AUSTIN (KXAN) — On Thursday’s episode of Inside Austin’s Agenda, host Grace Reader will sit down with two Austinites, one for and one against the city’s November tax rate election proposition.
Kathy Mitchell, a longtime Austin advocate, and Jeffery Bowen, a former mayoral candidate and entrepreneur, will be on the show to discuss their thoughts on Proposition Q. Mitchell is for the passage and Bowen is against.
The show will not be in the format of a formal television debate, but rather, a conversation between unelected neighbors who disagree on how they will vote.
Inside Austin’s Agenda airs every other Thursday. Watch at the top of this article, on Facebook and our KXAN+ streaming app. You can find previous episodes here.
What is Prop Q?
If voters approve that proposition, the average homeowner’s property tax bill will go up by $302.14 annually. That does not include the increase Austinites will see in city rates.
The more than $100 million that increase would generate for the city annually would go toward services like homelessness services, parks, public safety programs and public health. Here are some of the line items:
- Roughly $8 million for parks maintenance, public land restoration and wildfire mitigation
- Fully funding the city’s homeless strategy office, which would include (but is not limited to):
- $12 million for Rapid Rehousing services
- $8 million for emergency shelter operations at the Marshalling Yard.
- $5.1 million to support new emergency shelter beds, case management services, and housing navigation services
- Funding 62 sworn EMS positions and $3 million for a mobile crisis outreach team
- More than $8 million to restore the Austin Fire Department’s overtime budget
- And $800,000 in one-time funding for off-site animal adoption services to help relieve the pressure on the Austin Animal Shelter
You can find the full breakdown of where that funding could go here.
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