Audit and Finance Committee certifies conditions for tax-rate election, recommends TRE to full council

Audit and Finance Committee chair (the mayor) convened the special-called meeting at 1:30 p.m. Aug. 5 in City Hall chambers and the committee voted unanimously to certify that the council’s decision-tree conditions for holding a tax rate election (TRE) have been met and recommended the full Austin City Council consider conducting a TRE, without specifying any tax rate amount.

The recommendation follows staff briefings and prior council review of the manager’s proposed base budget and a set of alternative TRE scenarios. Professional finance staff told the committee they had performed the analysis required under the council’s decision tree, affirming that (1) a comprehensive analysis of general fund programs and services had been conducted, (2) the city had identified the level of programming or services that additional TRE revenue would fund and an accounting of expected…