A park fee?
And students buying condos for in-state tuition.
Council Member Paige Ellis is floating a parks maintenance fee to add to utility bills. In a post on the Council Message Board, she said the "modest" fee would "go directly toward the maintenance and improvement of Austin's park system."
Here's part of what she wrote:
As you know, we enter the 2025–2026 budget cycle facing difficult choices, due to the property tax revenue cap imposed by the State Legislature. Without new sources of funding – such as a Parks Maintenance Fee – we will have a challenging time maintaining the wide range of services our residents rely on every day, much less enhancing them.
Ellis stressed the fee should be a means to increase parks maintenance, not to replace existing parks spending in the budget.
