I'm Mayor Pro Team Martha Castax Tatum, the Chair of Economic Development, and I'd like to call this meeting to order.

Do want to welcome our committee and council members and their staff and our guests that are in attendance today.

Our Vice Chair Flickinger is here, Councilmember Martinez Ramirez, Councilmember Alcorn, Vice Mayor Pro Tim Peck.

We also have staff from Councilmember Castillo's office from Councilmember Carter's office, staff from Councilmember Salinas's office, and also staff from Council Member Thomas's office.

The meeting is open to the public and being held in person and virtually.

Council members, you know the drill if you have questions.

Our first presentation today will be done by and first and second presentation will be done by Andrew Busker.

He's the senior staff analyst with the mayor's office of economic development, and he'll present the first presentation on the tax abatement ordinance readoption.

If there are any members of the public that would like to speak, uh there is a sign-up sheet on my left.

We'd be happy to hear from you after we conclude our presentations.

Mr.

Busker, I do want to uh welcome councilmember Willie Davis uh to the chamber as well.

We're ready to hear from you, Andrew.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Um our first presentation is the tax abatement ordinance readoption.

Um I don't know if you all can see slides at this time or you have copies?

Okay.

Um so our tax abatement program um is authorized under chapter 312 of the Texas Tax Code, and the statute is uh fairly broad, it enables municipalities to create tax abatement programs and guidelines and criteria.

The main two requirements under this uh statute is that these tax abatements cannot exceed a 10-year term, and then um cities have to renew their tax abatement ordinances every two years to keep them current.

Next slide, please.

So our current ordinances um 2024-624, which was uh approved by city council on August 28th, 2026, or or sorry, 2024.

My bad.

Um August 28th, 2024, and so uh that's coming up.

Um, and so our current tax abatement program has uh five different uh pieces to it.

The economic development abatement, which is our bread and butter abatement.

We also have develop uh Brownfield development abatement, uh which is um described in the state statute.

There's a lead tax abatement, a green stormwater water screen, sorry, green stormwater infrastructure abatement and deteriorated and demolished property abatement.

Those are our um five programs.

Uh next slide, please.

So going through some of the historical changes that we've made over time.

So what's nice about having a two-year uh sunset period is that you know every couple of years we can assess what's working, what's not, um, where our economy is moving, the things that we have to adjust.

Um, and so I have some highlights that are from the past uh 10 years or so.

Um, I'll move this through this relatively quickly.

So in 2016, we added um additional favorable considerations for community benefits, including mid-skill jobs and those sort of things.

And then two years later in 2018, we were we moved from favorable conditions into having actual requirements for community benefits in our tax abatement program.

Um next slide, please.

Then in 2020, um we then were creating um a space for uh reduced eligibility requirements for uh projects that would be located within opportunity zones.

Um also around that time we then created the green stormwater green stormwater infrastructure abatement um and uh updated our lead abatement, and so um those came into place about six years ago.

Um then um we've also like if things are moving well, like in 2022, we just adopted it with no material changes.

Um so then in our last change to the ordinance in 2024, uh we made many changes, and so that's on uh the next slide.

So uh first thing we we decrease the minimum total project costs uh and green stormwater infrastructure infrastructure costs um for the different eligibility for the GSI abatement.

So smaller projects now are eligible for GSI.

Um we expanded what costs were eligible on the under the GSI program.

We also added language to our public hearings uh to better align with the state statute.

Um in our changes to public hearings.

Uh we also added that public notices for anything uh tax abatement tax abatement related for our agreements needs to also be posted on the city website.

Uh and then uh previously on our sunset provisions, we just had the date, and so for legal clarity, we also added the time when the ordinance would expire.

So um next slide, please.

So for the 2026 renewal of our ordinance, we are proposing to readopt the current tax abatement ordinance with no material changes.

Um for this we're we're doing this because we have some proposed edits and things that we're working through internally.

Uh they're not ready to to go live just yet.

We're still doing our analysis and we also want to um invite you all and solicit your input for um changes to the ordinance as well, because we know that um there are several council members that have expressed interest in uh potential changes to the ordinance until we welcome um your your insights and suggestions.

Um so uh the next slide here goes through our timeline.

We try to avoid doing this to you all, but because of trying to get this in before the August 28th expiration.

Um next week we have the public hearing about our tax abatement ordinance, and then it's also on the agenda that same day.

So typically we try to space that out a little bit.

Um, but it's a busy busy day for our tax abatement ordinance next week.

Um so I'll take any questions about our tax amendment ordinance at this time.

So I um had a conversation with Director Tillotson today, and um the desire is to go ahead and approve our um plan, however, we are looking to make some amendments in the near future.

I know that council member Flickinger had some interests in looking at sales tax and property tax.