Is the City of Austin prepared to use a boatload of taxpayer money to turn the old Seaholm facility into a multifunctional meeting space for concerts, food trucks, docking, and other activities? It certainly appears so. The Austin American-Statesman recently reported that the Austin Parks Foundation, a nonprofit that regularly receives grants through the City’s...
The City of Fort Worth had its bond rating recently downgraded by S&P Global Ratings who cited “the city’s rising pension liabilities and pension contributions below actuarially determined levels.” More specifically, S&P expressed concern over the Ft. Worth Employees’ Retirement Fund’s 42.4 percent funded ratio and its $3.1 billion unfunded liability. S&P’s recent action comes...
Question: How fast can things go from good to bad for a Texas pension plan? Answer: Fairly quickly. Less than 20 years ago, the City of Austin Employees’ Retirement System (COAERS) was actually overfunded, according to a new TPPF report Evaluating Solutions for Austin’s Billion Dollar Pension Crisis. Today, the fund is nowhere near as...
When speaking about the different ways to spend money, famed free-market economist Milton Friedman had this to say: “There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the...
Texans are generally eager for traffic congestion solutions. But a recent legal opinion on toll roads has left some feeling unenthused. At issue is whether the Texas Transportation Commission can use money that voters dedicated to the State Highway Fund for projects that have both tolled and nontolled elements. The act of comingling voter-approved funds...
From soup to nuts, Austin’s controversial new paid sick leave ordinance is bad public policy. To start, the citywide mandate — which requires all employers to provide their employees with paid sick time — was rammed through at lightning speed. In fact, it wasn’t until a few months ago, on Jan. 19, that a first...
Paying more for housing? Blame City Hall. In spite of paying regular lip service to affordability, city officials continue to push big government policies that make it more expensive to live in Austin. In fact, officials are exploring a new one now. Earlier this month, Austin’s Code Department began seeking public input on a...
A new article lays bare the increasing irrationality of ISD administrator compensation. According to the Texas Monitor, over the last 15 months, ISDs around the state have approved severance packages to 24 superintendents worth an estimated $6 million or an average of $250,000 per official. Troublingly, many of these arrangements appear to have been much...
Austin is in the throes of an “affordability crisis” that is being driven in large part by poor public policies, according to a recent op-ed in the Austin American-Statesman. In 2016, nearly 58,000 moved to the Austin area, marking a significant increase in population. But, as the author notes, city policies made it hard for...
The reality of high home prices in Austin was the topic of discussion in a recent Community Impact article. But while much of the piece seems to suggest that more government intervention is the solution, most of us recognize that city government is the problem. To its credit, the article touches on the ill effects...
Late last month, Houston-area taxpayers scored a big win. In what is being hailed as “perhaps the first time in state history that a Texas government entity has been forced to shutter by its own citizens”, the Montrose Management District voted to dissolve itself, according to the Texas Monitor. This was a hard fought win for...
Austin’s education lobby is pushing the narrative that public schools are underfunded and the state is to blame. Though imaginative, this account falls short in several ways. To begin, public schools have sufficient funding. In the 2015-16 school year alone, Texas school districts spent a total of $64.8 billion on 5.3 million schoolchildren. That...