Over the past three weeks, Austinites have implored City Council to save programs threatened by Trump’s budget cuts, calling for a property tax increase by margins of at least 10 to 1, if not 20 to 1.

Mayor Kirk Watson and the Council members – with the exception of Marc Duchen – agree that taxes need to be raised. The Council voted unanimously on July 31 to call a tax rate election for the fall. The TRE will ask voters to boost taxes so the city can start paying for things once funded by the state and federal governments.

“The federal funding cuts are basically eliminating the social safety net,” Council Member Ryan Alter told the Chronicle. “And the state has refused to help with so many of their duties, whether it’s housing or homelessness or environmental issues. So it’s just us.”

But the question remains: How big of a tax increase should Council ask voters to approve?

When the budget process began in mid-July, the city provided eight possible tax rate election scenarios that would increase taxes anywhere from 1 to 8 cents on each $100 of property value. Each extra cent in tax would add approximately $40 to the average homeowner’s yearly tax bill and bring about $20 million more to the city’s general revenue fund.

The scenarios illustrated what the community could get with a 1 cent raise, a 2 cent raise, and so on. For example, a 1 cent raise would bring in enough money to keep a limited number of homeless services going for a year. Two cents stretches that funding for more years. Three cents restores the city’s Housing Trust Fund and EMS’ Trauma Recovery Center. Five cents safeguards Austin Public Health programs addressing community violence and children’s services. At 8 cents, dozens of programs and services related to homelessness, affordable housing, public health, and parks are reinstated.

Two weeks ago, it looked like Council would recommend a tax increase near the maximum threshold, with Council members Zo Qadri and Mike Siegel endorsing a 7 cent raise. But on Aug. 1, Watson proposed setting the rate at 3.5 cents. In a message to the Council that morning, he wrote, “[W]e need to take care both to reduce the risk of losing an election and to provide the best possible balance with affordability.”

Within hours of Watson’s message, Council Member Marc Duchen announced that though he’d voted for a TRE he is actually against any new property tax. As a compromise, he suggested a 2 cent TRE focused on funding the Austin Fire Department, wildfire mitigation, and parks. Two other TRE proposals emerged that day as well. One, recommending a TRE at 5.75 cents, came from the Council subquorum of CMs Qadri, Siegel, Paige Ellis, and Krista Laine. The second, recommending a 6.75-cent TRE, came from the subquorum of Alter, Vanessa Fuentes, José Velasquez, and Chito Vela.

The mayor and Council members pitched their proposals at a session last Thursday. Duchen reiterated his support for AFD, wildfire mitigation, and parks. He said Austin’s budget deficit is the result of the city spending more than it raises in taxes and that bringing in more money with a larger TRE is not a permanent fix. “My concern is we’re going to be back in the same place that we are right now in as little as two years, having this conversation about how to manage the future deficit,” he said.

Watson spoke next, saying that his 3.5 cent request focuses on funding the comprehensive homelessness plan created by the city’s Homeless Strategy Office. The $100 million plan has overwhelming support among advocates and Austin’s elected officials. CMs Fuentes and Alter thanked the mayor for prioritizing the plan.

Ellis, the spokesperson for the 5.75 cent subquorum, said the group’s larger tax increase would provide money for the homelessness plan, as well as sidewalks and parks. It would reinstate the budgets of the Office of Police Oversight and the Housing Trust Fund, bump up funding for libraries and workforce re-entry programs, and provide a cost-of-living raise for city employees who can’t work remotely. It also includes a program Siegel is calling “Pools for All,” which would waive entrance fees at all city pools, except for Barton Springs and Deep Eddy, and provide incentives to hire more lifeguards.

Alter kicked off the 6.75 cent TRE presentation by again thanking Watson and his fellow Council members for their commitment to the Homeless Strategy Office plan. He said his subquorum’s proposal fully funds the plan but adds additional money to prevent people from falling into homelessness in the first place. “Prevention is something that we know is incredibly successful,” Alter said. “It has a 97% success rate of keeping people housed and it’s very low cost. It’s less than a 10th of the cost of putting someone in rapid rehousing or in a permanent, supportive shelter.”

Alter read a long list of other services that a 6.75 cent TRE would provide, some of which appear in other TRE proposals. They include funding for the Trauma Recovery Center and Housing Trust Fund, cost-of-living increases for city employees, and money for programs related to family stabilization, violence intervention, immigration services, climate resilience, the animal shelter, and much else.

Mayor Watson ordered city employees at the end of the TRE presentations to study the plans to see which included similar proposals. Over the weekend, Duchen urged voters to contact the Council to oppose the adoption of any TRE. “Some of my colleagues have proposed a Tax Rate Election that could raise your property taxes by almost 19%, the biggest hike in 35 years,” he said in a mass email. “When combined with utility-fee increases and other new costs, the average Austin household would pay nearly $1,000 more than last year.”

Alter pushed back on Duchen’s $1,000 figure, calling particular attention to the “utility-fee increases and other costs,” which were not identified. “Stating that taxes will increase $1,000 because of a city TRE is simply false,” he said. “This number appears to include other taxing entities which we have no control over, and some of which haven’t even adopted their tax rates yet.” A spokesperson from Duchen’s office confirmed the $1,000 includes county and school taxes, along with increases to utility fees.

The city’s TRE Taxpayer Impact Statement released on July 31 clarifies that a 2 cent increase would cost about $297 a year, or $25 a month. A 5 cent increase would cost about $416 a year, or $35 a month. The difference between Duchen’s 2 cent TRE and one valued at 5 cents would be $119, or about $10 a month.

“Hidden in the opposition to the TRE is an acceptance of more homelessness, more disease transmission, more broken roads and missing sidewalks, more closed pools and unmaintained park bathrooms,” Siegel said. “The cost of inaction in this moment of austerity and authoritarianism is much higher than the incremental cost of a tax rate increase.”

Fuentes told the Chronicle she believes voters will support a higher TRE because of Republicans’ cuts to programs and services. “We’ve already had $14 million cut from Austin Public Health,” she said. “These are services that directly impact women, children, and mothers and have a disproportionate impact on people of color. We know there’s over $200 million more at risk, and that’s not even counting the support that we don’t get from the state. So regardless of what happens at the federal and state level, it’s on us to deliver a city that is providing high-quality, reliable services. And what I know about Austinites is that we care for one another.”

Council is expected to once again debate the budget on Wednesday and approve it shortly thereafter.