A former mayoral candidate is suing the Austin mayor and City Council over ballot language it approved for the November tax rate election.
When it passed the budget last week, City Council also called for an election to increase the property tax rate to 57.4 cents per $100 of taxable value. If voters pass the measure, the city said it will collect an additional $110 million to fund homelessness services, parks and public safety needs. The money would also help close a $33 million shortfall the city faces.
City Council called for the election and approved language to be added to the Nov. 4 ballot. The average homeowner's property tax bill would go up $300 with the tax rate increase.
In his lawsuit, Jeff Bowen alleges the ballot language intentionally misleads voters about the “permanence of the tax increase and does not describe specifically how the city council will use the more than $110 million in additional funds from the tax increase, if approved by voters.�
"As a taxpayer and long-time resident of Austin, it disappoints me that the city council would push this major tax increase in this way," Bowen said in a news release. "In addition to trying to get voters to approve way more funds than the city council claims they need, they are doing it in a dishonest, untransparent, and illegal way."
Bill Aleshire, Bowen's attorney, said state law prohibits language that is not "definite and certain."
"The language they have chosen to use is not definite or certain at all, particularly about the fact that it's a multiyear, if not permanent, forever tax increase," Aleshire said. "Secondly, they list all kinds of categories and programs that they think will attract votes, but there is absolutely no commitment in the language of that ballot.�
Aleshire said that because of the way the ballot language is written, the council is not committing a certain amount of money to each category or project, which means the city could use the money it raises for any city program or service it wants to.
"They are not making any commitment in that ballot language to use those funds any particular way," Aleshire said, "and that is misleading to the voters."
This is not the first time Austin has faced a lawsuit that claims the city misled the public in an election to raise property taxes. In 2023, a group of residents filed a lawsuit accusing local officials of "scamming the public" with the tax rate increase to pay for the light-rail expansion known as Project Connect. Voters approved that increase in November 2020.
"Yet again, the Austin City Council is trying to trick voters into approving a huge tax increase with slick, unlawfully misleading ballot language," Aleshire said. "And those who are attracted to the programs listed in the ballot language have no way to enforce that funding and are just as likely to be ripped off by this or future City Councils just exactly like occurred with the last tax rate election, for Project Connect."
Bowen is asking the court to order the city to correct the language before the ballots are printed next month.
Mayor Kirk Watson said he is confident the ballot language "is appropriate and meets all legal requirements."
“We also have confidence in the court system and will respond in that venue,� he said in a statement.
