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Austinites may soon be charged a new utility fee to support parks maintenance, as local leaders look for more funding to keep pace with the needs of the city's thousands of acres of public open spaces.The setupUnderinvestment in Austin's hundreds of community parks has been a topic of concern among residents and elected officials for years, as the Parks and Recreation Department has contended with surging parks service needs for the city's growing population.The parks department currently operates on a $180 million budget that that goes toward maintaining and improving...

Austin officials and other local leaders are seeking to fund up to hundreds of millions of dollars in new homeless services over the next decade, based on recent proposals to scale up the region's homelessness response system.The setupRecommendations for extensive new investments were made by the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition, or ECHO, in a report from the nonprofit last summer. That review also showed the amount of people seeking homeless services around Austin continued to rise through the early 2020s, including a jump in clients experiencing homelessness for the first...