Austinite Carol Stall said she has lived in Austin since “the hippie days” of 1973. When her taxes got too high, Stall and her husband moved to East Austin from the Zilker neighborhood about 15 years ago and got involved in local politics.
When Austin voters rejected a proposed tax rate increase during the Nov. 4 election, Stall said she was relieved that she and her neighbors wouldn’t have to pay higher taxes and risk leaving their homes.
“Making it any higher is going to destroy us, and a lot of people who are even more on the edge than we are in this neighborhood,” said Stall.
Proposition Q would have raised the property taxes for the average Austin home, which is valued at $494,803, by around $300 per year — a higher property tax increase than what state law allows without an election — according to the city’s website. The increased revenue would have raised around $100 million to fund programs, such as Emergency Medical, housing and public safety services, like the Sobering Center that partners with UT, according to the city’s website.
Following this election, the city released a scaled-back 2025-2026 budget on Nov. 7 and will discuss revisions to the budget on Thursday. Stall said the city’s budget is larger compared to cities such as San Antonio and Dallas, which have larger populations. The 2024 Austin budget was $5.9 billion with a population of 993,588 people in 2024. In San Antonio, the 2024 budget was $3.7 billion for 1.5 million residents. The 2024 Dallas budget was $4.9 billion for 1.3 million residents.
A little over 63% of Austin voters voted against the tax rate increase, according to the Travis County election results. The measure had been backed by the mayor, city council and political action committees.
“The voters have told us they want us to do more, and they want us to not add to the problem of affordability,” Mayor Kirk Watson wrote in a public statement. “We should hear them, learn from this election, and trust our voters.”
The proposed tax rate increase would have allocated $1.1 million to expand services at the Sobering Center, according to the City Budget. With the failure of the proposition, the city recommends giving about $500,000 to the center instead, according to the revised budget recommendation.
The center provides a safe space and treatment to those who are intoxicated, aside from jails or hospitals, said Ashlyn Branscum, the development and communications manager at the Sobering Center. The center partners with UT to provide resources for students facing situations involving drugs and alcohol, Branscum said.
Branscum said the center is facing a $300,000 shortfall, but as a nonprofit, the center is always fundraising.
“It kind of puts us in limbo, as opposed to having a more immediate, direct impact,” Branscum said.
Savannah Lee, director of policy operations at Equity Action, a public safety organization, said the tax rate increase was meant to fund city services, such as the Family Stabilization Grant program, rapid rehousing program and EMS response.
“To us, that is what public safety looks like,” Lee said. “So we fought for Prop Q, for a more robust blanket of services around the city that can keep people safe, and its loss is obviously devastating.”
Lee said problems with affordability and transparency in Austin are reasons why Proposition Q likely failed.
“People are already threadbare, and asking people to pay another $300 a year in property taxes is a really, really rough ask in a moment like this, when people are already struggling, and a lot of people don’t feel represented by city council,” Lee said.
