Bond advisory task force to rank public submissions; staff to provide ballot language and evaluation rubric details

Austin — Members of the City of Austin Bond Oversight Committee received an update on the City’s 2026 bond election advisory task force and its work to process public project submissions and rank projects for recommendation.

A volunteer from the task force said the body has divided into subgroups that are meeting publicly to review and discuss projects in assigned categories, and that each subgroup will eventually develop recommendations that the full task force will weigh. “The subgroups will then make a recommendation on the projects in their category,” the volunteer said. Staff and task-force members said they expect the working groups to use a shared evaluation rubric — provided by city staff — to score all projects (city-listed and public-submitted) so projects can be compared on a consistent basis.

Staff told the committee that the public submission window remains open and that the team is asking for public entries to be completed by around October 31 so those submissions can be scored along with city projects. Committee members reported that more than 100 public projects had been submitted but not yet reviewed by subgroups.

Committee members also requested that staff compile and share prior bond ballot language and other materials the public received before earlier bond elections; staff said they would research what materials were published publicly in past elections and return with that information. “We could certainly research that... we can certainly find out,” a staff member said when asked about prior ballot language and pre-election materials.

No action was taken; the item was an informational update. Committee members suggested future agenda items related to tracking ongoing projects and requested additional documentation such as ballot language and the rubric weights to inform oversight work going forward.