Austin City Council members are
meeting today as they work to
finalize a budget for the city.
They'll have ways, they'll have to
find ways to trim the budget after
voters resoundingly rejected a
proposed tax rate increase that
would have generated more than $100
million.
We're gonna have an update from City
Hall. Plus, the Austin Independent
School District will vote this week
on their plan to shutter campuses
across the city and reassign some
students to different schools.
AISD released their final version
of the plan last week, ahead of
Thursday's vote.
We'll have more about what's changed
and what's the same.
The Austin Signal is a production of
K UT News, hosted by Jerry
Kihano.
And bats eat tons and tons
of pests each night.
Farmers are hoping they can play a
bigger role on their properties.
That is coming up next on Austin
Signal.
Howdy out there, you are listening
to Austin Signal.
This is listener-powered public
radio, K U T News 90.5
on the KUT app and online
at KUT.org.
It's Tuesday, November 18th.
Thank you for making Austin Signal
part of your day.
Breaking news into the KUT newsroom
in the last hour.
A federal court has blocked Texas
from using the new congressional map
passed by the legislature at
President Trump's urging this
summer. U.S.
Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump
appointee, wrote in the ruling,
quote, the public perception of this
case is that it's about politics.
To be sure, politics played a role
in drawing the 2025 map,
but it was much more than just
politics.
Substantial evidence shows that
Texas racially gerrymandered
the 2025 map.
End quote.
You can read more about the ruling
from the Texas Newsroom's Capitol
reporter, Blaise Gainey.
That is over at KUT.org.
Let's get into the show.
Austin City Council members are
holding a work session today to
finalize a budget for the city
by the end of this week.
Voters rejected earlier this month
the proposed tax rate increase,
proposition Q, and now City Council
is deciding on which parts of the
budget must be trimmed.
KUT City Hall reporter Luz Moreno
Lozano is downtown at
the work session, and she is joining
us now here on Austin Signal.
Howdy Luz.
Hi Jerry.
Thanks for having me.
I'm glad you are here with us.
Can you get us up to speed?
Austin City Council tried to get
this process started last week, but
they hit a bit of a speed bump.
What happened there?
Yeah, so you know, the the city
council had posted its agenda for
I think last Thursday and it
included, you know, a date, time,
location, the agenda item.
But as part of a new state law,
that new that agenda item should
have included backups to like the
proposed amendment budget,
what the annual tax
rate would be for
the average homeowner.
And because those documents were not
part of the
agenda that was posted, it
was technically a violation of the
Texas Open Meetings Act.
And so two attorneys, Bill
Alshire and Rick Fi
and his colleague Rick,
filed a complaint against the city.
The city did say that they believed
that they followed and complied with
what was supposed to be posted,
but they ended up canceling the
meeting anyway out of transparency.
And the city manager had talked
about wanting to like address and
make sure that the community is
aware of what's happening with this
budget.
Okay, and so that meeting got pushed
back to today.
You've been out there since this
morning. What's been going on so
far?
Yeah. So we you know, we
heard the city council get kind of
their first overlook
at what this budget would include.
You know, they are having to find
or reduce their budget by the
hundred and ten million dollars that
was supposed to be added through the
tax rate election.
We've seen kind of cuts or
suggestions for cuts across the
board.
You know, they wanted to make cuts
to homelessness.
And so they've reduced
that particular area.
Same thing with park, same thing
with the library.
And so we've seen just how they
can do that. I think, you know,
there's still a lot of moving parts
of this. So I hate to say, you know,
we might see four million dollars
here and six million dollars there
without the city council first
you know, deciding what that looks
like. But yeah, it looks like
they're gonna have to really make
some tough decisions about what they
wanna see funded and what they're
gonna prioritize.
And you've been doing some reporting
on this, a lot of reporting
actually, but your most recent story
over at KUT dot org,
mentioned a lot of those services
that had come up in the proposed
cuts to the city budget.
One of those was first responders
EMS.
You spoke with the president of the
Austin EMS Association.
What did he have to say?
Yeah. You know, EMS has been
struggling with staffing shortages.
And, you know, the city is just
getting bigger and so it's making it
harder to respond in an
an effective manner.
And so one of the things that this
budget was supposed to do was kind
of help hire more people
and help kind of fill those gaps
that they were filling.
You know, we have seen the city
council kind of throw their support
behind potentially supporting
some of those asks that they were
that they were hoping to get as part
of the tax rate election increase.
But yeah, we'll kind of see what
happens. I I think people are
we we've heard a lot today from the
community and from city council
members about wanting to make sure
that people have access to
Emergency medical services, you
know, when you call nine one one,
you want someone to respond as soon
as possible.
And I think that's gonna be a top
priority for the city council.
And J James Monks,
who's the president of the union,
told me that that was something he
heard and he was hoping to to
kind of hope to play out this week.
But yeah, we'll see how that plays
out for sure.
Well like you said, in your article
at K U T dot org, Austin City
Council still plans to adopt a
revised budget by the end of
this week. So they're having the
work session meeting today.
What is the rest of the week
expected to play out like?
Yeah, this is a fast track
kind of budget, especially since
next week is Thanksgiving and so
there are gonna be a lot of people
out of town.
So yeah, so today they got their
first look at it. They're going back
and forth and discussing as we
speak.
They will discuss more tomorrow,
and that's where I think we'll see
some of the city council kind
of lay out some of their budget
amendments and priorities, things
like EMS funding, homelessness.
I saw something about wanting to
fund food
pantries at Title I schools and
meal delivery programs for senior
citizens. So we'll see more of that
tomorrow and fig and see
how city staff can move
money around to support some of
those initiatives.
They're hoping that they are going
to adopt a budget by Thursday.
It could be Friday, as we saw in
the original round of budget
discussions. They did take the full
two days to adopt the budget.
So that could absolutely
play out that way this week as well.
They also have an extra meeting
scheduled for Monday, just in case
they don't actually get something
this week. But I foresee
at least something by Friday.
Okay, well she will definitely keep
us updated. That is K U T City
Hall reporter Luz Moreno Lozano.
Luz, thank you for your time.
We are thankful for you.
Thanks, Jerry.
Alright, another deadline this week
in the city, the Austin Independent
School District is gonna vote on a
school condu consolidation plan
that will close schools and reassign
students. Now Austin ISD
released their final version of the
plan late last Friday,
and here to tell us more about that
plan and the vote is KUT's Katy
McAfee. Howdy, Katy.
Hey Jerry.
So you know, there's been a lot of
changes to this plan.
How does this latest final plan
differ from the initial
announcement?
Yeah, so the plan is mostly the
same, at least from the last time I
was here talking with you at the
Austin Signal.
From the last update, three schools
were taken off the list.
That's Maplewood, Breaker Woods,
and Palm Elementary.
The district is still deciding
to wait to redraw attendance
boundaries for most schools.
But there were a few refinements
that the district made in response
to community feedback and some
concerns from board trusted
members, some small-ish
things.
One thing they changed is AISD
is planning on moving its dual
language programs to Sanchez,
Pickle, Wooten, and Odom.
Originally that meant that those
schools were all going to turn into
non-zoned schools.
But after hearing some community
feedback, they decided to make
Pickle Woo-Ton and
Sanchez neighborhood schools
that kids who are already going to
those schools can still be enrolled
there and make Odom the only
non-zoned wall-to-wall dual language
campus.
And then another sort of refinement
that they made was
one campus was going to be
relocated to a school
that had a failing accountability
rating, and they wanted to change
that in response to some board
feedback. So mostly the same from
last week, but just a few
refinements.
Okay, that the one big change
was that number going from thirteen
to ten on the school closures list.
With the vote expected to happen
this Thursday.
Is that gonna be it for the campuses
on that closure list?
As far as we know, yes.
The district was pretty firm that
the plan released Friday is the
final version to give board members
time to think about how they're
gonna vote on Thursday night.
But there that doesn't mean that
changes could happen in the coming
years.
Those three schools, Maplewood,
Breaker Woods, and Palm, the
board could still vote on closing
those schools maybe next year
or vote next year to close
in the coming years.
Another change that they were sort
of floating around but didn't
actually decide on was what to do
with Oak Springs and Blackshear.
So right now, students at Oak
Springs, which is on the closing
list on the closure list,
are moving to Blackshear.
But Oak Springs was due for a
big multi-million dollar renovation
from the 22 bond the 2022
bond.
So the district is considering
continuing construction on that
campus and then eventually
relocating students at Blackshear
to Oak Springs.
Okay, so a lot a little, you know,
it's in the fine details now as they
get to this final version of their
plan. Again you can read more from
Katy at K U T
dot org.
Obviously the the big item on
Thursday is going to be the vote on
this school consolidation plan, but
is there anything el else that we
should be paying attention attention
to at the school board meeting?
Yeah, Jerry, there is another big
vote happening on Thursday.
The board is also voting on
turnaround plans for two dozen
schools. Turnaround plans
are mandated by the state after
schools receive consecutive failing
grades.
The what the district is voting on
is plans that would mean more
funding for these schools, maybe new
requirements for teachers at these
schools.
Those plans are available at AISD's
website and the board will take an
official vote on Thursday.
Okay, and we had s me even more
breaking news happen this morning.
That was the news was that Attorney
General Ken Paxton has filed a
lawsuit against the Leander and
Round Rock independent school
districts.
Why was that the case, Katy?
Why did he do so?
Yeah, so this is a very
fluid situation.
I just jumped on this story this
afternoon.
The attorney general is filing a
lawsuit against those two school
districts for not displaying
donated copies of the Ten
Commandments in all classrooms.
That is a law that went into effect
on September first.
And I was wondering why
these two is Austin ISD
are is are they already involved in
litigation with this Ten
Commandments law?
Yeah, so there
are eleven school districts in the
state that actually cannot display
these Ten Commandments.
That's after a federal judge ruled
after sixteen families filed a
lawsuit against those districts and
a federal judge ruled in the favor
of those sixteen families.
So here in central Texas that
includes Austin, Dripping Springs,
and Lake Travis, but Leander
and Round Rock ISDs were not part
of that ruling.
Okay, well like Katy says, a very
fluid situation.
Just a story that you worked on just
about an hour ago before coming on
to talk AISD with us here on
Austin Signal.
So we appreciate your flexibility
and we appreciate your reporting.
That's K U T's Travis County
reporter Katy McAfee.
Katy, thank you.
Thanks so much, Jerry.
And thank you out there for tuning
in to Austin Signal on this Tuesday
coming up. We're gonna talk bats
and we're gonna talk Austin FC
soccer schedule.
Lots more coming up after the break.
This is listener-powered
public radio.
And we appreciate you tuning
in. This is Austin
Signal on KUT News
ninety point five on the KUT
app and online at KUT.org.
This is Austin Signal.
Thank you for being with us today.
Bats, sometimes they get a
bad rap.
Luckily, Austinites have a lot
of love for the only mammal
capable of sustained flight.
Not to mention the fact that they
eat untold tons of pests
every single night, which
helps keep crops healthy and
saves farmers some money.
And on some farms, bats might be
able to play an even bigger
role. For Harvest Public
Media, Texas Standards Michael Marks
has this story.
It's a clear September night on a
bank above the San Marcos River in
central Texas, and a group of folks
in headlamps are inspecting a
small noisy creature.
And this is very, very typical of
this species.
They got a lot to say all the time.
Researcher Melissa Donnelly is
holding an evening bat in a cloth
bag. It's tiny, no bigger
than a Clementine.
She just caught it over the river in
a supersized tennis net and now
she's measuring it.
Yeah, and so I'm just holding on to
the humerus so that
I can get to the
form and
Donnelly is a science specialist
with the nonprofit Merlin Tuttles
Bat Conservation.
One of the reasons she's collecting
data on this bat is actually
to help farmers grow better pecans,
farmers like Troy Swift.
So our job is to work with
Mother Nature instead of against her
to grow the best pecans money can
buy. That's what that's the way we
say it.
Swift's pecan orchard covers more
than 250 acres.
Lots of insects affect pecans
like moths and stink bugs,
which bats love to munch.
But when Swift first bought his
orchard in 1998, he
protected his trees the way everyone
did, with plenty of chemicals.
Spungicide, insecticide, herbicide.
That started to change, though,
after Swift met Merlin Tuttle
in the mid-2000s.
Swift first knew Tuttle as
the guy he let fish on his property.
But then I found out he was a famous
bat scientist.
Tuttle spent sixty-five years
studying bats around the globe,
including at Swift's Orchard.
Tuttle says you'd be hard pressed to
find better bat habitat.
If your orchard
is near a river, you
have a very good opportunity
for attracting bats to bat
houses.
Tuttle's been using the orchard to
experiment with bat boxes,
tweaking the color and position,
even the kind of wood they're made
with. Swift also runs
a sawmill at his orchard where he
makes lumber out of cypress trees.
Turns out it's perfect for bat
houses.
It's extra lightweight,
extra insulative,
and yet it's one of the longest
lasting woods in America.
This punky cypress, as it's called,
is porous on the inside, which gives
the bats something to hold on to in
the house.
It also regulates temperature well,
which is crucial for bats in
hot places.
What we're doing is actually
helping. We're not just
giving the bats are already
there a place to live.
We're building populations
with more bats
There are dozens of bat boxes now
on Swift's property housing hundreds
of bats.
So many, in fact, Swift
decided to just let them handle the
bugs on part of his property this
year.
This year is the first
year I did not spray any
insecticide at all.
And guess what?
We got a really good crop over
there.
Reducing reliance on insecticides
is one of Swift's big goals
because of how they can harm
ecosystems, human health, and a
farmer's bottom line.
Not every farm can do this though.
Russ Benedict is a biology
professor at Central College in Iowa
who studies bats and agriculture.
Primarily I hear those in, you know,
smaller operations folks who are
doing organic farming, that kind of
stuff.
The among the the corn and soybean
folks I I haven't really heard that
much.
Bats need diversity in their diet
and they can't get it from a
landscape that's just acres and
acres of the same crop, according
to Benedict.
They don't thrive in wide open areas
either, but for those farms where
bats could make a difference,
Troy Swift is ready to share
what he's learned on his pecan farm.
I really want to have an impact on
agriculture.
This is not just pecans.
Bats eat stink bugs and corn
earworms.
So that's good for all agriculture.
And when you talk about mosquitoes
and flies, it's also good for
people.
Have you been bit by a mosquito
since you've been here?
I had not, neither had
he. And for that, we could thank
the bats.
I'm Michael Marks, Harvest Public
Media.
All right, the Austin FC season
is over, but Major League Soccer
made some news this month
announcing that it's changing its
calendar to align with more
international leagues.
This change is gonna mean the season
will shift from the current February
to November model to the
more common August to May schedule,
more common for soccer leagues.
This though is not gonna change
until twenty twenty-seven.
Here to talk more about those
changes and how this might affect
Austin FC fans is Juan
Diego Garcia.
He is one of the hosts of our Austin
FC podcast, Vamos Verde.
Juan, how's it going, buddy?
It's going all right. How about
yourself, Jerry? I'm doing great.
I am a little confused and I was
just asking you questions before we
came on the air.
So can you just clarify why the
league is making this schedule
change and you know, w
what benefit does it provide?
Yeah, so for a long time a
lot of soccer fans have been asking
or wondering why Major League Soccer
plays its games from February
to November, when if we look
at the current Premier League
season, it kind of just started
back in August.
So Major League Soccer is trying to
line itself line itself up
with some of the biggest leagues in
the world, those usually being the
European leagues.
And there's lots of little moving
parts, lots of little areas within
the sport that get impacted with a
change like this.
And I would guess like you're
saying, you're mentioning the
Premier League, it probably also
stands to benefit when some of these
players play for their club for
their international teams, right?
For their countries as well.
Yes, that's actually one of the
biggest changes that's happening
with this new schedule.
This is going to allow Major League
Soccer to observe the FIFA
international break schedule.
So traditionally in Major League
Soccer, you had just to take
as n as an example, Austin FC
playing some pretty significant
games late in the year without
their sort of most expensive
and and high name, high
billing players because they
were away representing their
nationalities in World Cup
qualifiers, that kind of thing.
Now Major League Soccer is going to
be taking breaks when everyone else
takes a break, allowing those
players to freely represent
their international teams without
putting their clubs in an awkward
spot.
Okay, sounds like lots of good
things are gonna come from this
change. That made me wonder why are
they waiting until twenty twenty
seven to implement it?
It takes a while to adjust these
things. For example, just taking
twenty twenty seven as an example,
Major League Soccer plans to play
what they call a full season
from about January until May
with a complete playoffs format,
as well as crowning an MLS Cup
champion and a supporter shield
champion, before the official
change happens later in twenty
twenty seven, into the twenty
seven twenty eight season where they
play the first full year or
first full season under the new
format.
Okay, so as I gather, Austin
F C is gonna start two seasons in
the year twenty twenty seven because
of this change with a break
during the summer months.
What that what might that mean for
Austin F C fans?
It sounds like a literally a
cooler experience.
In a way, yes.
It's you know, you're still gonna
get the same number of home games,
for example, within one calendar
year between January and December
for that twenty twenty-seven year.
But there are a lot of interesting
balancing questions
around what constitutes a
year when it comes to like
commercial rights holders, when it
comes to player contracts, as well
as season ticket holders.
There's a lot of details that maybe
haven't quite been fully hammered
out yet.
That being said, you're not gonna
get as many hundred degree
at kickoff games in the
middle of the summer, which could be
a bit of a home field advantage for
Austin, but can also make it very
uncomfortable for folks to go to
actually see the games.
To balance that out, there might
be times when it's frozen
in Minnesota, so the loons have to
come to Austin first before Austin
makes a trip up north.
Okay, well that does make sense.
Okay, so that change gonna happen.
It's gonna happen in twenty twenty
seven.
But it did get Austin FC fans
excited and enough to spark
a little bit of a bonus episode of
Vamos Verde.
What's happening there?
We're gonna be breaking down what
this means for a lot of different
things, roster construction,
you know, transfer windows,
how this could shape
playoff formats going forward,
little things like that, all of
those little details that, you know,
some folks might not be thinking
about or, you know, trying to answer
all of the questions that come up
when a big change like this happens,
all of that will be in the bonus
episode that Jimmy and I plan on
making soon.
That's Jimmy Moss, and we've
been speaking with Juan Diego
Garcia. They are the host of the
Austin FC podcast, Vamos
Verde, from the K U T
and K U T X Studios.
Juan, thank you for your time.
Always a pleasure, Jerry.
And thank you to you out
there for tuning in to Austin
Signal. We are here every weekday
afternoon from 1 until 1 30.
And you can find more from our show
over at KUT.org.
Kristen Cabrera is our managing
producer, and Rayna Sevilla
is our technical director.
I'm your host, Jerry Quijano.
We will be with you tomorrow.
We will talk to you then.
Be well.