A recent survey indicates that a significant majority of Austin residents are ready to back a tax increase to finance the city’s upcoming bond package.
With over two-thirds supporting the initiative, the survey highlights housing, transportation, and parks as the primary concerns for the community.
This information was shared at a meeting of the Bond Election Advisory Task Force on Monday, where members also discussed long-term capital requirements for cultural facilities.
They confirmed essential milestones in the bond planning timeline, which includes an expected shortlist of projects amounting to over $3 billion.
A series of public town halls is scheduled for this September to further engage community members.
The survey included responses from 2,002 residents, contributing to the city’s community engagement phase for the proposed 2026 bond.
Participants were asked to identify pressing needs, allocate a hypothetical $100 budget across various issues, and indicate their openness to a property tax increase for new projects.
The findings revealed that 34 percent of respondents consider housing and homelessness to be Austin’s top issue, followed closely by transportation and mobility infrastructure, cited by 22 percent of participants.
When asked to distribute funding, the respondents allocated the largest portions to transportation (19.8%), housing and homelessness (18.5%), and parks and parkland (16.3%).
Approximately 70 percent of those surveyed expressed a willingness to pay an additional $10 per month in property taxes to support these initiatives.
The survey results were gathered through an online platform and in-person events conducted during the spring and early summer, ensuring input from all Council districts.
Outreach efforts included digital and physical methods like postcards, email blasts, and community pop-ups, collectively resulting in over 53,000 datapoints.
Sustainability also emerged as a significant concern, with 81 percent of respondents indicating the importance of considering sustainability or climate factors in their bond project selections.
During the meeting, presentations were provided by the city’s newly established Office of Arts, Culture, Music & Entertainment.
This office oversees 16 key cultural properties and is currently revising its initial bond request to align with updated goals and equity considerations.
Additionally, task force members heard proposals from Rally Austin for an expanded cultural trust to address more than $300 million in unmet facility needs, as well as requests from Municipal Court staff for a permanent North Austin location to replace leased facilities.
The task force is in the process of discussing how to structure future deliberations, debating whether to unify evaluation criteria across all working groups or allow each group to establish its own.
Criteria such as sustainability, equity, geographic distribution, and long-term operational costs are anticipated to guide the evaluation process as the group narrows down the city’s identified needs of $10.4 billion to a more manageable shortlist.
City financial staff have suggested a bond cap of roughly $687 million, based on current debt capacity and financial modeling.
This amount represents less than 7 percent of the total capital needs identified by city departments during internal planning activities.
The forthcoming curated shortlist is expected to refine this pool to about $3.9 billion in projects that are ready for consideration.
The task force aims to submit a final project and financial request package to the City Council in early 2026, with the Council making the ultimate decision on the bond package.
This package is slated to be presented to voters in November next year, potentially following a tax rate election expected this fall to address projected budget deficits.
image source from：austinmonitor
