BG Reads // October 3, 2025

Author

A.J. Bingham
October 03, 2025

faustin a

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www.binghamgp.com

October 3, 2025

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 Austin ISD to release school closures list on Friday (KUT)

🟪 Austin City Council’s October 9th Meeting Agenda

🟪 UT-Austin considering offer to adopt Trump priorities for funding advantages (Texas Tribune)

🟪 You think Austin's airport is crowded now? Wait until ACL Fest weekends (Austin American-Statesman)

🟪 Economic boom or environmental disaster? Rural Texas grapples with pros, cons of data centers (Texas Tribune)

🟪 Texas attorney general tells 4 cities to drop tax hikes amid investigations into incomplete audits (Texas Tribune)

🟪  Government shutdown delays key monthly jobs report at a pivotal moment for the U.S. economy (NBC News)

 🟪 Trump explores bailout of at least $10 billion for U.S. farmers (Wall Street Journal)

READ ON!

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🏛️ City Manager Executives and Advisors Staff Visual Chart

CMO Executives and Advisors_July 2025.pdf519.20 KB • PDF File

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

✅ Austin ISD to release school closures list on Friday (KUT)

A long-awaited list of which Austin Independent School District campuses will close for the 2026-2027 school year will be released to parents at 5:30 p.m. on Friday.

In an Instagram video, Austin ISD Superintendent Matias Segura said the late-in-the-week announcement is “very very intentional.”

“I know 5:30 p.m. on Friday isn’t the best time to receive information like this,” he said. “We wanted to make sure that we created space to engage with our principals and have these conversations one on one, so that they can then have a conversation with their staff, at their campus, at the end of the day on Friday.”

Segura said the district will post the new plan on the district’s website and social media channels as well as send letters to individual families. The announcement will be posted with an interactive “What’s my school?” tool that parents can use to figure out how their campus will be affected, as well as instructions for how to give feedback… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ UT-Austin considering offer to adopt Trump priorities for funding advantages (Texas Tribune)

The Trump administration has asked the University of Texas at Austin to agree to a “set of operating principles” — which reportedly include adopting a stricter definition of gender, a five-year tuition freeze and a cap on international student enrollment — in exchange for preferential access to federal funding, the University of Texas System confirmed on Thursday.

The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported that the Trump administration sent a letter to UT-Austin and eight other universities asking them to join a “compact” that would qualify them for the benefit. The schools would have to ban the use of race and sex considerations in admissions and hiring, cap enrollment of international undergraduate students at 15%, and require applicants to take the SAT or a similar test.

An ABC News affiliate in Boston first published the memo, which The Texas Tribune has reviewed. The Trump administration would also require universities to stay politically neutral, restructure academic programs it says sideline conservative viewpoints, crack down on disruptive protests, refund tuition to students who drop out within the first year, and commit to grading standards that "only rigorously reflect the demonstrated mastery of a subject that the grade purports to represent."

In a statement to the Tribune, UT System Board of Regents Chair Kevin Eltife said the system was honored UT-Austin was selected to be part of the Trump administration’s proposal… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ You think Austin's airport is crowded now? Wait until ACL Fest weekends (Austin American-Statesman)

As music fans flock to the ATX for the Austin City Limits Music Festival this weekend and next, travelers should expect bigger-than-normal crowds at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and plan accordingly, airport officials said.

More than 35,000 passengers per day could pass through ABIA during the festival weekends, up from the typical 22,000 or so. The increased traffic could mean more congestion and longer lines in the terminal, so passengers should arrive early, according to airport spokeswoman Samantha Rojas.

“We recommend two and a half hours if you’re flying domestically, or three hours if you’re flying internationally, so people have time to find that parking spot, to check in their bag, to find out where they're going — to just make it easier on them,” Rojas said… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Commission approves permit for Austin Resource Recovery center near Colony Park after misgivings, postponement (Austin Monitor)

A conditional use permit requested by the city was approved by the Zoning and Platting Commission during their Sept. 2 meeting. The permit was nearly rejected, and eventually postponed, during an earlier meeting of the commission.

The approval will allow redevelopment of 8301 Johnny Morris Road in Northeast Austin into a 131-acre, $253.5 million hub for Austin Resource Recovery and Fleet Services. Construction is expected to begin this year and run through 2027. Commissioners had questioned the project’s potential impacts on neighbors, especially the Colony Park development, during the initial hearing.

The Colony Park project, which broke ground in April, will see the transformation of a large tract of city-owned land into a 200-acre planned community in a partnership between the city and Catellus Development Corporation, the firm that built the Mueller complex at the site of the former airport.

During the August 19 hearing, Commissioner Lonny Stern questioned the placement of the service center near what will become a massive, densely-populated neighborhood expected to include up to 3,000 residences. Stern sparred with Commissioner Luis Osta Lugo on the issue, who argued that the placement of the service center could give city workers the opportunity to live near where they work... 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ New initiative launched to help bring South Korean companies to Central Texas (Austin Business Journal)

As Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has slow-walked the opening of its massive chipmaking factory in Taylor, economic development leaders in the area have placed less of an emphasis on solely courting fellow South Korean companies and more on landing international businesses as a whole.

That has prompted EC Chi, formerly international director of the Williamson County Economic Development Partnership, to launch what she's calling the KoreaTexas Forum. Its sole mission: to help South Korean companies that are landing or expanding in Central Texas, from Killeen to Buda to Bastrop to Elgin and seemingly everywhere in between.

Chi said the KoreaTexas Forum, based at 1000 Gattis School Road in Round Rock, aims to support Korean companies of various industries and sizes, as well as Korean startups and educational and cultural entities.

"The Forum's function is making those bridges (between) what they expected and what they have to adjust (to)," she said. Unlike most economic development groups, which are funded by and represent municipalities, her group is more businesses oriented, she said… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[TEXAS/US NEWS]

✅ Economic boom or environmental disaster? Rural Texas grapples with pros, cons of data centers (Texas Tribune)

Data centers have been around since the 1940s, housing technology infrastructure that runs computer applications, internet servers, and stores the data that comes from them. More recently, data centers are powering artificial intelligence and other internet juggernauts like Google, Amazon and Meta.

These newer sprawling data centers have been sold to communities as a boon to their economic development. Rural Texas has become a prized spot for the businesses rushing into the state.

Virginia is the only state with more data centers than Texas, which has 391. While most are concentrated in North Texas and other major metro areas, they are increasingly being planned in rural areas.

Affordable property rates, wide open spaces, and welcoming local officials have made remote areas attractive. However, the people who live in those areas have grown worried about what incoming centers — which can sit on thousands of acres of land — mean for their lands, homes, and especially, their limited water supply.

From the Panhandle to the Rio Grande Valley, Texas’ water supply is limited. The strain is particularly acute in rural West Texas and other areas of the state that face regular drought. Data centers, especially those used for artificial intelligence, can use an extraordinary amount of water. The state does not yet require most data centers to report their water usage… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas attorney general tells 4 cities to drop tax hikes amid investigations into incomplete audits (Texas Tribune)

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is demanding that four cities suspend their property tax increases as his office investigates whether they broke a new state law.

Paxton, in letters to city officials in Odessa, La Marque, Tom Bean and Whitesboro, said his office received complaints that the cities either missed key financial reporting deadlines or have incomplete audits.

A new law, signed by Gov. Greg Abbott in May, forbids local governments from raising property taxes if they are not complying with the state’s auditing requirements. It grants the Paxton’s office the power to investigate complaints.

“Texas auditing laws require cities to file their annual report and financial statements by a certain point in the fiscal year,” Paxton’s office said in a news release. “But several municipalities seemingly failed to do so and either submitted their reports late or not at all.”… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Government shutdown delays key monthly jobs report at a pivotal moment for the U.S. economy (NBC News)

For people who closely follow the U.S. economy, the first Friday of every month is known as “jobs Friday,” when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the previous month’s employment report at precisely 8:30 a.m. ET.

But on this jobs Friday, September's employment data — a critical window into the health of the U.S. labor market — will not be released.

Like many other federal offices, the BLS is temporarily closed because of the ongoing government shutdown.

Until Congress approves its funding, the bureau’s more than 2,000 employees will remain furloughed, unable to release any reports.

The data blackout comes at a perilous time for the U.S. economy.

The unemployment rate has steadily ticked up this year, from a seasonally adjusted 4% in January to 4.3% in August.

On Wednesday, new private-sector employment data released by payroll processing giant ADP showed a net loss of 32,000 jobs in September. Economists had expected a gain of around 45,000 jobs.

The surprise loss of private-sector jobs only served to compound the value a Friday jobs report could have provided to policymakers and businesses as they try to make sense of the rapid shifts underway in the labor market.

Federal Reserve officials are also considering next steps for interest rates.

When the Fed cut borrowing costs last month, Chairman Jerome Powell warned that the overall economic picture was so unusual that central bankers were having a hard time forecasting what would come next… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Trump explores bailout of at least $10 billion for U.S. farmers (Wall Street Journal)

President Trump is considering providing $10 billion or more in aid to U.S. farmers as the agriculture sector warns of economic fallout from his far-reaching tariffs, according to people familiar with the discussions. The president and his team are weighing using tariff revenue to fund much of the aid, the people said, adding that distribution of the money could start in the coming months. A senior administration official said the discussions have centered on $10 billion to $14 billion in aid. The aid likely would go toward helping soybean producers, as well as other parts of the farm economy.

The official stressed that the deliberations were ongoing and that nothing had been definitively settled. “President Trump and Secretary Rollins are always in touch about the needs of our farmers, who played a crucial role in the President’s November victory,” said Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, referring to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. “He has made clear his intention to use tariff revenue to help our agricultural sector, but no final decisions on the contours of this plan have been made,” she added.

Trump said earlier this week that he planned to push Chinese leader Xi Jinping to buy U.S. soybeans to help struggling American farmers. The two leaders are scheduled to meet on the sidelines of a summit in South Korea in the coming weeks. A deal with China to buy soybeans could change Trump’s calculation about providing aid to farmers, the official said. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on CNBC that the administration could announce new support for farmers on Tuesday.

But that timeline could slip, the official said, noting that the government shutdown might complicate those plans. American farmers are harvesting one of the largest crops in history, fueling a glut that is driving down prices for corn and soybeans. Rising costs for equipment, fertilizer and other materials are also crimping profits.

U.S. soybean farmers are estimated to lose roughly $100 an acre this year, according to federal data. Chris Swanson finished harvesting 1,500 acres of soybeans on his 7,000-acre farm in northwest Iowa in recent days. He expects to sell his bean crop at about $9.50 a bushel. “It’s piss poor prices, but not a bad yield,” he said. Farmers such as Swanson have been cutting back on fertilizer and equipment purchases in recent years as profits fall from years of bumper crops. Last year’s $10 billion in aid to farmers helped him offset some of his losses. If a new bailout comes, he expects farmers will spend it immediately to catch up on purchases they have been neglecting… 🟪 (READ MORE)

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