Keeping May Elections Cost Austin Taxpayers

       An Empower Texans article written by WasteWatch on October 11, 2011 concerns the issue of the May elections costing Austin taxpayers. WasteWatch is suggesting that the Austin City Council does not care about reducing costs or increasing voter turn out. They apparently voted to keep their elections in May despite the amount of money it would save the taxpayers. The city would spend about $2 million by keeping the elections in May 2012, compared to the $900,000 they would spend by moving it to November 2012.
      
       The huge controversy was about how the council made this decision knowing it would be forced to cover the extra cost from a reserve fund and only $791,000 was budgeted for a May 2012 election. The voters were concerned with this because to them, keeping the elections in May shows that the city council is unresponsive to voter concerns. A poll released a week before this blog was posted shows that 75% of likely Austin voters support moving the elections to November.
      
       The Austin ISD Board of Trustees decided to move their elections to November, probably after feeling the disappointment of Austin voters regarding their city officials. The school board President Mark Williams stated: "This will substantially increase voter turnout and significantly reduce cost for the district. There's benefits in increasing access to voters, and part of a public school district is public involvement." WasteWatch was saying what does that say about the Austin City Council when even Austin ISD realizes this decision is a no-brainer? The Austin City Council was not thinking in the interest of taxpayers or increasing the electoral participation.
     
       The author's intended audience is all the taxpayers. Waste Watch has posted numerous blogs and is very knowledgeable on Government waste. I do not really see the effects of taxes for me just because I hardly know what is going on. I just know that taxes come out of my paycheck and you pay taxes on everything. Ignorant, maybe, but I do agree with this blog because we as taxpayers want to feel secure in supporting out Austin City Council, but when they do not take our concerns to heart it is very difficult to feel secure. People talk about how our state is so in debt, well if that was really a concern then why wouldn't you want to do everything you could to save money?