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.
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