Austin Metric

The study justifying substantial increases in Austin's police staffing doesn't present any evidence that its recommendations are the most effective way to reduce crime.

Public safety has grown dramatically as a share of total City government spending. The shift happened between 1995-2005. This table is from the 2005 City of …

The percentage-based homestead exemption is an unfair tax shift that will disproportionately benefit the wealthiest homeowners.  More effective affordability alternatives should be pursued instead.

The "Save our Mansions" homestead exemption reduces taxes based on a percentage of a homestead's value.  Therefore, a $2,000,000 homestead value would get ten …

I asked a dozen of the most policy-minded critics of the "mansion exemption" for alternative ways of spending approximately $30 million annually to boost Austin's affordability. Here are the four main themes that came across in their responses.

The 20% homestead exemption's dollars flow to the district's with the highest …

There are better tools to solve the 'affordability' problem than a 20% homestead exemption (HEx). Here's what progressive, fiscally-responsible Austinites must argue.

"It's just a tax cut for mansions."

The benefits of a percentage-based homestead exemption disproportionately flow to those with the most property wealth and income. The chart below …

Adoption of a 20% homestead exemption (HEx) would shift City taxation away from affluent, low-density Council districts towards the middle-class and Latino neighborhoods.

The following visualizations compare each district's share of tax cuts/revenue loss against several demographic factors.  The tax data sources are TCAD & WCAD files analyzed by Dylan …