Texas Republicans enacted over the
last year regulatory and legal
changes that have completely altered
life for non-citizens in the state.
Many of these changes were put
forward in the State Legislature
where they failed.
Now they are being made a reality
outside of normal legislative
processes.
And the Austin School District is
facing a giant budget deficit
heading into the next school year.
A draft of that budget was presented
this week to school board members.
Where the deficit stands and the
plans the district is considering to
address it, That's on today's show.
The Austin Signal is a production
of KUT News, hosted by
Jerry Quijano.
Plus, the Moon Tower Comedy Fest is
bringing hundreds more comics to
town over the next week and a half.
We're gonna hear from one of the
performers, and a seance
with Houdini?
Intrigued?
Find out more, up next here
on Austin Signal.
Howdy out there.
You are listening to Austin Signal,
made possible by community-powered
public radio here at KUT
News.
I'm your host, Jerry Kikano.
It is Wednesday, April 8.
We are glad to be part of your
day.
Travis County Commissioner's Court
voted this week to withhold 9%
of Tesla's tax rebate for
2020 through 2022 for,
quote, partial noncompliance with
certain provisions, end quote, in
the company's economic incentive
deal with the That deal was
finalized in 2020 and
offers Tesla up to 80%
of the largest portion of its county
tax bill in exchange for spurring
economic growth in the region.
We have more about this story at
KUT.org and
over on the KUT app.
During past legislative sessions,
bills aiming to bar undocumented
immigrants from working or going to
school here in Texas were proposed
by state lawmakers but faced
by partisan Push back.
And ultimately failed.
Now, however, those intentions are
being made a reality, seemingly
outside of the normal legislative
process.
And that's upending life for many
non-citizens here in Texas,
including many immigrants who are
documented.
For more about this, we are talking
with Eleanor Klybanoff.
She's the law and politics reporter
at the Texas Tribune.
Eleanor, thanks for talking with us
on Austin Signal.
Thanks for having me.
So can you start by giving us an
example of the things that have
changed for not only undocumented
immigrants, but refugees and
DACA recipients here in Texas?
So it's a whole wide range of
things. I mean, most recently we saw
the state change its
rules around who can get license
for jobs.
So there's certain jobs used to be
licensed by the state.
And it's wide range things from dog
breeders to electricians, to
massage therapists.
And it used to if you
were a non-citizen, you
could get those licenses.
If you were DACA recipient,
if you had asylum or were a refugee
and they're considering changes,
the agency that oversees that has
just.
Approved changes to that that will
really upend that whole system.
And these changes haven't been made
through the legislature, so how are
they being enacted, and why is that
significant to the story?
So a lot of these changes are
happening through the regulatory
system, which essentially means
that these agencies that have a
decent amount of power and are
supposed to sort of enact rules,
generally in response to legislation
or federal changes are
doing this separate from that.
So they're saying, we're
just gonna take a second look at
this on our own.
These agencies operate
independently, but they are part of
the executive branch and they're
run by these commissions and boards
that are made up of appointees
by Governor Greg Abbott and his
office must approve any of these
rule changes.
So it's really happening through the
governor and the executive branch
versus the legislative branch, which
is the typical process.
What have you heard from immigrant
rights experts about these changes?
Know, they say that it's been very
confusing and created this culture
of fear where even when some
of the rules don't necessarily apply
to every single group and some, you
know, in some cases, DACA recipients
are not impacted or refugees are
not affected, that people
are sort of proactively opting out
anyway because they're confused by
the rules or they're worried about
getting, you now, caught up in a
system that they don't intend to be
caught up in. And so we're seeing
a lot of people sort of proactively
chilling their own rights.
And then also I think there's a lot
of concern just widely about what
the economic impact of this will be.
You know, if you can't get general
contractor's license, if can't truck
driver's license.
If you can get people
to register their cars if they don't
have the proper documentation, the
ripple effects are expected to be
pretty significant.
The Texas legislature has been under
Republican control all three houses
for more than three decades now.
In your story, you talk about
how the Texas Republican Party
kind of run against maybe what
policies were at the beginning of
this 30-year tenure in the Texas
legislature. Can you talk a little
bit more about that?
I think while we're under this sort
of unprecedented immigration
crackdown on all these different
facets of life, it's easy to feel
like this is how Republicans have
always felt about this issue.
But what we know is that Texas
Republicans actually approved
a lot of these policies originally,
put them into place, or chose to
not undo them over the last
several decades, in large part
because of the economic concerns.
I think there was a
feeling when they first
sort of created this program to give
undocumented students in-state
tuition.
That we don't
want undocumented people to not have
a path to education because many
of those people, they have to sort
of attest that they wanna become
documented, they wanna to become
citizens.
You want those people to be
contributing members of society.
There's the Supreme Court decision,
Plyler v. Doe, that says that
undocumented children should get
free K-12 education like all
other children do.
And you don't want a whole
generation of children who haven't
been educated.
That's a huge problem that you
potentially have to deal with when
of what will those people do for
work? And the deterrence idea
that, oh, we wanna make sure that
these families don't feel like they
can bring their children here, that
Texas is not hospitable to them.
The potential trade-offs of that,
Texas Republicans used to feel like,
well, if they're here, let's figure
out how we can make sure that they
are contributing to society.
The economic concerns that you
stated. Are we seeing those impacts
already?
I think some of this has been slow
to unfold, but there's a lot of
sort of predictions of what the
impact both of these official
policies might be.
Right. I mean, if we don't have
truck drivers, if you don't people
registering their cars, if
we all people being able to get
insurance on those cars, we don't
people being able to work in these
industries where we do need people
to be working, expected to be
very significant economic ripple
effects. But I think in the what
we're already seeing is ways in
which people are choosing to
not do things that maybe they
actually still have a right to do.
So. The Texas Tribune just had
some great reporting from my
colleagues about undocumented
immigrants not going to seek health
care because they
feel like they're worried they might
get caught up in a system.
And the state has said that they are
tracking the number of undocumented
immigrants that are using hospitals.
So there's this feeling that people
are being tracked, that people are
being monitored, that they might be
caught up an ICE detention
if they go to a hospital
or seek health.
The economic ripple effects
of things like that are expected to
be very significant.
You mentioned Plyler versus Doe,
can you give us a refresher
and
why would a challenge to that case
be significant?
So Plyler v.
Doe was a 1982 Supreme Court case
that originated in Texas, as
many of our most interesting Supreme
Court cases do,
when Texas passed a law that
allowed school districts to charge
tuition or exclude undocumented
students from public school.
That was challenged, and the Supreme
Court essentially said that students
have a right to public education
irrespective of their documentation
status.
And the justices said like...
Really lean on the economic part of
this, which is, you know, these
children do not ask to be brought
here. They did not bring themselves
here.
And we are setting ourselves up
for a huge problem if we don't
educate them and set them on a path
towards self-sufficiency.
This has been sort of just an
accepted law of the land for several
decades now.
And recently, conservatives have
really begun to coalesce around the
idea of overturning Plyler with
the idea that,
you
and To
do that in all likelihood, you would
need the legislature to pass a, a
law, which then would get
challenged. And then they feel like
if they took it to this Supreme
court, they'd have a better chance
at getting that overturned,
sort of like we saw with the Dobbs
decision.
So that would take a couple of
steps. It's not imminent, but you
know, what we've seen so far is like
anything is possible.
We have been speaking with Eleanor
Klippanoff. She is the law and
politics reporter at the Texas
Tribune. We're gonna have a link to
her latest reporting in our show
notes. Eleanor, thank you for your
time.
Thanks for having me.
The Austin Independent School
District is facing a significant
budget deficit ahead of the upcoming
school year.
A preliminary budget draft was
presented to board members during
last night's work session.
For more about the financial outlook
for AISD, we are chatting with Greta
Diaz-Gonzalez-Vasquez, KUT's
education reporter.
Hi Greta.
Hi Jerry!
So tell us, what do we know about
the district's budget for next year?
Yeah, so I think it's very important
to say that it was a draft of the
preliminary budget because that
means that there's still a lot of
work to do.
This is the initial version of the
budget that is used to guide
decision-making.
And so like you said, it's a $181
million budget deficit and
the district is working to reduce
it and Superintendent Matias Segura
said last night that he was very
clear that it would come with
sacrifices.
We're no longer at a point where we
can protect all things,
that the cuts are
going to impact our ability to serve
our students in a way that we see
best.
So the district's chief financial
officer, Katrina Montgomery,
presented four scenarios for cuts,
and in three of them, the district
would end up with a balanced
budget.
But these scenarios include
strategies that would help save up
$132 million,
and that includes, of course, cuts.
Yeah, yeah, and how would those
cuts impact schools in AISD?
Yeah so the district
is expected to have staffing cuts at
campuses so that will that
means it will impact teachers and
that would be more than 22 million
dollars in cuts in elementary
and middle schools and
the biggest savings would come from
other staffing reductions what they
called departmental reductions and
that will give a relief of 40
million dollars And there's also
other campus cuts that would include
include moving librarians
into supporting roles.
They would also reduce the number of
campus monitors at middle schools
and the number nurses on
campuses.
And other strategies include
cuts on travel and cell
phone expenses.
And another big one that would be 23
millions would be current
vacancies.
Okay, well, as you mentioned, this
is a budget draft that was
presented to board members,
trustees. What did they have to say?
Yeah, so they asked the
district to be thoughtful about what
cuts will be made, like if they will
have long lasting impacts, if it's
easy to just undo
them and maybe in a couple of years
be able to bring something back.
But they also said to be thought
about which populations would
be affected by the cuts.
And for context, this year as we
reach the end of the budget, the
district is a $49 million budget
deficit, that is $30
million more than they had
projected.
It's mostly because they were
relying on revenue from property
sales that didn't happen,
and so trustee David Kaufman said
that this time around he would be
very wary of one-time influxes
of cash like selling
property.
Mhm.
So he said that
the district was really working on
making long lasting changes that
could help balance the district in
the future that wouldn't just be
like a year by year try trying
to keep up with the budget.
Yeah, trying to see something a
little bit more long term planning
for the district.
Okay, so this was only a
draft of the budget.
What happens now?
What sort of considerations happen
next?
Yeah, so we have a couple of months
left.
So over the next few months,
district officials and trustees will
hold bi-weekly work sessions.
And these sessions are open to the
public. So you can see them on
the AISD YouTube website
or their YouTube channel, sorry.
And so the district is also set to
present a preliminary budget on
April 21st, which is
seeing more of the decisions they
have made and then a final
or that they're proposing they
haven't made them.
And our final recommendation on May
21st, and then the Board of Trustees
is expected to take a vote
in mid-June, and the new
budget starts in July
1st. And I gotta say, also during
the next month, AISD officials
will hold virtual meetings with
community to hear feedback about
the proposed cuts.
Okay, well, it sounds like a story
that is going to continue to
develop, and I'm sure that you
will continue to cover it.
We'll bring it to you here on Austin
Signal. We have been chatting with
Greta Diaz-Gonzalez-Vasquez, KUT's
education reporter.
We're going to have a link to her
latest reporting in today's show
notes. Thank you, Greta.
Thank you, Jerry.
And thank you out there for tuning
in to Austin Signal, making us
part of your Wednesday.
We hope you're having a nice one out
there. We've got a lot of arts
coverage coming up after the
break. Stay with us.
This is Austin Signal, welcome back.
Comics from around the country are
filtering into Austin this week for
the Moon Tower Comedy Fest.
It started 15 years ago and
since then has grown into one of the
biggest comedy events in the
country.
Takes place across 11 venues,
lasts a week and a half, and one of
folks on the lineup is Angelina
Martin.
She spoke with Texas Standard host
David Brown about the festival
and recounted how cutting her
teeth and making little money.
Ended up making for some pretty good
material.
I've mainly worked service
industry, jobs and
such.
So when I realized
that I didn't know much in
taxes, I figured they wouldn't miss
it. So I started doing jokes about
not paying my taxes and
then they got broadcast online and I
realized, oh, I'm gonna get
found out.
So far no one's knocked on my
door.
Well, this week hundreds of comics
from around the country are going to
be joining you for the Moon
Tower Comedy Festival taking place
in the Texas Capital City.
Tell us a little bit about why you
like this festival so much.
A lot of folks do.
Yes, I'm super excited.
I love Moon Tower so much.
It's always been such a
huge part of the Austin comedy
scene and the national comedy scene
in general.
It was such a badge of honor when I
got on the festival when I
was a few years in to stand
up and have been on
several years since then.
And it's just
so validating.
Now you produce a show called Slide
and the DMs that Moontower picked up
this year.
Tell us a little bit about that
show. What is that?
The whole premise of the show is
that standups or sometimes other
local celebrities like musicians
will come on the show and
share strange messages
that people have sent them or
sometimes that they've sent other
people.
And then a cast of improvisers
do improv based off
of their messages and
it's such a good time.
That's so clever.
Well, you know, it's interesting to
see how Austin's comedy scene
has really exploded, it seems
like, in the past five years.
You've got venues like the Creek in
the Cave and Joe Rogan's Mothership.
Where does the Moon Tower Comedy
Festival fit into that scene?
Yes, it's really interesting to
see and experience the scene growing
through the years because
I did move to Austin
specifically because I wanted to
start comedy in a small but strong
niche comedy scene.
And now there is an issue presence,
which is cool.
I feel like the scene has kind of
grown alongside me.
It is more competitive to
get stage time, but the stage
time you do get, there's
more chances of something
exciting and substantial coming
from it.
You're going to be performing at a
special showcase called the Texans.
What should people expect there?
Um, yeah, it's going to be the
best of Texas comedy.
One of my favorite performers
are going to on it.
So I am honored
to be on that list and
it's just going to showcase
the really high quality
stand-up talent that Texas
has had for many
years. Uh, and
it'd nice to show people
that we have always had
lots of talented.
Comedians here, so it's fun
to see my friends get
their shine.
Is there anything that makes Texas
comedy unique, is there something
about being here in Texas that,
I don't know,
sort of feeds that
comedic spirit or no?
Well, I think,
speaking to
Austin more specifically,
I do see, even though the city has
changed so much
in the past
six to 10
years, especially, but I think
the same kind of charm that
brought people to Austin, which is
like a combination of
Southern hospitality
and eccentric.
Individualism.
I think that shows in our comedy
scene.
So I have been charmed
by the friendliness
of Texans and I think it
comes across in our
comedians.
That was comedian Angelina Martin
talking with Texas Standard host,
David Brown.
We're gonna have a link to more of
that conversation in today's
podcast, Show Notes.
Austin playwright Katie Bender used
magician Harry Houdini's archives
to create her play Instructions
for a Seance.
She'll perform the solo show next
week during Fusebock Festival.
For KUT's art beat, Michelle
Dahlenburg spoke with Bender about
how writing the piece helped her
escape.
Austin Playwright, performer and
theater maker Katie Bender is
showing me a collection of unusual
artifacts.
Hand cup.
These are not just any objects,
they're inspired by things that once
belonged to Harry Houdini.
These items will be used in Katie's
solo show, Instructions for a
Seance, which she's performing at
Fusebox Festival next week.
Inspired by the Houdini archives at
the Harry Ransom Center, the
piece explores themes of caretaking,
ambition, and the urge to escape
parts of your life.
Everyone, close your
eyes.
During the show, Katie attempts to
summon the spirit of Houdini,
the famous magician and escape
artist.
We gather here now
to join together for the
purposes of escape.
Katie started developing the show in
2015 as a graduate student
at the University of Texas.
Kirk Lynn was her professor and
mentor.
He knew that there was a lot
of magic and magical realism
in my plays and that
I've always been interested in sort
of taking audiences into
the experience of moments of the
unknown which magic does so
beautifully.
Kirk recommended that she look into
the Houdini archives.
I was immediately struck by
kind of the force of Harry
Houdini's will and ambition and
was really drawn
to these pictures of him
mid escape.
But also in
his letters, he has such a
particular cadence and it was
something I started to really hear.
I felt like I was kind of channeling
Houdiny.
Katie started by writing a play for
two actors, inspired by Houdini's
life.
At the time, she was juggling
writing and work while being a mom
to her young daughter.
Like I would have these long
extended fantasies about like just
going to Mexico alone and like
disappearing into the sunset.
And I realized that I was
just craving a kind of
escape because I felt like I
didn't have a release
valve in my own life.
As she looked at the photos of
Houdini mid-escape, Katie wondered,
what does it mean to be an ambitious
artist in late stage capitalism
and try to raise a child?
I came to this realization
that it really was a seance to
contact Houdini to help
me get some of that escape in my
life.
And let us all now together
reach out into the spirit
world.
Harry Houdini,
are you here with us?
Harry Haudini.
Can you give us?
Early on in the seance, Katie asks
her guests to write down what they
wish to escape.
And everybody has something,
you know. U.S.
Politics, inflation,
war, headaches,
back pain, stuff in my teeth,
financial burdens, fundraising,
the daily grind of a regular day
job.
Katie's been developing versions of
instructions for a seance for over a
decade. How have you changed while
working on it?
I really wanted to be known in the
world as an artist and not a mother
when I started this process and
I feel very different now.
I no longer want to escape my
family. My family is really the
space of love and
support in my life and
I need that.
Katie has performed versions of the
seance all over the US,
and she's heading to Milwaukee to
perform it at Milwaukee Rep this
fall. But she's especially excited
to perform it right here in her
hometown next week.
Austin itself is
I think spiritually a really
powerful place just because of the
connection between the
Edwards Aquifer below us and
the movement of the Colorado River
and the spirits
that I feel like are alive
and well in Austin and
especially in Texas Performing Arts.
There are some real ghosts in that
building.
And as for Houdini?
So far the seance has failed.
I've never made contact with
Houdini, but.
What happens next is always
something that is really surprising.
Piece points the audience to wonder
and awe, like the kind magicians
create.
I hope that the guests leave the
theater feeling newly
engaged with what
live performance can
do. Gather a group of
people together and
commune together and try
and
escape our
troubles together.
And in this coming hour
This is...
Katie will perform instructions for
a séance at Fusebox Festival next
week.
Find more information and tickets at
fuseboxlive.com.
For KUT's Art Beat, I'm
Michelle Dahlenburg in Austin.
And thank you for tuning in today to
Austin Signal.
That is it for today's
show. We're gonna have a link to
all the stories that we shared with
you today in the podcast.
Show notes, and you can always find
more from our show at kut.org
slash signal.
Rayna Sevilla is our technical
director and Kristen Cabrera is our
managing producer.
And I'm your host, Jerry Quijano.
We will all be back with you
tomorrow one o'clock right here
on KUT and wherever
you listen to your podcasts.
Have a great day.