Austin-Travis County EMS faces $6.2 million cut in newly revised proposed city budget
Austin-Travis County EMS faces $6.2 million cut in newly revised proposed city budget
Daniel Perreault
November 8, 2025
AUSTIN, Texas — The city of Austin has released an updated budget proposal, after having to rework the budget for the current fiscal year after voters rejected Prop Q at the ballot box earlier this week.
Prop Q would’ve raised property taxes by about 20% compared to the last fiscal year, and the newly proposed budget is already meeting opposition from some Austinites.
After voters rejected Prop Q, the city now has to balance a budget without more than $109 million in property tax revenue.
To meet that shortfall, they are taking an axe to the budget, cutting $5.2 million from Parks and Recreation, $3.7 million from the Municipal Court, $38 million from social services contracts and $1 million from Austin Fire Department.
“This initial budget does not meet the moment,” said Matt Mackowiak, co-chair of Save Austin Now, the organization that led the opposition to Prop Q. “It does not honor and respect the message voters were sending.”
One of the most significant slashes is a more than $6 million cut to Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services (ATCEMS).
James Monks, president of the Austin EMS Association, said he was shocked and disappointed by the proposed budget.
“We’re solving a lot of problems for the city, and it just kind of makes us feel a little bit unappreciated, honestly,” Monks said.
It is already a struggle for the department, Monk said, because they have only been able to secure small budget increases over the past few years, even though they are increasing the amount of money they bring into the general fund.
“I feel like the city always wants to demand that we run lean, but they don’t, and I think that’s a problem,” Monks said. “I hope that they can address that by reopening the budget next time.”
Monks said if the cuts stay as is, they’ll have fewer medics on the streets, which means slower ambulance response times to calls.
“We’ve tried different mechanisms to try to shift, shuffle things around, but this is getting to the point where that’s not working,” Monks said. “It’s actually just making people who are already here have to work harder.”
Earlier this year, the city launched a pilot program to help determine which calls do not require an ambulance staffed with two paramedics. Instead, one paramedic would respond in an SUV equipped with the same equipment as an ambulance, taking some ambulances out of service. This would help the department save money on gas, maintenance and overtime as they worry about going over the budget.
“We’ve been dealing with rolling brownouts for years now. We finally got to a point with our staffing where we were hoping that maybe we weren’t going to have to be brownout trucks anymore, and then we got hit with the budget crisis,” Monks.
They tried to find funding through the council and other avenues, but Monks said they were told none was available. He says these cuts would exacerbate the issue.
“The medics that are here, they’re going to have to work harder, they’re going to have to do more work, and we’re already kind of stretched thin,” Monks said. “People are already facing burnout, they’re already overworked, they’re already tired, and now this is just another blow to that.”
Mackowiak said he knows the city is in a tough spot with the budget, but he will fight any cuts to public safety.
“The message voters delivered on Tuesday night with Prop Q going down handily was not to cut public safety,” Mackowiak said. “If the first thing you want to do, after Prop Q, is to cut public safety, city leaders have another thing coming.”
Mackowiak said if public safety isn’t adequate in a city, almost nothing else matters.
“When you’re in a crisis or someone you care about is in a crisis, you expect EMS to be there, and those response times are absolutely critical,” Mackowiak said. “If a response time is 5 minutes or 10 minutes, that may not sound like much of a difference, but it’s the difference between life or death and a critical incident.”
Mackowiak called on city council members to fully fund public safety and said if they don’t, “all political options are on the table.”
“The charter election [is] in May, which will be occurring in our city, and half of our city council is on the ballot in November,” Mackowiak said. “Those are things we’re keeping a very close eye on.”
“City Hall will hear from our activists all across the city, across all demographics, across all parties starting on Monday,” he added.
In the new proposed budget, the Homelessness Strategy Office would get a roughly $3.7 million increase.
“Other states invest in homeless services. The state of Texas doesn’t do that,” Councilmember Ryan Alter said on Tuesday. “So it’s up to us to deliver those services because we’re on our own.”
City leaders are expected to move ahead with a 3.5% property tax increase next year, the highest rate they can implement without voter approval. The proposed new budget includes $5.25 million in additional property tax revenue.
Alter acknowledged that city leaders are now facing tough choices as they must find a way to account for the missing revenue the tax rate increase would have generated.
“We are going to try to minimize the damage, but it is going to hurt real people,” Alter said.
There is a $7.1 million increase in General Fund expenditures in the proposed new budget, including:
- $50,150 to provide employees who earned less than $53,000 per year in FY 2025 with a wage increase of $2,120 per year in FY 2026, in lieu of the 4% civilian wage increase.
- $5 million in ongoing funding for Austin Homeless Strategies and Operations to continue emergency shelter operations at the Marshaling Yard. An additional $3 million in one-time funding would be provided through the Housing Trust Fund in order to ensure total funding of $8 million in FY 2026.
- $2 million, including 20 new positions, for Austin Parks and Recreation to address parkland and grounds maintenance needs.