics say is being advanced with little public scrutiny.

Three years ago, Austin City Council approved the contentious “Home Options for Mobility and Equity,” or HOME, initiative as part of a broader push to diversify housing types and increase supply. The changes — among the most sweeping to the city’s land development code in decades — included allowing for up to three units on many lots previously limited to single-family homes and removing restrictions on the number of unrelated adults who can live in a housing unit.

The HOME initiative drew prolonged and intense opposition, in part because of concerns it would fundamentally alter the character of historic single-family neighborhoods and accelerate redevelopment.

Now, a new resolution brought forward by Council Member Krista Laine could further expand those changes. 

The resolution directs City Manager T.C. Broadnax to draft amendments aligning zoning rules across all single-family districts and regulating plans with HOME and other recent City Council direction on smaller housing types… 🟪 (READ MORE)  

✅ Criminal allegations against Travis County District Attorney and top staff dismissed (CBS Austin)

Criminal allegations against Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza and top staff members were dismissed in court on Monday. Travis County Judge Karen Sage threw out two motions that alleged misconduct and violations of due process in connection with a 2020 police use-of-force case. Doug O’Connell is the attorney representing APD Officer Chance Bretches. O'Connell alleges that the DA’s Office withheld favorable evidence in the case against the officer.

O’Connell claimed that Garza and his staff hid evidence and held secret meetings with city leaders about the 2020 Black Lives Matter demonstrations. He alleged they discussed whether the City of Austin, rather than an individual officer such as Bretches, was liable for injuries to protesters during the demonstrations. In this scenario, the city itself would be an “alternate suspect” in the case. “The court is not convinced by the 'alternative suspect' theory.

That theory would say it was not your client; it was the city. I think in this case it cannot really just be the city without your client, so I am not really interested in that theory,” said Judge Karen Sage, Travis County 299th Criminal District Court. Sage says that she is interested in seeing an exact timeline of who knew what and when. This is relevant to accusations that Bretches used expired bean bag rounds during the protest that did not work as intended… 🟪 (READ MORE)  

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✅ Ken Paxton narrowly leads John Cornyn in new poll of Texas’ Senate GOP runoff (Texas Tribune)

Attorney General Ken Paxton leads Sen. John Cornyn by three percentage points in a new poll of Texas’ U.S. Senate Republican runoff, suggesting the May 26 contest will be narrowly decided absent a shakeup in the final weeks.

The statewide survey, conducted by the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs, found Paxton garnering 48% of the vote to Cornyn’s 45% among likely GOP runoff voters. Fielded from April 28 to Friday, the poll surveyed 1,200 voters and yielded a margin of error of +/-2.83 percentage points.

Since the March 3 primary, when Cornyn finished narrowly ahead of Paxton, virtually all polling of the overtime round has come from groups with partisan ties. Most have found either a close race or a single-digit Paxton lead, much in line with the Hobby School poll.

The two Republicans are locked in a runoff after neither secured a majority of the vote in March. Cornyn won 42% of the vote to Paxton’s 40.5%, with U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Houston, coming in third with 13.5%… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Paxton’s fundraising struggles in Texas underscore deep rift in G.O.P. (New York Times)

Ken Paxton, the firebrand Texas attorney general, said last year that he thought he would need about $20 million to unseat Senator John Cornyn. So far, Mr. Paxton is far short of his mark. Many of the wealthy donors who bankrolled his political career in Texas have decided to watch from the sidelines during the U.S. Senate race, according to an analysis of state and federal campaign finance data by The New York Times. Several businessmen who spent millions on Mr. Paxton’s campaigns for state attorney general have not given to either his Senate campaign or a political action committee backing his run, including a former top donor who gave far more to Mr. Cornyn.

Perhaps most strikingly, the billionaire West Texas oilmen and far-right kingmakers who have long supported Mr. Paxton have spent little on his Senate run. Mr. Paxton’s fund-raising struggles underscore the deep rift in the Republican Party between its more business-oriented conservatives, who prefer Mr. Cornyn, and the hard-right base that embraces Mr. Paxton’s pugnacious politics.

His strong position in the race, despite a large fund-raising disadvantage, also reveals the limits of campaign spending in an election where the candidates are so well-known to voters, and where each has used his office to garner headlines for free. The runoff is May 26. Recent polls have shown Mr. Paxton with a lead or neck-and-neck with Mr. Cornyn. But Democrats, who see Mr. Paxton as a weaker candidate in a general election, may find that if he becomes the nominee, conservative campaign money will come rushing his way. One prominent Texas donor, Alex Fairly, said what was most important to him was beating the Democratic nominee, James Talarico — not who wins the primary. “It’s more a matter of saving my bullets for the general,” Mr. Fairly, an Amarillo businessman, said in an interview.

“Winning in November is more important.” Mr. Fairly gave $7,000 to Mr. Paxton’s Senate campaign — far less than the $300,000 he has contributed to Mr. Paxton’s state campaigns since 2021. In the race so far, Mr. Cornyn has significantly outspent Mr. Paxton, and still had $11 million in his campaign and committee accounts as of the latest filling — three times as much as Mr. Paxton had on hand. In total, Mr. Paxton has raised only around $13.5 million between his campaign and the committee supporting him. Mr. Paxton’s campaign declined to comment. But on the campaign trail, he has presented his fund-raising gap as a strength… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Corpus Christi to begin talks on privately built desalinization plant (Texas Tribune)

Seven months after axing their own seawater desalination plant project — and five months from when a water crisis is expected to surface — Corpus Christi City Council voted 6-2 Tuesday to begin preliminary talks with a new company to build a desalination facility for the Coastal Bend area.

AXE H20, a 2-month-old private company based in Houston, is seeking to build a plant that could produce 150 million gallons of drinking water a day. According to a presentation Tuesday, the city could pay $6.50 per 1,000 gallons — about 30% cheaper than a controversial plan to revive a city-built desalination plant known as the Inner Harbor Project.

John Olson, the company’s chairman, said using natural gas rather than electricity enables it to offer a cheaper rate than other proposals. He said the company would need two years to build the facility… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ ‘All hat and no cattle’: Dallas City Council pushes back on mayor’s criticism of city spending (Dallas Morning News)

A day after Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson slammed the City Council for approving “bloated” budgets amid escalating costs and a $33 million financial shortfall halfway through the year, three council members said the mayor hasn’t backed up his words with proposed solutions. Council member Laura Cadena said everyone agrees the city needs to live within its means. But the mayor’s email did not offer any cuts of his own in the “already bare bone budget.” “It’s easy to write a bunch of fiscal statements with zero plan to back it up,” Cadena said. “Here in Texas, we call that ‘all hat and no cattle.’ ”

Last month, City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert imposed hiring freezes, halted overtime and banned unnecessary spending. Johnson criticized the council, saying the belt-tightening should be a “wake-up call” for the council’s resistance to aggressive cuts. “Council members will pay lip service to fiscal responsibility, but when it comes time to vote, few are willing to follow through.

Each has favored projects and programs to which they will tolerate no reductions,” Johnson said in his weekly newsletter. Johnson urged council members to identify programs to cut alongside those they want to preserve. He said resistance to cuts makes it difficult to follow through, pointing to the library system.

The council recently approved four branch closures but later decided to keep all of them open. Council members say their projects are often bundled with other tiers of work and disrupting one could have a ripple effect on others. Cadena said she’s meeting with residents and community groups to learn their priorities. Council member Adam Bazaldua said he hoped the mayor “is just as enthusiastic on cuts being made to the unnecessary amount of security detail, he has ballooned his budget to include.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Morris ouster signals battle for transportation policy in North Texas (Dallas Morning News)

Visions of the future of North Texas -- and how to engineer it from wishful thinking into reality -- are hatched in a large conference room about 100 yards from Six Flags over Texas in Arlington. It is where bureaucrats make decisions that impact the everyday lives of more than 8.3 million North Texans, who are mostly unaware of the proceedings.

Article continues below this ad And it is where the region’s power brokers take high-stakes positions over how to spend billions of the public’s money. And where one man — for 36 years — led so many deals that they have become impossible to count. Michael Morris, as transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, has been the ultimate persuader.

How do you put a tolled highway in north Dallas without enraging the owners of high-rises in the way? Bore underground tunnels. How do you find cash to finish the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge when money is strangled by red tape? You depend on your local allies — the city of Dallas and private donors — to help foot the bill. But at the April 30 regularly scheduled meeting of the Regional Transportation Council, a 45-member group of elected officials from all over North Texas in charge of setting policy for the Council of Governments, Morris was not there. He was not seated in his swivel chair at the head of the meeting.

Two days prior, Morris had been shown the door by the Council of Government’s Executive Director Todd Little in what past and current members of the Regional Transportation Council say was a strategic and unlawful coup to take control of the heart and soul of transportation policy in North Texas.

Up until now, Morris was its heart and soul. But now, without Morris, the future direction of the transportation arm of the Council of Governments is up in the air. Morris may have left an indelible mark on North Texas’ highways, bus routes, commuter rail and air travel, but he also took positions that made him a polarizing figure and drew a fair share of criticism… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Houston Texans, Rodeo commit to Harris County for stadium plans (Houston Chronicle)

Team owner Cal McNair said the Houston Texans and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo have decided to make things work in Harris County. Team president Mike Tomon said the Texans have not ruled out building a new stadium within the park but are focusing on renovating Reliant Stadium, which is said to be significantly behind on needed maintenance.

“What we’ve talked to the Rodeo (about) is we’re going to make it work, and so we’ll figure out a way to make it work and have everybody a winner in this thing,” McNair said Monday at the team's annual charity golf event, which raised more than $565,000.

In February 2025, the Texans began negotiating a new lease with Harris County and the Rodeo. The current lease expires in 2032. At the time, the Texans said they wanted to remain in the greater Houston area but not necessarily in Harris County. But McNair’s latest comments represent a significant shift in their line of thinking. Whereas other nearby counties were thought to be viable candidates to potentially house a new stadium for the Texans and Rodeo, if it came to that, Harris County is now the sole focus.

“The reason we feel that way is if you take a step back and you look at Reliant Park, the attributes of it, you have 350 continuous acres on major arteries with (Interstate) 610, and soon to be the third-largest city in the United States,” Tomon said. “That is pretty special. So when we think about our partnership with the Rodeo, we’re both aligned on we’ll do everything we can to make it work on that specific site because we really think that can be transformative for the city of Houston.”

The facilities the Rodeo uses are also in need of renovations. Reliant Park is owned by the county, which leases the facilities to the Texans and the Rodeo. As part of the current lease agreement, the county is responsible for the facilities within the park and their upkeep. But the county is behind on those maintenance needs... 🟪 (READ MORE)