Why do we need elected commissioners for emergency service districts?
Because our current emergency service districts are taxing us without representation.
Travis County ESD2 has a 50 million dollar budget. This is as large as our city’s general operation budget. Which should be govern by elected commissioners.
Our unelected ESD commissioners have increased taxes as high as allowed by state laws, without having an election.
Travis county ESD2 is collecting from two different property taxes, 2 different sales taxes, and fees from our insurance companies.
For our unelected ESD 2 Board, the taxes collected are never enough. We need ESD Board members that live inside the district.
Our commissioners should be accountable to the people who live in the district and elected by the people. Support HB 1775 to have an accountable government and elected emergency service district boards.
More than 7,000+ Signatures Were Submitted When Only 4,400 Were Needed
Pflugerville, Texas — Three voters who signed a petition to roll back excess sales taxes have sued the Travis County Emergency Services District #2 after ESD #2 refused to call an election so voters can decide the issue. ESD #2 quit providing ambulance service to the people of Pflugerville, and the Plaintiffs, Jennifer Pakenham, David Rogers, and Kristi Powell, along with almost 7,100 other voters want the ESD#2 sales tax decreased. The Plaintiffs are represented by Former Travis County Judge Bill Aleshire.
“This lawsuit is necessary to protect the right of taxpayers to petition for a tax-reduction election,” Aleshire said. “I have never seen a governmental body behave the way the appointed ESD#2 Board has, by flagrantly using its taxpayer-funded website and political mailings to discourage people from even signing the petition, and then refusing to call the election after receiving a valid petition. The ESD #2 sales tax was doubled in 2014 in an election that passed by 6 votes, a ½-percent margin with only 597 voting in favor. But, in December, Pflugerville and ESD #2 residents presented a new petition with 7,097 taxpayer signatures calling for a new election. There are many assaults on democracy these days, and I am proud to stand up in court for these voters to protect the right of all voters to decide how much taxes should be,” Aleshire said.
The filed lawsuit calls for an expedited writ of mandamus seeking a court to order the Emergency Services District ESD #2 board to call a sales tax-rate reduction election. The petition is the largest signature gathering effort in the history of the city of Pflugerville and was led by Pflugerville Residents for Responsible Taxation (PFRRTAX).
ESD #2’s website, which is funded by taxpayers, is clearly engaging in election-related political messaging on their website. The ESD has also engaged in direct taxpayer-funded negative political advertising using attack mailing.
“This lawsuit respects the rights of taxpayers who signed our petition and rejects ESD #2’s absurd denial of the taxpayers’ legal rights. We expect to prevail and hope the legal process can be expedited to give our voters an election at the earliest date,” said PFRRTAX spokeswoman Melody Ryan. “A court will be required to call the election since ESD #2’s unelected board refused to do its duty. Since ESD #2 has been building a MASSIVE reserve and not using the sales tax to provide ambulance service to the City, this election is the first step to re-allocate a portion of the sales tax to the City, which is currently providing ambulance service,” Ryan added.
Pflugerville Residents for Responsible Taxation (www.VoteYES4EMS.com) is a non-partisan citizen group dedicated to responsible and sustainable taxation for reasonable delivery of government services, since 2016. ###
Unelected Travis County ESD 2 denies valid petition with 7,000 signatures.
A citizen group, exercising their democratic right to petition their government, is attempting to transfer sales tax to the City of Pflugerville to help fund ambulance services now provided by the City after ESD quit ambulance services in January 2022.
Why did the unelected Travis County ESD2 commissioners reject a petition calling for an election with 7,000 signatures?
In 2021, when Travis County wanted to double tax us? This is what they thought of voting.
Now, when the unelected Travis County ESD 2 doesn’t like what the petition says, they suppress the vote.
Why did Travis County ESD 2 deny the rights of over 7,000 voters?
They only want people to vote if it’s to increase taxes.
Travis County ESD2 commissioners’ decision to deny the community the right to vote was not totally unexpected. We anticipated that the commissioners would try to find any reason to deny the district the right to vote, but no specific reason was given.
What can we expect from a board that has threatened our public safety in the past by using scare tactics to discontinue ambulance services unless the city pays millions of dollars. This decision by Travis County ESD2 is consistent with their history of using aggressive tactics to get what they want. We are disappointed by the ESD2 actions and will explore all legal remedies.
Pflugerville, TX – December 16, 2022 – Pflugerville Residents for Responsible Taxation, a non-partisan group of long-time and new Pflugerville residents from all walks of life, announced a successful petition drive to decrease the rate of local sales and use tax imposed within Travis County ESD 2 by .5 percent.
On Friday, December 16th, at 12:04 p.m., 511 pages with more than 7,000 signatures were handed to Travis County ESD2 Deputy Assistant Chief AJ Stacer with a letter requesting to call an election in May 2023. These petitions have obtained the minimum number of signatures required by Health and Safety Code, Chapter 755.0752, for 5 percent of the district’s registered voters.
It is our expectation that ESD2 will validate the petitions and forward them to the ESD2 full Board of Commissioners to adopt a resolution to call an election to be held in May of 2023.
Travis County ESD 2 has been collecting sales taxes within portions of its district to fund its EMS. Starting in January of 2022, Travis County ESD 2 stopped providing Advanced Life Support and ambulance transport services to the City of Pflugerville, forcing the City to use alternate service providers for ambulances without additional funding.
“This petition is not about reducing funding for EMS, but rather about transferring the control of the funding to elected officials,” said Melody Ryan. “We must transfer taxes from ESD 2 to the City of Pflugerville in order to keep allowing the City to offer EMS. This allows our elected City Council to make the decisions that best serve our City residents. Everyone inside of ESD 2 will need to vote on this.”
Within the boundaries of the City, we can choose to forgo paying a half-cent sales tax to ESD 2 and instead choose to give that half-cent to the City of Pflugerville. Once the ESD 2 sales tax is transferred to the City of Pflugerville, the City Council will have the option to establish its own EMS department. There is no overall tax increase and a tax decrease will occur in the ETJ areas.
May 2023 election: Vote Yes to remove the half cent sales tax to Travis County ESD 2. Vote Yes to give the City of Pflugerville the half cent sales tax to fund emergency services.
December 13th 2022 city council meeting, we announce our plans to fund long term emergency services for the city of Pflugerville.
For the past 2 years, the city has been working with Travis County ESD2 over emergency services.
Unfortunately, issues were not resolved and Travis County ESD2 stopped providing Ambulance services to city residents at the beginning of this year.
Consequently, the city was forced to engage with a private company to continue ambulance services to its residents.
This city council has asked city staff to come up with a long term plan for emergency services. Unfortunately, no long term plan has been presented to the public.
We believe that is because city management believes no easy funding mechanism is available for the city to support emergency services.
So we have come up with a plan. The first step is to petition to take back the half cent sales tax that Travis county ESD2 is receiving.
The second step will be to transfer those taxes to the city, with the intent that the city will spend the taxes on emergency services.
We have collected over 7K signatures to call an election in May 2023 to reduce ESD2 sales tax allocation, by a half cent.
If this proposition passes, then it will free up a half cent sales tax for the city to collect.
We ask the city council to please pass a ballot proposition for the May 2023 election to collect that half cent sales tax, if the voters decide to remove the half cent from Travis county ESD2.
This half cent sales tax should be used to provide emergency services.
The city can choose to continue to give it back to Travis County ESD2 or use it to establish its own city emergency services.
In any case, this should put the city in a better position to negotiate terms for our emergency services, rather than leaving it up to a non-elected board.
Please allow our citizens to vote to fund emergency services for the city of Pflugerville.
In 2020, ESD2 presented a doomsday forecast unless the city gave it a $2.7M annual subsidy.
In 2021, Travis county ESD2 threatens to discontinue to provide ambulance services, if an overlay district is not approved.
By a vote of 2 to 1, the duplicate overlay district was turned down by the voters.
In 2022, Travis County ESD2 stopped providing ambulance services, yet we are still paying sales taxes for it.
Additionally, net assets have increased far beyond dire predictions.
The city of Pflugerville was forced to take over ambulance services, without additional funding.
In 2023, vote yes to approve reducing sales taxes by a half cent, and vote yes for the city to gain a half cent for EMS and local control of our emergency services.
The city of Pflugerville is the largest city in Texas without control of its own fire and emergency services?
The city of Pflugerville has been getting its emergency services from Travis County Emergency Service District 2.
But at the beginning of this year, 2022, Travis county ESD2 stopped providing advanced life support services and ambulance transport services to the city of Pflugerville, claiming they did not have enough money.
We voted in May of 2014 to give more sales taxes to Travis County ESD2 to support advanced life support services.
Since Travis County ESD2 suspended ambulance services for residents inside the city limits, we should stop paying the sales tax to ESD2, for services that are not delivered.
We can give that funding to the city of Pflugerville to establish its own city owned emergency services department.
From October 2022 to January 2023, sign the petition to add a ballot proposition to remove the half cent sales tax from ESD2 and transfer that to the city of Pflugerville to help fully fund emergency services for the city of Pflugerville.
In May 2023 election : Vote Yes to ESD2 Prop A to remove the one cent sales tax going to Travis County ESD2. Vote Yes to City Prop A to give the city of Pflugerville the half cent sales tax to fund emergency services.
Does Travis County Emergency Service District #2 want to work with the city of Pflugerville on a long-term emergency services plan? Listen to the May 31 meeting where long-term planning was attempted but ESD2 was unprepared and very reluctant to talk about it.
ESD2 wants the city to pay $2.7 million for ALS ambulance services, despite the fact that it has been funded for years through existing revenue streams of property taxes, sales taxes and fees. ESD2 has received millions more in sales taxes above projections and spent millions less than budget. They are well-funded, and their doomsday prediction never came true.
