Our City will keep us safe: We will never lose ambulance services, despite the scare tactics. If the ESD2 Board votes to stop ambulance services for the Pflugerville area, then the City has a plan and funding in place!
ESD 17 Annexation will double your ESD property taxes: The ESD 17 Board, that serves the Wells Branch area, has called for an annexation election for a duplicate taxing district, against the elected Pflugerville, Hutto & Round Rock City Council’s decision to opt out. Pflugerville already has ESD2 providing Fire and Ambulance services and our taxes have increased 100% in the last 5 years, compared to 3-5% annual population growth. ESD2 could call an election for a temporary increase to fund ambulance services, if it was needed, but they are choosing to DOUBLE your ESD property taxes FOREVER. Our Emergency Service District #2 Commissioners are backing this effort, behind closed doors.
Taxation without Representation: The unelected ESD 17 Board does NOT live in Pflugerville, can NOT be voted out by citizens and has been on the job for only 3 months. We need elected leadership to oversee our tax dollars so they are accountable to the taxpayers for the services provided.
False claims of financial hardship: ESD 2 told us that they may not have sufficient funds to continue EMS operations even though they have $18M in the bank, which is an increase of over 85% in just 4 years since ambulances were first provided by ESD2. Revenues have risen 5 times faster than population. In addition to the 3 taxes from taxpayers, individuals are billed for the ambulance services they receive.
History is repeating itself: Eight years ago, ESD2 asked for a duplicate overlay district to potentially double our taxes. That request was denied because everyone looking at the finances knew the ESD2 had plenty of money. As it turned out, ESD2 has been financially stable for the last 8 years and probably for another 5 years and the foreseeable future.
What is the financial picture of ESD2? A third party review of the finances of ESD2 showed they had plenty of funds for the next 5 years and beyond. A review by local accountants and citizens also came to the same conclusion. The elected Pflugerville City Council denied ESD 17 after extensive research and evaluation and they are working on a cost-neutral plan for ambulance services, so ESD 17 is not needed.
Who is really responsible for Emergency Services in Pflugerville? Our area voted for the creation of Travis county Emergency Service District 2, ESD2. The ESD2 Board of Commissioners have sole discretion to provide services. The commissioners are appointed by our County Commissioners court. ESD2 can spend on anything related to emergency services, at their sole discretion. Initially, the spending was for fire protection services.
Ambulance services were provided by Austin Travis County EMS until 2017 when ESD2 decided to take over from the county, which ended up in the loss of the 2 County ambulances that served ESD2. Unfortunately, we still pay county taxes for ambulance services that we no longer receive.
The city of Pflugerville is not responsible for fire and ambulance services, since the area voted for ESD2 creation. The City could potentially take over fire, by a simple majority vote of the Council and they already approved funding for an ambulance plan.
VOTE NO TO QUADRUPLE TAXES We all love our first responders and want to support them, but a FOREVER TAX is totally unnecessary. We already pay ESD property taxes, sales tax and County property taxes. We need to vote NO on the annexation of ESD17 and the quadruple tax!