Last night the City of Austin voted on a budget that includes one of the highest living wages for their workers: $20/hr for municipal workers including contracted workers and those employed by corporations benefiting from City tax subsidies.  At the urging of Central Texas Interfaith, through meetings with individual council members and communications that persisted even as votes were taken on amendments, the City of Austin expanded emergency assistance for struggling renters and sustained spending on essential human development initiatives including long-term workforce development and after-school programs.

Specifically, the Council approved: 

• $20/ hour base pay for all City of Austin staff, contract employees and employees of corporations receiving City tax subsidies - Sponsored by CM Fuentes 
• $8 Million in emergency rental assistance - Sponsored by CM Vela
• $3.1 Million for long term workforce development - Sponsored by CM Alter
• Increased funding for AISD programs including Parent Support Specialists and Primetime After School programs - Sponsored by CM Tovo

Central Texas Interfaith commends the Mayor and the entire City Council for investing in these important initiatives. 

Austin Councilmembers Approve Budget Amendment to Include $20 Minimum Wage, KVUE

CTI has supported previous affordable housing bonds because they have advanced the preservation and creation of affordable housing including: homes for both renters and prospective buyers, permanent supportive housing, home repair for low-income homeowners, etc. However, often overlooked are the needs of residents of mobile home parks.  While Central Texas Interfaith (CTI) supports the principle that the City of Austin increase its investment in affordable housing and likes many of the priorities discussed in the initial bond conversations, we call on the council to include strategies for mobile home renters to receive substantial funding by the proposed affordable housing bond. 

Mobile home park residents, including those who own their home but rent the land underneath their home, are often required by their landlords to quickly repair and/or renovate their homes or face displacement.  To remain in Austin, mobile home residents need access to home repair funds - which currently exclude them.  More importantly, they need a mobile home park stabilization strategy – one designed to stabilize rents and prevent displacement.  The City can play a role by facilitating the purchase of mobile home parks for strategies including: community land trusts, cooperative resident ownership, and/or transfer to a nonprofit or lower profit entity.    

Central Texas Interfaith congregations and non-profits are directly engaged with mobile home park residents in our communities, and know the challenges they face.  For CTI to be fully supportive and engaged in advocating for another affordable housing bond, we urge the council to include substantial funding for mobile home park communities in any proposed bond and city budget.

Last summer, Central Texas Interfaith/Texas IAF leaders and nonprofit allies shut down Chapter 313 (a state tax exemption program giving away hundreds of millions of dollars per year to industrial and petrochemical companies). Since then, over 400 corporate applications flooded the system ahead of the program's expiration date at the end of this year -- more than twice as many than before.  Central Texas Interfaith leaders took to every medium available to raise the alarm about the potential impact on school district budgets across the state.

[Excerpts from Austin American-Statesman]

"It's fiction," said Trenton Henrichson, a computer engineer and a leader of Central Texas Interfaith, a group that is opposed to the incentives. "If you're talking about (fabrication plants) 10 years in the future... you’re just making stuff up.”

....Leaders of Central Texas Interfaith called such applications "smoke and mirrors," saying the plans are fuzzy and local officials have no way to evaluate them. The organization helped lobby against renewal of the Chapter 313 program during last year's session of the state Legislature, saying the corporate tax breaks granted under it have decreased the amount of money available for public education in the state.

'Smoke and Mirrors' or Long-Range Planning? Possible Samsung Tax Breaks Stir Debate, Austin American-Statesman

Report: Samsung Adding Land to $17B Semi-conductor Campus in Taylor, Considering 11 New Facilities, KVUE

What Could Epic Samsung Expansion Mean for Central Texas? Opportunities Savored, Concerns Raised, Austin Business Journal

Samsung Ask Texas Taxpayers To Foot $4.8 Billion Bill For Future School Taxes. Governor Abbott Endorses Biggest Corporate Welfare Deal in Texas History, Central Texas Interfaith

As Glut of Corporate Tax Break Applications Rush In, CTI Explains Opposition to Chapter 313, KVUE & Elgin Courier

CTI Leaders Take Hard Stand Against NXP's Corporate Welfare Request to AISD, Community Impact, CBS Austin, Austin Business Journal, Austin Chronicle, and Austin Independent School District