AUSTIN, Texas — This November election, Austin residents will get to decide on three bond packages.
The City of Austin, Austin ISD and Austin Community College all voted to approve bonds totaling more than $3 billion.
The City of Austin's affordable housing bond is $350 million. Austin ISD's bond is $2.44 billion, and ACC's bond is set at $770 million.
The City of Austin's $350 million new affordable housing proposal comes as home prices and rent reach record highs. The money would go toward things like creating more affordable rental units, repairs for homeowners and building housing for people exiting homelessness.
With the passage, the debt service portion of the tax rate will increase by $0.0130. The annual impact to the typical homeowner, defined as a home assessed at $448,000 with a taxable value of $358,400, is a fee increase of $46.59.
The Austin school district's $2.44 billion will be split into three propositions:
Proposition A: General Purpose $2,316,025,000
Proposition B: Technology $75,541,000
Proposition C: Stadiums $47,434,000
Jason Stanford, AISD's communications director, said most of the funds will go to modernize campuses.
"We can't retain and recruit the teachers we need for our kids if we're pouring money into old buildings that really need to be replaced. So that's what this does. There's also broad agreement that we really need to make this equity-focused," Stanford said.
The proposed bond would raise the debt service portion of the school district's tax rate by one cent per $100 of value for the 2023-24 school year. However, according to a release from AISD, because of property tax compression, the AISD school board will still lower the overall total tax rate by 6.5 cents this school year and an additional three cents in the next school year if the bond passes.
ACC's $770 million bond will go toward projects aiming to expand training capacity for high-demand fields such as health care and advanced manufacturing. ACC said it would also include new sites in southeast and southwest Travis County.
According to ACC, it is currently the largest trainer of the Austin area's workforce, serving 70,000 students every year. Around 80% of its graduates now live and work in the area and, on average, graduates increase their income by 45% within five years of graduation.
"With Tesla moving in, and Samsung, and the many people who are thinking about coming here, our programs can't keep up. The capacity of our programs has to increase," said Nora de Hoyos-Comstock, the vice chair of the ACC board of trustees.
The college estimates that at its current tax rate, a taxpayer with a home worth $500,000 would pay up to $5 per year over the first five years, maxing out at $25/year for the remainder of the bond. Seniors (age 65+) and residents with disabilities would see no tax increase as a result of this bond program. In 2021, the ACC Board of Trustees adopted a tax ceiling (freeze) for seniors and residents with disabilities.
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