Pflugerville residents: ACC expansion all tax and no campus

Pflugerville residents are not only stuck between a Rock and a weird place, but the median Pflugerville homeowner will be on the hook for a $200 per year tax increase if a proposed bond passes to include the city into a local community college district (and with no campus).

A new group, Pflugerville Residents for Responsible Taxation, is working to kill a proposed Austin Community College District expansion into the Pflugerville area raising about $40,000 per student, according to their press release (yikes!). Here are some other shocking assertions made by the new citizen-led organization:

• The ACC tax would be 10.08 cents per $100 of property value
• A property owner of a $200,000 home would see a yearly increase of $202 
• A property owner of a $300,000 home would see a yearly increase of $302
• The ACC Board of Trustees is "100% dominated" by Austin residents
• A workforce center is planned but no collegiate-level learning facilities
• Total estimated cost to Pflugerville would be an estimated $11 to 13 million per year

The nearest ACC campus to Pflugerville is the Northridge campus -- 8 miles or 18 minutes in non-peak traffic.

At the current time, according to Community Impact News, only the portions of Pflugerville ISD located within the city of Austin are inside the ACC district. In June, members of Pflugerville Pfriends For ACC presented a petition to the ACC board with 3,556 signatures calling for annexation. ACC officials have reminded residents that by being annexed they would pay in-district tuition which is around an $8,000 discount.

"... Pflugerville can't afford body cams to keep our officers and citizens safe ... it's a bad time to raise Pflugerville taxes to feed ACC," said longtime resident W.C. Kolinek in the press release.

Below is a screenshot of the Pflugerville Residents for Responsible Taxation press release, which was distributed this morning.