BG Reads | News You Need to Know (April 11, 2023)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Arts, music commissions to renew push for short-term rental tax collectionS (austin monitor)
It appears arts and music advocates will likely ask City Council to reach an agreement with short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb and begin receiving millions of dollars in uncollected hotel taxes that could in part benefit the local creative community.
Both the Music Commission and Arts Commission have in the past year asked the city to move on from the regulatory impasse it has reached with short-term rental platforms that prevents the collection of Hotel Occupancy Tax receipts that by some estimates could total more than $20 million per year. Based on state law, a portion of that money would be available to fund music and cultural arts programs along with some renovations of historic sites.
At a combined meeting of the arts and music commissions on Saturday, leaders of both groups said the city is losing out on the ability to collect needed arts funding.
“This is an issue because there is money being left on the table and there needs to be a resolution, even if it’s just a request that goes up the chain,” Arts Commissioner Celina Zisman said. “It’s worth having that instead of throwing our hands up in the air … it’s not our problem to fix but we’re allowed to have an opinion on it when we’re talking about an ecosystem that isn’t being served by the amount of (hotel) taxes that we’re collecting.”
While Austin has become a popular tourist destination and short-term rental (STR) market over the past decade-plus, the city has failed to reach an agreement with the tech companies that support it because the city wants to have full transparency into what homes are listed for each company, as well as how often they are rented and at what rates… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
A year after 3-day boil water order, Austin Water makes progress on 53 audit recommendations (Austin American-Statesman)
The utility has implemented most of the recommendations, from ramping up hiring to improving retention to implementing better communication strategies daily and during emergency situations, said Shay Ralls Roalson, who was named Austin Water director in December. She updated the council about progress on the recommendations laid out in a report released in January.
Roalson told the Statesman last week that the utility is moving forward with 92% of the 53 recommendations. Fourteen have been implemented, 23 are underway and 12 are planned. She said her team did not agree with four, which call for the utility to report directly to the city manager and reduce some of its control.
Council Member Alison Alter, who called for the external review of Austin Water, said the four underlying problems still need to be addressed.
Assistant City Manager Robert Goode, who oversees Austin Water, said the city manager’s office coordinated with the utility on the response to the recommendation that it report directly to the city manager, and the staff also disagreed with that recommendation.
"Different municipal utility organizational structures exist across the country with no system necessarily deemed more effective, or successful, than another," Goode said. "The city manager must constantly evaluate the appropriateness of the entire organizational structure and adjust, as necessary.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Audit: Austin lost track of 5-year push for affordability, equitable economic outcomes (Community impact)
Despite a stated desire by many city leaders to tackle affordability in Austin, a March audit report laid out failures by the city to adequately track and report on relevant SD23 progress.
While auditors said Austin created an effective strategic plan, shortcomings after that initial step included the city's use of ineffective performance metrics, the delayed launch of public reporting and lacking reviews by the city on any headway made.
The audit team criticized the city's use of performance measures that were vague or overly broad, and that were not reported on a timely basis. Of all metrics tracked under the “economic opportunity and affordability," around half did not have defined targets.Several elected seats and city executive positions responsible for SD23 outcomes have turned over since the plan's creation, most recently with the election of four new City Council members in December and the replacement of City Manager Spencer Cronk with interim City Manager Jesús Garza in February. In March, Garza also shifted which assistant city manager oversees the economic opportunity outcome.
City officials may now be rethinking how the top priorities are tracked. Auditor Corrie Stokes said Garza is seeking to make city management responsible for strategic direction goals, rather than council, a process that budget officer Kerri Lang said is underway… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
Plan to revive Texas' corporate tax breaks adds more lucrative incentives, eases job requirements (Houston Chronicle)
Texas Republicans on Monday unveiled a plan to revive the state’s largest corporate tax break program with legislation that would make the incentives more widely available and more lucrative; water down prior job creation and wage requirements; and exempt “grid reliability” projects — including various natural gas facilities — from most of the program’s key guardrails. The proposal closely mirrors Chapter 313, the defunct law that expired at the end of last year after lawmakers failed to extend it. That program gave manufacturing and energy companies a decade of steep discounts on their school property taxes in order to lure them to Texas over other states. The revived version, known as House Bill 5, would provide more lucrative incentives overall, including provisions that appear to waive all school district maintenance and operations tax payments while a project is under construction, make not just new facilities but expansions eligible for subsidies, and increase the size of the firms’ tax breaks compared to its predecessor program.
Critics of Chapter 313 noted that the new program would use identical criteria in deciding whether a firm deserves the subsidies, which a 2021 Chronicle investigation found did not prevent incentives from going to companies that would have come to Texas regardless. The Chronicle also revealed that lawmakers had repeatedly undercut the program’s job and wage goals by weakening requirements for companies — a key part of lawmakers’ decision to let Chapter 313 lapse. The new program would never expire, or "sunset," ensuring it could not meet the same fate. “We wouldn't even be here if not for the sunset provisions of 313,” Dick Lavine, a senior fiscal analyst at the left-leaning think tank Every Texan, told a panel of House lawmakers Monday. “And once this passes with no sunset, there's no incentive for anybody to ever come back. That is just a mandatory provision that I think you should have.” The Chapter 313 redux would exclude renewable energy projects, the source of most applications under the old program. Yet, about 75 percent of actual tax breaks — worth a projected $31 billion over the life of all active projects — will go to manufacturers, including some of the world’s largest oil and gas companies… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
How Republicans’ threats to tenure and diversity might undercut their own efforts to advance Texas’ universities (Texas Tribune)
In this year’s legislative session, with $33 billion in surplus state funds to potentially throw around, lawmakers say they’re determined to elevate the next tier of schools. They’re proposing a new multibillion-dollar funding stream to help the University of Houston, Texas Tech University, Texas State University and the University of North Texas better compete on the national stage as research powerhouses.
Yet as Texas lawmakers appear poised to make a historic financial investment in these schools, they are simultaneously advancing a slew of bills that would threaten faculty tenure and defund diversity programs — decisions that educators and students say would sabotage Texas’ lofty research goals and damage its reputation nationally.
“You cannot have it both ways,” said Brian Evans, vice president of the Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas’s plan to avoid deadly blackouts could cost $18B (Houston Chronicle)
A fleet of new natural gas-fired power plants in Texas could cost $18 billion, much more than an earlier estimate, as lawmakers attempt to improve the state’s electric grid after its deadly failure in 2021. If implemented, the new plants — which would only be used in emergency situations — would be built in two phases over a decade given permitting and supply chain constraints, according to slides of a new study shared by the Lower Colorado River Authority. The potential cost risks derailing Republicans’ plans to overhaul a grid increasingly reliant on renewable energy with fossil fuel plants. A proposal to build as much as 10 gigawatts for backup generation that is weatherized and has on-site fuel equivalent to 10 nuclear reactors was approved by Texas senators Wednesday in a 22-to-9 vote. It would create an energy insurance fund using taxpayer money and builders of the facilities would be assured returns of up to 10 percent… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas bill that goes beyond Florida's 'Don't Say Gay' law passes first key vote (San Antonio Express-News)
The Texas Senate has passed a bill inspired by Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law, but the Texas version goes further by banning discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in K-12, not just through third grade. The policy was included in Senate Bill 8, which received more attention for another provision that would establish education savings accounts for parents to pull their kids out of public schools and receive state funds to instead enroll them in private schools. The bill was passed by Senate Republicans on Thursday, and it is a priority of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. The Florida law, known by its critics as "Don't Say Gay," drew national headlines when it was passed last year, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is pushing to extend it to apply to students from fourth grade through high school… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATION]
US tries to contain leaks fallout with friends and enemies (the hill)
A wide-ranging leak of classified Pentagon documents has left the United States on cleanup duty as it contends with revelations detailing the extent U.S. agencies have penetrated Russian intelligence outlets and spied on allies.
The breadth of the leak and the damage it wrought is not yet fully realized. Dozens of documents from February and March labeled top secret were posted to social media platforms and hundreds more may be circulating on other niche areas of the internet.
The intelligence community is now grappling with the escape of intelligence that could be used as a roadmap for determining how the U.S. has been collecting information about Russian efforts in Ukraine — and how they can cut them off.
Meanwhile, U.S. allies — even if well aware they are being monitored by foreign powers — have had to publicly confront the revelations laid out in the documents.
“It shows the kinds of things we’re actually looking at; it shows the kinds of people we’re actually targeting and intercepting, the countries we’re targeting and intercepting,” Larry Pfeiffer, a former senior director of the White House Situation Room and chief of staff at the CIA, told The Hill… (LINK TO FULL STORY)