Naked City

Fresh from helping defeat a $350 million Round Rock ISD bond proposal, the anti-tax group Save Our Taxpayers has found a new target: the Austin Community College all-of-Austin annexation vote, the legality of which the group is disputing through a Department of Justice challenge. On May 7, Austinites will vote whether those parts of the city of Austin that are not already in ACC's taxing district, which includes Austin, Del Valle, Leander, and Manor ISDs, should pay property taxes (the rate is currently 10 cents per $100) to support the community college. The rub lies in the fact that all of Austin gets to vote on whether only 12% of residents – those who live in Austin but who are in Round Rock, Pflugerville, or Eanes ISDs – should get a tax hike. "There's no way the suburbs can defeat this property tax increase," said Don Zimmerman, head of the group. "We think it's patently unfair, and that's why we're motivated to fight this legally."

Save Our Taxpayers asked the DOJ to investigate the election first on the grounds that it violates the Voting Rights Act by diluting minority representation – most of the annexed areas are majority-white. Second, they say the board couldn't have issued the election order in time to meet the March 7 filing deadline, because the board of trustees didn't meet until 6pm.

As for the first, ACC says it already got Voting Rights Act clearance from the DOJ, and that the annexation would increase the Anglo percentage of the district minimally, from 54% to 55.7%. Second, they argue that the trustees had until midnight on March 7 to issue the election order, a deadline they met.

Finally, Save Our Taxpayers argues that allowing all of Austin to decide the taxing future of a small minority violates constitutional principles and the spirit of democracy. A fair election, they say, would be one in which only those voters who would be affected by a tax increase would vote on the issue. In fact, a bill in the Legislature would require all future annexation elections to be held in just this way, and Save Our Taxpayers charges that ACC is simply trying to ram the referendum through before it becomes illegal.

On the other hand, Hunter Ellinger, who serves on the college's advisory committee of finance and budget, points out that ACC subsidizes tuition for out-of-district students – even though such students pay about twice as much as students living within ACC's taxing district, their tuition still doesn't cover the cost of educating them without also getting property taxes from their neighborhoods. "When areas are getting services they're not paying for, it's not really appropriate for them to say they're being put-upon when they're asked to pay for them," he said.