2025 City Council Budget Town Hall Meetings
Over the next couple of weeks, the City of Austin will be hosting a series of town hall meetings for residents. There will be a town hall meeting for each district. The purpose of these meetings is to give community members the opportunity to share their concerns about the budget. Some of these meetings have already taken place, but there are still opportunities for residents to speak out. While city council members have a duty to respond to people who live in their own districts, anybody from any district may attend one of these meetings to express their concerns.
As a community, we want to make sure that the city is responsive to everyone’s needs, including people who come into contact with law enforcement. We want to ensure that people are not held in custody without probable cause, and even where probable cause exists, that the person in custody is able to be released as quickly as possible.
The City of Austin Proposed 2025-26 budget contains the following items.
Municipal Court
$3.5 million reduction, including elimination of eighteen positions, as a result of a revised interlocal agreement reflecting Travis County’s assumption of responsibility for providing magistration and Council At First Appearance services at its Central Booking facility. The total net General Fund impact of this revised agreement is an additional $2.5 million payment to Travis County (p. 34).
Police
$6.0 million for the increased cost of a revised interlocal agreement with Travis County for magistration and Council At First Appearance services. The total net General Fund impact of this revised agreement is $2.5 million, as the increased payment to Travis County is partially offset by a reduction of $3.5 million of services being eliminated by Municipal Court (p.35).
In essence, this means the Austin Police Department gets paid to provide magistration and counsel at first appearance services.There are two problems with these two items:
Which services, exactly, is the police department providing that justify the payment of $6.0 million for magistration and counsel at first appearance services?
Why is it that the police do not provide probable cause affidavits immediately, or as soon as possible, after the person is placed in custody, but rather do so at the end of the officer’s shift? The current practice causes people to be held in custody hours longer than necessary, even in cases where there was insufficient probable cause to arrest them in the first place.
Our proposed solution is to redirect this portion of the APD budget to the Magistration court to ensure that the probable cause affidavit is immediately processed.
Please attend a City Council Budget Town Hall to raise these concerns.
Here is a list by date of upcoming town hall meetings.
City Council Community Meetings - Budget 2025-26
City Council Members will be hosting district level community meetings about the proposed budget in July and August. See the schedule below to find a meeting near you.
[Please note, dates, times and locations may change. Please click here for the latest updates.]
DISTRICT 8 - COUNCIL MEMBER PAIGE ELLIS
Date: July 21, 2025
Time: 6:00 - 7:00 PM
Location: Virtual Zoom Meeting Link
DISTRICT 7 - COUNCIL MEMBER MIKE SIEGEL
Date: July 22, 2025
Time: 6:30 - 7:30 PM
Location: ACC Northridge Campus, 111928 Stonehollow Drive, 4000 Building, Lecture Hall RSVP
DISTRICT 3 - COUNCIL MEMBER JOSE VELÁSQUEZ
Date: July 28, 2025
Time: 6:00 - 7:30 PM
Location: Montopolis Recreation Center, 1200 Montopolis Drive | Virtual Option (Link Available with RSVP) RSVP
DISTRICT 2 - COUNCIL MEMBER VANESSA FUENTES
Date: July 30, 2025
Time: 6:00 - 7:30 PM
Location: Uphaus Early Childhood Center, 5200 Freidrich Ln RSVP
DISTRICTS 1 & 4 - COUNCIL MEMBERS NATASHA HARPER-MADISON AND CHITO VELA
Date: August 2, 2025
Time: 4:00 – 6:00 PM
Location: Asian American Resource Center, 8401 Cameron Road
DISTRICT 5 - COUNCIL MEMBER RYAN ALTER
Date: August 4, 2025
Time: 6:00 PM
Location: Menchaca Public Library, 5500 Menchaca Road
DISTRICT 10 - COUNCIL MEMBER MARC DUCHEN
Date: August 6, 2025
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: Northwest Hills United Methodist Church, 7050 Village Center Drive RSVP
