2012 Voter guide

The case against the UT medical school: Central Health's Proposition 1

2012 Voter guide

The case against the UT medical school: Central Health's Proposition 1

Editor's note: CultureMap Austin is proud to partner with Leadership Austin — the region's premier provider of civic and community leadership development — in this series of editorial columns meant to inform Austinites about the upcoming City of Austin proposition elections to be held Nov. 6.

This is the second of two articles spelling out arguments for and against the City of Austin's Proposition 1 election on funding the University of Texas Medical School. This article opposes the Central Health proposition; the first article, advocates for Proposition 1.

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The all volunteer Taxpayers Union is the David up against a Goliath composed of powerful politicians, lawyers, corporations and their PAC bursting with special interest money. If Proposition 1, Central Health's request for funding a medical school is such a good plan, why does it require a quarter million dollar propaganda campaign?

Advertising for Prop. 1 has been long on feel-good promises and short on specifics. What Prop 1 organizers are not telling you is that the University of Texas, with its billions of dollars in idle funds, is taking the precedent-shattering step of demanding local homeowners pre-subsidize the operation of the medical school.

With that, I’d like to clarify some misconceptions about Prop 1 in hopes we can clear the smokescreen.

Misconception No. 1: Proposition 1 buys a medical school and hospital — it does neither. Read the proposition carefully.

Misconception No. 2: We get $1.46 for every dollar of tax — but matching funds are not a dependable source of revenue. They’re contingent on performance, can’t be used for new construction, depend on an insolvent federal government and most importantly, last for less than four years, unlike the permanent tax.

Misconception No. 3: Prop 1 will bring 15,000 new jobs and $2 billion per year in economic activity — based on an estimate of 200 student doctors, this equates to 75 employees and $10 million per year for every student! Does that sound realistic? These numbers are guesses performed by "economists" hired by proponents. An Aug. 24, 2012 Statesman article included numerous skeptical peer reviews of these claims. They’re further disputed by the findings of a 2012 Economic Assessment of A&M’s Temple medical school by Dr. Ray Perryman.

Also worth noting: The tax begins immediately, but the school will likely not be complete for years. What becomes of the hundreds of millions of local tax dollars extracted from homeowners in the interim? If the tax truly funds medical school operation, shouldn’t it start when the school opens?

Misconception No. 4: Proposition 1 resolves future doctor shortages — proponents shortage numbers are for a six-county area, five of which contribute no property taxes to Central Health and have far greater shortages. Why should Travis County homeowners foot the bill for counties who contribute nothing? Travis is the top ranked metropolitan county in Texas for general practitioner access. Our Texas Department of State Health Services doctor to patient ratio rank of 17th in Texas, is superior to San Antonio at 34th, which has a large medical school, a teaching hospital and healthcare district tax three times ours.

In 2004, we were promised that if Central Health was authorized, they’d increase healthcare access and eliminate the uninsured in emergency rooms. We hear the same empty promises again. There will never be enough money; look to San Antonio, where many homeowners pay over $100 a month to the healthcare district, for a glimpse of your future.

We have the highest property taxes and bond repayment ($10 billion equaling $10,000 per citizen), of any metropolitan county in Texas.

According to the Statesman, our property taxes have increased 38 percent in the past decade. Since then, we’ve seen the city, county, Central Health and AISD all raise their rates.

Another $385 million in borrowing accompanies Prop 1 on the ballot: A huge AISD tax increase and more bonds (light rail, City of Austin, Austin ISD) are coming in 2013. Where will the projected $4.1 billion for this project come from? More bond debt on homeowners? Do the math, they are billions short.

These increases hit the elderly on fixed income and poor working families hardest. A report by Community Action Network shows 40 percent of Austinites are struggling financially. The fact that Sen. Kirk Watson and Gov. Perry are supporting this is just another example of how vultures in both parties pick at the carcasses of taxpayers who are tapped out and unable to maintain their family budgets as it stands now.

We don’t necessarily oppose a justified medical school or hospital. We oppose a million dollar a week, bureaucratic tax grab that doesn’t do what’s advertised, confuses voters with limited one-sided misinformation and demands homeowners support an arcane, atypical funding scheme.

Central Health Tax Ratification Election

PROP. 1: Approving the ad valorem tax rate of $0.129 per $100 valuation in Central Health, also known as the Travis County Healthcare District, for the 2013 tax year, a rate that exceeds the district’s rollback tax rate. The proposed ad valorem tax rate exceeds the ad valorem tax rate most recently adopted by the district by $0.05 per $100 valuation; funds will be used for improved healthcare in Travis County, including support for a new medical school consistent with the mission of Central Health, a site for a new teaching hospital, trauma services, specialty medicine such as cancer care, community-wide health clinics, training for physicians, nurses and other healthcare professionals, primary care, behavioral and mental healthcare, prevention and wellness programs, and/or to obtain federal matching funds for healthcare services.

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Roger Falk is an invited guest columnist of Leadership Austin. The opinions of Leadership Austin guests, alumni and faculty members are their own, and do not represent an official position of the organization.

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trash queens

SXSW panel teaches Austinites to eat their vegetables and slash food waste

Sustainability starts at home. Photo by Benjamin Brunner on Unsplash

At a March 8 conference panel at South by Southwest (SXSW), four anti-food waste innovators shared how shared how even the smallest choices we make can help prevent a large amount of food waste from entering landfills.

Let's start with the facts: nearly one in four Americans are food insecure, more than a third of all food made in the U.S. is wasted, and date labeling on food products is not federally mandated. With all that said, it feels like reducing food waste in our society is a gargantuan feat, but it's not as unachievable as some might think.

Called #TrashQueens: The Women Reimagining Food from the Waste Up, the panel shared how at-home actions such as rinsing vegetables in a simple vinegar solution and broader production ideas like upcycling leftover produce into a bag of chips can help reduce the effects of climate change.

The discussion featured four women working to reduce food waste: Monti Carlo, social media personality and host of Sinclair Broadcasting's Let's Eat; Rose Hartley, the former head of sustainability at Misfits Market; Kaitlin Mogentale, CEO and founder of Trashy Chips; and Dr. Lara Ramdin, chief scientist at FoodxClimate.

Climate change and its impacts on nourishment
Ramdin started off by sharing the crucial differences between food loss, which happens when food loses its quality or nutrient density "up until the point of retail"; and food waste, which occurs when food is discarded for being surplus or past its "best by" date. Sometimes, it's simply thrown out.

Climate change can negatively effect crop production and yield, Ramdin said, which in turn can reduce the amount of nutrients we get in produce that we have long assumed does not fluctuate. So when an individual goes to the grocery store and shops for an apple, for example, the effects of climate change can make apples less nutritious over time.

"So these things where we assume that you get certain amount of fiber, you get certain amount of micronutrients from an apple, is just not the case, and that's decreased significantly," she said.

All four women are working towards tackling food waste by taking food and produce that would otherwise be destined for the trash, and finding ways to bring it back into the food system. Their unique methods to eliminating food waste also serves to fight food insecurity, closing the gaps to provide food for those that need it.

Personal journeys into reducing food waste
Fighting food waste led Kaitlin Mogentale to found her own company, Pulp Pantry, which upcycles what would be wasted produce from other food manufacturers and uses it in the brand's signature Trashy Chips. That reintroduces those ingredients back into the food system rather than letting them get sent into landfills.

Mogentale told her backstory as part of the panel:

I happened to be at a friend's house seeing her juice a carrot – and I was already very committed to a zero waste lifestyle, had taken on veganism, all of this in light of being very passionate about the climate crisis and wanting to change my personal behaviors to match my values – and just realized firsthand when you juice a carrot, I mean, there's so much waste. So that little "aha" moment sparked me to just reach out to a bunch of food processors in the [Los Angeles] area, and realizing at each step of the way, as I got from local juice brands to national juice brands, there was no infrastructure or really a solution.

Our food manufacturing is a very linear model. You put ingredients in, and we've not designed waste out as a part of this circular process. That waste becomes a cost center for these producers, and they don't look at kind of the creativity and inherent nutrition left in food. And so I just started by approaching a couple big brands, and I said, "What if we devise a system to collect that material and upcycle it?" And that's what really got me started, and just got me passionate about really creating business solutions that fight waste with the goal of re-entering, I would say, school food.

Carlo, on the other hand, was a single mother shopping on a tight budget and searched for the best ways to make her food last longer and not end up in the trash. She explains:

In 2012 I was on a very restrictive budget, and I knew that there were a lot of other mothers and women – 74 percent of women are the ones that are making the food choices in the household – that were also dealing with restrictive budgets... So I started teaching classes in underserved neighborhoods, and I realized that even through simple recipes, most people don't really understand all of the potential that one vegetable has. They throw out a lot, and they also don't know how to store food. So I actually started teaching people how to shop in a food desert, even go to Walmart or Target, and I'd show them how to read food labels. And then we talk about, "Okay, you have a budget. You have $10, here's what you can buy, and here's what you can make with all of these [ingredients]."

How Austinites can reduce food waste within their own homes
Fighting food waste in your own home can start with the simplest changes to food storage, Carlo said. She uses her social media platform to educate others on how to properly store food at home, make produce last longer, and cook easy recipes. She additionally shares tips for those shopping in a food desert, or who are on a tight budget.

For example, she does not recommend storing potatoes in the same container as onions, because onions release ethylene which causes the potatoes to go bad faster. Instead, Carlo recommends storing them in separate containers as far away from each other as your pantry will allow.

Additionally, she suggests washing fruits and vegetables with a solution made up of four parts water and one part vinegar to kill bacteria and make them last longer.

The City of Austin also has a list of resources for residents and businesses to reduce food waste on a local level. Businesses can start a food donation or composting program, and individuals living in the city limits can compost their own food scraps with the Curbside Composting Collection program.

Other grassroots efforts to reduce food waste and fight food insecurity include the ATX Free Fridge project, which operates seven free fridges throughout Austin; and Keep Austin Fed, a local organization that "rescue[s] thousands of meals each month, feeding hundreds of our neighbors living with food insecurity."

Dozens of Austin restaurants, supermarkets, convenient stores, cafés, and more can also be found on the To Good To Go app, where users can purchase leftover prepared foods at discounted prices.

sustainability austin food waste sxsw conference