What happened
City Council passed an item from council member on Ryan Alter billed as an initiative focused on economic growth, public safety and community well-being. Alter's resolution seeks to build collaboration between local entities with "overlapping jurisdictions," like Travis County, Austin Community College and Austin ISD.
“We haven’t in a long time, to my knowledge, really come together and looked at what is everyone doing and how can we better coordinate?" Alter said in an interview. "Taking a step back I think it’s just crucial that we do, both from a fiscal responsibility perspective, but recognizing that the state government is not going to be coming in and making our lives any easier. If anything, a little more difficult."
Alter pointed out that Austin already works with the county on various initiatives including public health, emergency medical services, and local projects like developing the Waterloo Greenway downtown. The city also partners with AISD on different programs like the district's parent support specialists that receive hundreds of thousands of city dollars annually.
Still, he said there's an opportunity for local officials and staff to improve their work together. For example, he said the city and county may have overlapping duties across local park systems, or that county hospital district Central Health could link up with other government health care efforts.
“I know there are services that we’re all providing in isolation that could, at a minimum, be better coordinated if not some kind of consolidation," Alter said.
The bottom line
In addition to improving public-facing initiatives, Alter said a renewed push for coordination and finding efficiencies could also lead to lowered taxes across jurisdictions.
"The ultimate goal is to preserve resources, to make it so that we can deliver service that we need to deliver as cheaply and effectively as we can. And so what that means to homeowners, to business owners, is limiting the tax impact that cities, counties, school districts levy on them every single year," he said. "If we can do anything to lower tax bills or not raise them a certain degree, we should do that.”
In the near future, Alter called for officials with Austin, AISD and Travis County to review a "framework for intergovernmental collaboration" at their next quarterly joint committee meeting scheduled for June 20. Further discussions would take place at other events around Central Texas, according to the resolution.
While the county and AISD represent some of the largest other entities in the area, Alter also said he hopes to see additional work with other entities like Round Rock ISD, Del Valle ISD and Central Health.
