Category Archives: Education

Education refers to public and private schools from primary to secondary, from pre-school to post-secondary education, adult education and more.

Statesman editorial: Tax swap “makes sense” & “an idea worth exploring”

In an editorial post SSS-Mayor-Steve-Adler-5 ed on Feb. 19, 2016, The Austin American-Statesman keyed on a short portion of his State of our City address that could make a big difference in your property tax bill:

“When AISD taxes you a dollar on your tax bill, a big chunk of it leaves and isn’t available to be spent here for services. But if the city taxed you for that same dollar, all your money does stay here. Austin taxpayers could save money or get more for the taxes we pay by having the city and the school district engage in a tax swap.”

The Statesman wrote that the tax swap was “one of the more interesting proposals Austin Mayor Steve Adler cited in his state of the city address” and “an idea worth exploring as the Austin school district is expected to send evermore of its local tax revenue to the state in an arrangement that shortchanges taxpayers and students.”

If done right, a tax swap would present taxpayers with the promise of a tax cut, schools with the possibility of more money, or a combination of both, because it would result in sending less of our school tax dollars to other school districts. Right now, AISD (where 60% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches) sends $181 million in tax revenue our of town in 2015 because of our broken school finance system. This is equal to a quarter of the school districts total Maintenance and Operations tax collections.

Meanwhile, AISD taxes the average homeowner an average of $1,000 a year. People in Austin have a lot to gain from a tax swap, and this could go a long way toward addressing our affordability crisis.

On Feb. 11, 2016, the Council approved Resolution No. 201602011-015 directing the City Manager to explore a tax swap, including the legal issues and a cost-benefit analysis. We’ll keep you posted on how this goes.

Photo credit: Stephen Spillman

“Great Cities Do Big Things” – State of Our City Feb. 16, 2016 Austin, Texas

“Great cities do big things not because they are great. Cities become great because they do big things.”

Thank you, President Fenves. I am grateful for your leadership at the University of Texas and for our growing working relationship and even friendship.

And with the conversations that need to be happening between UT and the City on issues like the development of the Innovation Zone around our new medical school, a replacement arena for the Drum, the future of the MUNY golf course site, as well as expanding opportunities for closer connection between Austin and the incredible intellectual resources of your faculty, there’s a lot for you and me — and the community — to be talking about.

And by the way, I’m grateful to you for skipping the West Virginia game tonight. You get pretty good seats, so I know what kind of sacrifice this is.

President Fenves recounted the story of the Austin Dam. I love that story, because as the Mayor of Austin I’m often asked what the secret sauce is that makes us a magical city and a center for innovation and creativity. Most every other city wishes it could replicate our success. When I attended the climate change talks in Paris, the 100 Resilient Cities meeting in London, the Almedalen Political Rhetoric Festival in Norway, and the traffic control center in Dublin, Ireland, and people found out that I was the Mayor they’d get a big smile on their face and tell me how much they love Austin.

Cities from all over our country and the rest of the world send entire delegations here to troop through our offices in hopes of finding the magic formula written on a white board somewhere. These leaders from other cities ask me what makes Austin so special. I tell them about Barton Springs and how our commitment to our environment became perhaps our most important asset. I tell them about Willie Nelson and our live music, how by embracing diverse cultures we established an inclusive community where creativity thrives, about a community where it is okay to fail so long as you learn and grow. And I tell them about Michael Dell reinventing the assembly line in his dorm room and how coming up with radical new ideas here doesn’t make you an outcast — it can make you rich and famous.

And then I tell them about the Austin Dam, and how when the dam burst we were set on a path that turned us into a boomtown of the Information Age. The lesson, I tell these visitors from other cities is clear. They need to leave Austin, return to their hometowns, and destroy all their dams and bridges, too.

But some cities just aren’t willing to do the Big Things.

Continue reading after the break.

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Our Big Accomplishments of 2015

In our first year under the new 10-1 form of government, your Austin City Council set high goals for what we could accomplish in the first year. We are proud to have made real progress toward improving Austin for everyone. We’re looking forward to an even more productive 2016.

See the full list here.

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Results from Spirit of East Austin Community Forum

Feedback from the Spirit of East Austin Community Forum has been overwhelmingly positive due in part to the dialogue focused on ways to create equitable economic and community development in East Austin. After September 12, a qualitative analysis team assembled and collected 1,990 Post-it notes to help determine next steps.

As part of our next steps, we will be scheduling community meetings to present the initial results and receive feedback to ensure they honestly reflect the community’s needs. The intention is to continue receiving ongoing input from the community while inviting stakeholders to volunteer for working teams to develop a set of community-based recommendations (i.e., projects, policies, and/or programs).

These working teams would be located in critical areas needing attention including, but not limited to, the following neighborhoods: Montopolis, Dove Springs, Colony Park, Rundberg, and Central East Austin among others. The working teams would not replace current neighborhood organizations or efforts. Instead, they would form parallel to and in collaboration with these groups to gather information and make recommendations. We want to move quickly to form our recommendations and want all input. We expect to have city staff, community members, and other experts to participate in these working teams. Satisfying a set of community-based attributes, each community team would be responsible for developing a set of recommendations that would fall into one of the following categories:

Shovel-ready (up to 1 year): Some recommendations would focus on quick, “shovel-ready” projects that may have already received attention, for example, creating sidewalks to increase walkability.
Fertile Ground (1 to 3 years): Additional work would focus on projects that require relatively minimal effort, but they have high impact on the community.
Strategic (3 to 5+ years): Long–term investments that offer greater community impact and would be strategically focused on dynamic economic development.

Helpful links:

Spirit of East Austin Community Forum analysis (online, interactive presentation)

Spirit of East Austin Online Community Forum (You must log in to access, contribute)

SPEECH: “The future of Austin rises in the East”

“It’s time to take stock of what is good and to build from that foundation of good a better, stronger and more equitable East Austin. To press forward faster, to taking our best assets and leverage them to bring unprecedented focus, energy, investment and opportunity to East Austin.

“As we Face East, we do not excuse or dismiss the parts of our past that are, at best, ugly and unjust. Rather, we can use this history as fuel for the kind of determination to shape a more equitable and prosperous future in our City’s East Austin. The community has gathered before to participate in studies and help create plans. Just by way of example, The African American, Hispanic and Asian Quality of Life reports; Colony Park master plan; the 1984 master plan; neighborhood Master Plans. We thank you for this important work. From those gatherings, some progress has been made. Yet, we all know that what has happened in the past is not nearly enough and not nearly as great as our potential. And, I hope in knowing that, it makes us all the more determined. I am determined.

“This is our shared dilemma: Many of our highest achievements in job creation, higher education, health and technology, happen in other zip codes. This imbalance has threatened the idea of Austin as a just and equitable community for decades. This imbalance does not come as a surprise. This imbalance comes as the outcome of design – the direct result of where this city has focused. It is time to turn that same level of focus to Face East.”

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