What is ESD2 Prop A in Pflugerville?

At the Pflugerville polling place, each day of early voting, two rival groups canvass within a foot of each other.

Two groups, Pflugerville Residents for Responsible Taxation (PfRRT) and firefighters and paramedics from Travis County Emergency Services District 2 (ESD 2), are at odds over whether the county’s half-cent sales tax should be cut.

ESD 2 leaders say if the measure passes, it would cut their revenue stream by 40%, leading to the closure of at least three stations and the layoff of more than 130 people, including 80 firefighters.

But tax cut advocates disagree that it will protect the county. Pflugerville residents no longer receive ambulance service from ESD 2, a service for which they feel they must pay sales tax. They say the roughly $35 million in ESD 2 reserves and property tax revenue is more than enough to support district operations.

If the measure passes, Pflugerville residents will no longer pay sales tax in ESD 2, while residents outside the city will pay half a cent.

Why the district’s funding is at risk

To understand the differences between the opposing sides, it is necessary to know how emergency services are organized in Pflugerville.

Pflugerville does not have its own city fire department. Instead, the district is supported by ESD, a political division created by voters to provide fire and emergency medical services. ESD 2 covers 77 square miles in northeastern Travis County, including the city of Pflugerville, Wells Branch and other unincorporated areas.

Pflugerville residents voted to pay a half-cent sales tax for ESD 2 in 2000. Residents outside the city voted to pay an additional half-cent sales tax to increase fire protection and train firefighters to perform advanced life support in 2014.

ESD 2 formerly provided fire, EMS and paramedic services to all county residents through Austin-Travis County Ambulance Service.

But in 2017, Austin-Travis County Ambulance Service stopped sending ambulances to Pflugerville.

Trevor Stokes, president of the Pflugerville Professional Firefighters Association, said ESD 2 will not be able to handle Pflugerville’s growth on its own by 2021, and the city has not provided the district with money to meet demand.

“The idea that we would leave… no, we didn’t,” Stokes said. “We were forced to stop providing services because there was no funding.”

Residents outside of Pflugerville continue to use ambulance services because they voted in May 2021 to create ESD 17 to overlay services in the area. Later that year, Pflugerville residents voted against joining ESD 17. If the law had passed, the average homeowner would have paid about $12 a month.

The City of Pflugerville now contracts with a private company, Allegiance, to provide ambulance services within the city.

The first year of the contract was free, but the city now pays $1.3 million a year for the service. Residents on both sides of the tax cut issue have expressed concerns about the for-profit service provider. In 2023, an autopsy report found that Allegiance was responsible for the murder of a man in Williamson County due to improper treatment of emergency medical care.

When a Pflugerville resident calls 911 for a medical emergency, Allegiance and ESD 2 paramedics are dispatched to the scene, but only Allegiance takes the patient to the hospital.

How do the views of a group of residents of Pflugerville and ESD 2 differ?

Julia Ruiz, a retired Pflugerville resident, said it doesn’t make sense for her to pay taxes to both ESD 2 and the city on the Allegiance contract.

“In my opinion, we are paying twice,” she said.

PfRRT member Anthony Nguyen also advocates for tax cuts. He said claims of loss of income are simply a scare tactic.

“They have so much money that they opened these four stations in the last four years, and they can still put $35 million in the bank,” Nguyen said.

Casey Villanueva, ESD 2 risk mitigation program manager, said those millions in reserves cannot be spent for free on ambulance services.

“We must be prepared for an emergency. By law, we must have reserves,” she said. “If a tornado goes through this area, who do you call for help, working overtime 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? This is your fire department.

Ruiz and Nguyen said they hope to see sales tax funds reallocated to the city so the elected city council can begin running emergency services instead of the appointed ESD 2 board.

“This is taxation without representation,” Ruiz said. “We want to keep it local. I hope this is the first step towards achieving this goal.”

But Stokes said there is no guarantee those funds will end up in the emergency services basket. If the ballot measure passes in November, there will be another election in May to determine where it goes.

“This is an attempt to protect the fire department without any plan,” Stokes said.

Stokes also said he believes PfRRT’s intent is to free up sales tax money and funnel it into a municipal development district, a district created to create economic development and growth opportunities in the area. Campaign funding reports show that the developers financed the majority of the campaign.

Stokes also said the tax cuts would lower the county’s ISO rating, the Insurance Services Administration’s nationwide rating system that measures a community’s ability to respond to a fire. ESD 2 currently has the highest possible ISO rating of 1.

That could lead to an increase in insurance rates for property owners in Pflugerville by more than 30 percent, he said.

“It seems incredibly reckless and harmful to me that (PfRRT) is taking action that could cause everyone’s property insurance to skyrocket,” said Travis County Commissioner Bridget Shea, whose precinct covers part of ESD 2.

Shea said the impact of the district’s funding cuts isn’t worth the half-cent sales tax that most residents probably don’t notice.

“I think people have lost understanding of the functions of government. A lot of people say, “Well, I don’t like taxes,” and I ask, do you like having clean water when you turn on the tap?

PfRRT initially tried to get a sales tax cut on the 2022 ballot. They collected 7,000 signatures and brought the petition to the ESD 2 board, but the district rejected it, saying the language in the petition was inaccurate. in accordance with the law.

PfRRT then sued ESD 2 for failing to call an election even though at least 5% of registered voters requested one, a rule mandated by the Texas Health and Safety Code. PfRRT ultimately won the legal battle in the Texas Supreme Court, and the ESD 2 board subsequently approved the election and placed it on the November 5 ballot.