The general fund (which pays for police, fire, libraries, parks, etc) is $970 million. Of that, 70 percent is for public safety (police, fire, EMS), 22 percent for community services (libraries, parks, animal services), and 5 percent for development services/planning and zoning.
What are some of the most notable features of the new budget?
- The reduction of the work week for the city’s paramedics from 48 to 42 hours
- 33 new positions for the Austin Police Department
- A living wage for lifeguards to prevent pool closures
- Increased funding for the Austin Transportation Department and other transportation initiatives (like timing the lights, improving mobility and signalization)
- $13.7 million specifically for East Austin (and the Spirit of East Austin initiative), including programs to increase access to healthy food, sidewalk construction, and workforce development efforts
What does the new budget mean for you?
- The actual tax rate of 44.18 cents per $100 of property valuation is a decrease from last year. But, due to rising property values, the average taxpayer will still pay more in property taxes than they did in 2015/2016.
- Fees and rates in most city departments will increase, except for Austin Energy. As we reported earlier this month, our city’s electricity rates are going down next year for almost everyone.
- The homestead exemption will increase from 6 percent to 8 percent.
- In the end, the average Austin taxpayer will pay an additional $87 in taxes and fees this year. That’s a little over $7 a month, or a 2.3 percent increase.
How does this budget compare to last year’s?
- This year’s tax rate is actually a decrease from last year’s rate of 45.89 cents per $100 (but as we mentioned, due to rising property values, this does not mean that homeowners will experience a decrease in their actual property tax bill)
- The roughly 2.3 percent increase in fees, taxes, and utility rates that the average homeowner will experience is the smallest increase in the last five years
- This year’s general fund increased in size by about $56 million. Much of this money will be spent on increases in staffing and funding for police, fire, and EMS.
What about composting?
One of the major new programs that was included in this year’s budget is curbside composting. The City of Austin has already been running a pilot program for the past three and half years and with the new budget, is ready to take the program city-wide. The first expansion will start next year. All residential Austin Resource Recovery customers are expected to have curbside composting by 2020, at the latest.
Once the program is completely rolled out, the city estimates that customers will be charged an additional $5.40 per month. However, under the city’s current pay-as-you-throw garbage fee system, customers might be able to cancel out that fee by diverting more of their waste to the compost bin. In case you didn’t know, the city charges you more money if you have a larger trash can. By diverting more waste to compost, customers might be able to downsize from a 64-gallon cart to a 32-gallon cart, saving $61 a year, which is about how much the composting fee will cost.
Since more than a third of the trash that Austinites throw away is actually compostable, the hope is that a citywide curbside composting program will really help to reduce the amount of waste we all send to the landfill.
