BG Reads | News You Need to Know (June 10, 2021)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
City tax increase likely, but not 8 percent (Austin Monitor)
Although City Council can raise the city’s tax rate by 8 percent under Gov. Greg Abbott’s disaster declaration related to Winter Storm Uri, Council members will have to carefully weigh how to spend any revenue collected on money generated above the 3.5 percent cap. Because it won’t be there next year.
As interim Budget Officer Kerri Lang explained in a memo to Council last week, Senate Bill 1438, approved by the Legislature on May 30, prohibits a city from using the disaster declaration related to the pandemic to calculate its voter approval tax rate at 8 percent. However, cities can still calculate the rate of 8 percent as a result of the winter storm declaration. But there’s a catch that will prevent that one-time money from becoming a permanent part of the budget without voter approval.
As Lang writes, “Once the disaster calculation has expired, the city is again required to calculate its voter approval tax rate at 3.5 percent, and further, is required to reduce its property tax revenue base by the ’emergency revenue rate,’ which is the incremental rate above and beyond 3.5 percent that the city adopted in the disaster year. For example, if the city were to adopt a property tax increase of 5 percent for Fiscal Year 2021-22, it would have to remove the revenue gained from the 1.5 percent increase above 3.5 percent in the next fiscal year,” in its calculation of property taxes. “In effect, the property tax revenue collected over and above 3.5 percent as adopted in a disaster year is one-time revenue.”
This is happening because in 2019, the Legislature adopted the 3.5 percent property tax increase ceiling for city maintenance and operations – unless the city calls an election to get voter approval. Before 2019, cities, counties and other taxing entities were allowed to raise property taxes by up to 8 percent without voter approval.
As Lang wrote in an April 16 memo to Council, “Since that time, projections have consistently shown a General Fund deficit beginning in Fiscal Year 2021-22 when property tax revenue increases are limited by the 3.5 percent threshold. The FY 2022-26 financial forecast projects that with a 3.5 percent property tax increase in each year of the forecast, General Fund expenditures would exceed available revenue by $23.3 million in FY 2022, with this deficit rising to $70.8 million by FY 2026.”
In response to a question from the Austin Monitor about how the city might spend any money above the 3.5 percent increase, Council Member Leslie Pool suggested purchases of real estate, a hotel, master plans and investments in setting up programs. She said the city could shift all of its one-time funding to be paid for by what are essentially one-time funds.
Pool also noted that the city continues to gain new developments, which means more property tax revenue. Various departments can also raise fees to cover the cost of their services. In her April 16 memo, Lang showed forecasted fee increases for the next five years. For example, the transportation user fee is projected to increase from the current $13.04 to $14.96 in 2022 and to $17.51 in 2024.
Overall, budget planners projected that taxes and fees will increase by 2.1 percent per year on average over the next five years. It’s not clear, however, how much those things might change as a result of state law… (LINK TO STORY)
Former Austin council member Ellen Troxclair announces run for Texas Senate (Austin American-Statesman)
Former Austin City Council Member Ellen Troxclair — who was a rare conservative on the mostly liberal council and who represented the southwestern portion of the city — has announced she's running for the Texas Senate.
Troxclair is seeking to succeed state Sen. Dawn Buckingham, R-Lakeway, who said earlier this week she won't seek reelection to instead run for land commissioner in 2022.
In an email announcing her candidacy Wednesday, Troxclair, 36, espoused many of the same conservative ideals that helped Buckingham win two terms representing Senate District 24, which encompasses western Travis County and a wide swath of the Hill Country.
During the just completed legislative session, Buckingham authored several bills targeting Austin, including a statewide camping ban. She also unsuccessfully moved to allow property owners along Lake Austin and in the Lost Creek neighborhood to disannex from the city and let large electric customers appeal Austin Energy rates.
“With the Biden Administration doing everything it can to force its radical leftist agenda through executive orders and acts of Congress, Texas needs proven, conservative fighters to hold the line at the state level,” Troxclair said in a written statement. “It is with this in mind, that today I am excited to announce my candidacy for Texas Senate.”
Troxclair is the first candidate to jump into the race, which will begin with a primary election on March 1… (LINK TO STORY)
Meet 25 candidates who want to be Austin's next police chief (Austin American-Statesman)
Through a public records request, the American-Statesman has obtained the names of 25 candidates who applied to be the next Austin police chief.
The request covered everyone who had applied as of May 17, leaving out about another dozen or so candidates who entered the mix between then and Monday's application deadline, according to city officials.
Interim Police Chief Joseph Chacon confirmed he applied after the Statesman's records request was made. City officials will interview two or three candidates in late July or early August, Assistant City Manager Rey Arellano said.
In addition to Chacon, here are the 25 candidates who have applied, according to documents file with the city:
Jerry Afari: Washington, D.C. metro police, special victims unit detective.
Aaron Ausmus: Former Angleton chief of police who resigned in March without explanation.
Cedric Brown: Mississippi capitol police officer.
Jorge "George" Camarillo: Bangs, Texas police chief; former Texas DPS investigator.
Omar Chavez: U.S. Department of State contract police instructor.
Darryl Coleman: Chief over criminal justice command at Harris County Sheriff's Office
Joel Fitzgerald: Waterloo, Iowa police chief. Previous stops as chief were in Fort Worth, Allentown, Pa., and Missouri City, Texas.
Ricardo Herrera: Police chief in Falfurrias, a town of about 5,000 in South Texas.
James Jones: Former senior lieutenant with Detroit Police Department who currently is an executive for a startup that provides drug testing services for professional athletes.
Robert Jones: Was named lone finalist for chief in Pine Bluff, Ark. this week. At the time he applied, he was chief in Kingsland, Ga.
Paul Junger: Dallas police major, a role in which he develops continuing education programs for 550-plus officers.
Joseph Lestrange: Homeland Security Investigations division chief in Washington; adjunct professor at three college universities.
Ernest Morales: Mount Vernon, N.Y. first deputy commissioner; supervises 211 officers and 101 civilians with an operating budget of $25 million.
Demetrick Pennie: Dallas Police Department sergeant and former congressional candidate who ran as a Republican in November 2020 and was defeated by Democrat Eddie Bernice Johnson.
William Pereyra: Task force officer for the U.S. Marshals and member of the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force; captain with Marlin Police.
Steven Rivera: Supervising criminal investigator for New York tax department; U.S. Department of Homeland Security cross designated customs officer.
Jeffrey Seif: student at Cambridge University in England; director/training coordinator of the Dallas College Law Enforcement Academy, located at their Lancaster campus.
La'Ron Singletary: Former Rochester, N.Y. chief who was let go last year following an investigation into the death of a man in police custody.
Joseph Sullivan: Former deputy commissioner in Philadelphia who retired last year after he interviewed for the commissioner's post and didn't get the job.
James Torres: chief of security at private security firm that works in the Austin area.
Hector Villarreal: Coastal Bend College site director; reserve peace officer in Kingsville.
Celvin Walwyn: Virgin Islands deputy commissioner of police operations.
Eric Winstrom: Chicago Police Department commander who grew up in Austin and leads about 190 sworn officers.
James Womack: Longtime law enforcement veteran who currently works in Tarrant County probation office.
Richard Worley: Baltimore Police Department colonel chief of patrol, ranking one spot below commissioner; implemented deployment plans in 2020 protests… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin seeks to build affordable housing in East Austin (City of Austin)
The Austin Housing Finance Corporation (AHFC) has released a competitive Request for Proposals (RFP) solicitation to develop income-restricted affordable housing on a 7.96 - acre AHFC-owned property located at 3811 Tannehill Lane in the East MLK neighborhood of Austin.
Priority will be given to proposals that:
Maximize the number of affordable units
Maximize the number of affordable multi-bedroom units for families
Provide deeply affordable units for Austin's lowest-income households
Provide affordable ownership units to help low-income households build wealth
Prioritize affordable housing for low-income households previously displaced or at-risk of being displaced from the area
Minimize City of Austin subsidy per affordable unit
The Request for Proposals and supporting documentation are available on the RFP Website… (LINK TO RELEASE)
What does the future hold for old Brackenridge hospital? Developers’ ideas wanted (Austin Business Journal)
More details will become available in the coming months on how developers can take part in the transformation of a 14-acre tract in downtown Austin that was once home to the University Medical Center Brackenridge campus.
Austin City Council is scheduled to consider final approval for a planned unit development request for the land at its June 10 meeting.
Council is preparing to go on a summer break and won't reconvene until the end of July. So final approval on June 10 is needed for Central Health — the landowner and a provider of health care for low-income Travis County residents — to move forward with requests for information in the early fall, said Nikelle Meade, an attorney with Husch Blackwell LLP representing Central Health.
Dense development has long been expected on the former hospital campus. UMC Brackenridge closed in 2017, and demolition began last year. The idea is to make way for a mix of development at 15th and Red River streets, such as offices, medical facilities, shops, residences and more, and the PUD zoning is the vehicle to make that happen… (LINK TO STORY)
Commissioners clap back at justice advocates protesting county jail plan (Austin Monitor)
The Travis County Commissioners Court on Tuesday responded to pushback from criminal justice reform advocates upset at the county’s plan to approve a $600 million spending motion for county jails. While commissioners ultimately decided to delay the motion until next week (in a non-unanimous vote), several of them pushed back on the advocates’ characterization of the county jails.
“Nobody likes jails. I don’t know anybody who likes jails. I don’t like jails. Nobody likes having to spend our money on it. But we have a legal responsibility to maintain the jails. And not to just the very least minimum standards; there’s enough of that in Texas already,” Commissioner Brigid Shea said. She went on to state her belief that the county’s justice system is as humane as possible.
“We have to have jails. There are people who are dangerous criminals who need to be in jail. I’m appreciative of what the advocates have done, but at the end of the day we have an unpleasant and unpopular responsibility to maintain the jails,” Shea said.
Shea highlighted Travis County’s investments in diversion courts and jail-prevention programs.
She also made the point that the basis of the $600 million proposal was developed from the testimony and “expert advice of women who were involved across the spectrum.”
“People need to understand we are not rushing anything. We delayed action in 2018 so that we could have a thoughtful process about how best to design a facility where we are legally required to provide appropriate jail facilities,” she said. “So I’m not going to support a further delay. I think there’s unfortunately been a tremendous amount of misinformation, and frankly, offensive statements made about how Travis County has been conducting itself.”
Commissioner Margaret Gómez, agreeing with Shea, said, “Providing jail space is one of those mandates that county government has. Every county in the country has expanded and we can’t turn away from that. It’s not that easy to say, you know what, I don’t want to do this part of my duty.”
Commissioner Jeffrey Travillion also made the point the effort was previously shot down by commissioners because it wasn’t favorable enough for inmates. “One reason that I voted (in the past) to postpone this process was the design that was brought to us did not have the health care resources that we demanded at the beginning.” Now, according to Travillion, the jail will be able “to provide services that will address problems, create stability and prepare someone to go back successfully into the community.”
County Judge Andy Brown, Commissioner Ann Howard and Commissioner Gómez all voted in favor of postponement, while Commissioner Shea voted against postponement and Commissioner Travillion abstained. The decision is slated for next week… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Fear of coronavirus will no longer be acceptable reason for Texans on unemployment to turn down job offers (Texas Tribune)
Jobless Texans who refuse work offers because they feel like the job isn’t safe during the pandemic won’t be able to receive unemployment benefits as of June 26, the Texas Workforce Commission announced this week.
Since last year, special pandemic guidelines have allowed some out-of-work people to decline a job if it doesn’t have proper COVID-19 health or safety protocols — and still qualify for unemployment benefits.
“The decline in COVID cases in Texas, widespread availability of vaccines, and greater availability of services such as child care renders such guidance out of date,” a TWC press release stated Tuesday… (LINK TO STORY)
Lawmakers move to create 'Texas CDC' to prepare for the next pandemic (Houston Chronicle)
Now that the pandemic is subsiding, Texas leaders and public health officials are starting to reflect on how quickly the state reacted and how it could improve. Enter the “Texas CDC,” as lawmakers have branded it. A bill that passed out of the Legislature this session and is awaiting Gov. Greg Abbott's signature would create the Texas Epidemic Public Health Institute based at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. It would operate in partnership with sister campuses and other academic centers across the state, as well as the state health and emergency management departments. “We, in recent years, have been become very much accustomed to disaster response for hurricanes and the storms that we endured like Hurricane Harvey and others before it,” said bill author Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe. “With the pandemic … we found for certain communication efforts and coordination efforts that we were behind in planning at that scale.”
Using the National Guard as a model, the institute would train and maintain a reserve of 3,500 public health professionals and others throughout the state who would be ready to mobilize in the event of a future pandemic, said Eric Boerwinkle, dean of the UTHealth School of Public Health. Plans call for 100 full-time employees, including epidemiologists and data analysts, to conduct that training, help build on the statewide laboratory infrastructure and improve statistical reporting. Training opportunities for the reserve would be ongoing and include, for example, weekend simulations of pandemics. The coronavirus pandemic exposed the need for more coordination and preparation, Boerwinkle said. “Given the time frame and how quickly this came upon us, I don’t think we did a bad job as a state,” he said.
“This is going to help us achieve a better, earlier response.” The idea of the institute first surfaced during discussions about another bill, House Bill 3, which would have set rules for the governor’s emergency powers during pandemics but failed to pass this session. Dr. John Zerwas, executive vice chancellor for health affairs at the University of Texas system and one of Abbott’s medical advisers during the pandemic, in March had testified on the need for the institute. “If the Legislature this session doesn’t respond with really some definitive lessons from this, if you will, some things they can actually make happen, then shame on us,” he said. “We should be taking these things and saying there are clearly things we can do, not only as a state but as a nation, that will put us in a better place to respond.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Texas power generation companies will have to better prepare for extreme weather under bills Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law (Texas Tribune)
Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law Tuesday two bills meant to improve the state’s main power grid and change the governance of the agency that operates it.
Calls for sweeping changes to Texas’ power infrastructure have amplified since February, when a catastrophic winter storm left more than 4.8 million homes and businesses without power for days. The state reports that 151 people died, though a BuzzFeed News analysis found the number of fatalities may be 700.
The legislation written and finalized over the session addresses key areas of improvement, such as “weatherization” of power generators to prepare them for extreme weather, while neglecting other initiatives called for by experts, such as providing direct aid to consumers impacted by the storm.
“Everything that needed to be done was done to fix the power grid in Texas,” Abbott said at a press conference Tuesday.
Senate Bill 3 requires upgrades for power generators and transmission lines to make them better withstand extreme weather. According to Abbott, the Texas Railroad Commission and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas will conduct inspections of the facilities, and failure to weatherize may result in penalties of up to $1 million.
ERCOT oversees the state’s main power grid, and the railroad commission regulates the state’s oil and gas industry.
The bill is more lenient toward natural gas fuel companies, which supply power plants. They will only be required to weatherize if deemed “critical” by regulators. It also leaves out any requirements to improve consumer infrastructure such as homes and pipes, which experts have called a significant oversight.
The state likely won’t require companies to weatherize until 2022 at the earliest, and plans to help them pay for the upgrades were struck from the legislation during negotiations between members of the Senate and House… (LINK TO STORY)
State bar investigating Texas attorney general (Associated Press)
The Texas bar association is investigating whether state Attorney General Ken Paxton's failed efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election based on bogus claims of fraud amounted to professional misconduct. The State Bar of Texas initially declined to take up a Democratic Party activist's complaint that Paxton's petitioning of the U.S. Supreme Court to block Joe Biden’s victory was frivolous and unethical. But a tribunal that oversees grievances against lawyers overturned that decision late last month and ordered the bar to look into the accusations against the Republican official.
The investigation is yet another liability for the embattled attorney general, who is facing a years-old criminal case, a separate, newer FBI investigation, and a Republican primary opponent who is seeking to make electoral hay of the various controversies. It also makes Paxton one of the highest profile lawyers to face professional blowback over their roles in Donald Trump's effort to delegitimize his defeat. A spokesman for the attorney general's office did not respond to requests for comment. Paxton's defense lawyer, Philip Hilder, declined to comment. Kevin Moran, the 71-year-old president of the Galveston Island Democrats, shared his complaint with The Associated Press along with letters from the State Bar of Texas and the Board of Disciplinary Appeals that confirm the investigation.
He said Paxton's efforts to dismiss other states' election results was a wasteful embarrassment for which the attorney general should lose his law license. “He wanted to disenfranchise the voters in four other states,” said Moran. “It's just crazy.” Texas' top appeals lawyer, who would usually argue the state's cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, notably did not join Paxton in bringing the election suit. The high court threw it out… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Robinhood and Didi to Kick Off a Hot IPO Summer (Wall Street Journal)
The IPO market is set to be scorching hot this summer.
Public filings are looming for Chinese ride-sharing company Didi Chuxing Technology Co. and Robinhood Markets Inc., two of the most hotly anticipated initial public offerings of 2021, people familiar with the matter said. Their stocks are likely to begin trading in July. Fund managers, venture capitalists, bankers and lawyers said they are busier than they have been in decades at this time of year, which is usually quieter. Some claim business is even crazier than during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s.
Some bankers estimated that from June through August, U.S.-listed IPOs could raise upward of $40 billion. That would eclipse the previous record of $32 billion over those three months, set last year, according to Dealogic data going back to 1995. That doesn’t include money raised by special-purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, which were going gangbusters earlier this year but have slowed.
Some bankers said they are working with more than two dozen companies that have confidentially filed for IPOs and are considering starting roadshows to pitch investors in coming weeks.
“As prolific as issuance was last summer, we believe this year will exceed that,” said Jim Cooney, head of Americas equity-capital markets at Bank of America Corp. “It’s on track to be the busiest yet.”… (LINK TO STORY)
House Democrats about to uncork 5-pronged assault on tech (Politico)
House Democrats are set to introduce a package of five bills as soon as this week that would prohibit tech giants like Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google from discriminating against rivals or buying potential competitors, two individuals familiar with the discussions told POLITICO — the most serious effort yet to rein in Silicon Valley’s power after years of complaints from Congress.
The most controversial bill would let prosecutors sue to break up major tech companies by forcing the platforms to sell off lines of business if they represent a conflict of interest. POLITICO obtained drafts of all five bills.
The legislation aims to enact the recommendations from a blockbuster House Judiciary Committee report last fall on competition in digital markets, which found that the four tech giants have monopolized various aspects of the online economy. It also represents a major test for Congress: Can the lawmakers of both parties who have condemned the tech companies as abusive monopolists come together to do something about it?
Democrats on the House Judiciary antitrust panel circulated the draft bills to potential co-sponsors this week. They hope to lure at least some GOP members into supporting the bills, particularly Colorado Rep. Ken Buck, a critic of the large tech companies and the top Republican on the panel.
“This is a significant change,” William Kovacic, a former Federal Trade Commission chair who now sits on the board of the U.K.’s competition authority. “This is not traditional antitrust law. This is a broader concept of competition policy that borrows some antitrust concepts, but relies on a broader notion on what behavior for individual firms is inappropriate.”
Adam Kovacevich of the tech-backed lobbying group Chamber of Progress charged that some of the bills would effectively ban popular offerings such as Amazon’s free Prime shipping service or practices like Google putting its maps at the top of search results… (LINK TO STORY)
U.S. weekly jobless claims seen falling; consumer prices expected to rise further (Reuters)
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits likely fell last week to the lowest level in nearly 15 months, while consumer prices increased further in May as the pandemic's easing grip on the economy continues to boost demand.
The Labor Department is likely to report on Thursday that initial claims for state unemployment benefits totaled a seasonally adjusted 370,000 for the week ended June 5, compared to 385,000 in the prior week, according to a Reuters survey of economists.
That would be the lowest since mid-March 2020 when the first wave of COVID-19 infections barreled through the country, leading to closures of nonessential businesses, and mark the sixth straight weekly decline.
Layoffs are abating, with employers scrambling for labor as millions of unemployed Americans remain at home because of trouble securing child care, generous unemployment benefits and lingering fears of the virus even though vaccines are now widely accessible… (LINK TO STORY)
Tesla to launch high-end Model S ‘Plaid’ to fend off Mercedes, Porsche (Reuters)
Tesla Inc will deliver a high-performance version of its Model S on Thursday, aiming to reignite interest in the nearly decade-old sedan and fend off rivals such as Porsche, Mercedes-Benz and Lucid Motors in the luxury electric vehicle market.
Tesla (TSLA.O) redefined electric cars in 2012 when it launched its high-end Model S with a sleek design and long driving range, but is facing a raft of new challengers.
The automaker plans to livestream the delivery of the first Model S Plaid at its U.S. factory in Fremont, California at 7 pm PT (0200 GMT, Friday), according to its official Twitter account.
CEO Elon Musk has not said whether he will take the stage, but he has been on Twitter promoting the new model, which is priced at $129,990 against $79,990 for a long-range Model S.
The latest price for the Model S Plaid is $10,000 more than what was displayed a few days ago on Tesla's website.
"The Model S has not been changing a lot in terms of looks over the past almost decade. I think Tesla has to offer consumers something more," said Jessica Caldwell, executive director at car information provider Edmunds said… (LINK TO STORY)