Austin bond advisory task force approves scoring criteria after hours of debate on weighting

The Bond Election Advisory Task Force spent the bulk of its Dec. 15 meeting debating how to rank proposed projects for the 2026 bond, and after several proposals and roundtable discussion members voted to approve scoring criteria and weights to guide project prioritization.

Members and staff discussed four primary scoring buckets — financial considerations (originally described in the packet as "financial prudence"), equity and access, community support, and environmentally beneficial value — and multiple members proposed rebalancing how points are allocated among them. Arguments centered on whether to give extra weight to projects that leverage non-city funding, to prioritize gap funding for previously voter-approved but incomplete projects, and to explicitly account for essential health and safety needs.

Task force members received guidance from staff and bond counsel during the session regarding bond-eligibility questions such as tree planting and landscaping: counsel said tree-planting can qualify as a capital bond expenditure when it is incorporated into a larger-scale capital project that includes irrigation and long-term maintenance, but standalone tree purchases without a maintenance plan are unlikely to meet eligibility rules.

After discussion the task force voted by raised hands to adopt final weights for the scoring criteria: financial considerations 30 points; equity & access 30 points (with a newly added question about essential health and safety); community support 10 points; and environmental benefit 30 points. The chair then called for a motion to approve the criteria as amended; members raised hands in favor and the chair stated the motion passed.

Task force members asked staff to provide a curated list of recommended projects and a bonding-capacity update in early January; staff said they expect to deliver the bonding-capacity analysis in mid-January and that the city will run additional public-engagement surveys in the spring to gather broader input. Members also requested calendar invites for upcoming meetings and signaled the working groups will continue to refine project-level details.

The vote finalizes a scoring approach that will be applied to staff recommendations and working group project lists; it does not itself place any project on the bond. The task force will use the adopted criteria to produce a prioritized recommendation for City Council and to prepare materials for public engagement ahead of the 2026 bond schedule.