Texas Jeff

Not trying to defend the woman here, but if you are having a mental breakdown on a plane and/or you are drunk or high, and you look around the plane during your rant, and you see this: and you instinctively yell "that motherf***er back there isn't real" ... ... I mean it's not right do that but I get how it might happen ...

Austin should be replacing and repairing their neighborhood pools as needed. Westenfield Pool was redone around 2015 for something like $3 million, at about the same time as the city redid Bartholomew Pool for about $5.5 million . Westenfield looks almost exactly like the pool in the picture that was posted. Seems like chump change for a city that is spending $7 billion on a rail system. In 2018, the city created a master plan to renovate pools and build 3-4 regional swim centers around town, with some capable of hosting swim meets. The 154 page proposal, with hundreds of pages of appendices and comments, is here: https://www.austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Parks/Planning_and_Development/Austin_Aquatic_Master_Plan_Final_reduced_March_2018.pdf It's sitting on the shelf, nothing is happening. Seems like a reasonable investment to me. Why the city creates these master plans and then does nothing with them is a mystery to me.

IMHO, for those just starting out: Build savings up to the point where you would not panic if you lost your job. Something like 3-6 months of income with easy access if needed. Fund a 401(k) if you can, especially get the employer match if offered. Invest any excess in low-cost indexed mutual funds. Wait. If you are in a low marginal tax bracket and have access to a Roth 401(k), consider the Roth 401(k).

Hmmm, I don't know all the rules but it's true that you don't have to stop contributing just because they have started school. If there is money left, you can do the Roth thing, but there are rules on that. Something like the account has to have existed for 15 years and you can't roll over money you contributed in the last five years, and I think you are still limited to yearly Roth contribution limits. You can't just dump $35k into a Roth for the kid on one day, you have to stay under the limits, currently $6,500 per year. Here's a post with more on this: You can change the beneficiary of a 529 plan to a "qualified family member", who can then use that on education. So you could let an excess sit there for a generation and pay for college for grandkids, or another one of your kids, or even yourself.

Atlanta, Georgiorida

Unbelievable...

We all want to go, I suggest:

Does Zoysia come in a Char-Broil brand because it seems like it should... Whatcha planting there Bob? Oh, it's the new Char-Broil Zoysia. Pre-scorched and permanently brown for grassy softness year round.

A 529 plan means that you just invest money and years later, if there is gain, you are not taxed on the gain. The longer you have until college the more time you have for tax-free growth. It's all about avoiding tax on the growth of the money between the time you invest it and the time you take it out. In our case, the best part about the 529 was that we had an account ready to spend on college when the time came. I am a saver and it is hard for me to spend down accounts. However, in this case, we had invested funds long ago for this purpose and mentally it was easy to start spending it as college bills started to roll in. We enjoyed the college transition much more so than if we were just writing checks from our funds. There are a few wrinkles. You want to plan a bit and try to put what you think the kid will need in there, but not a ton extra. We planned for four years of in-state school and figured that we'd either hit it about right for in-state or at least not have to pay so much for a more expensive school.

Thank you for advocating for raising teacher pay to 80k per year and lowering student teacher ratios to 15:1! There are not a lot of people like you willing to stand up for teachers and students in this state! I'm not sure where your daughter teachers, but Austin Montessori tuition ranges from $14,900 for 16 month olds to $19,400 for teens (not including $3000 for the trip to Italy). Texas's basic allotment is $6,160 per student per year and total funding is about $4,000 per year less than the national average. Let's get all of our kids access to that Montessori level of funding starting at 16 months of age. I'm sure you would agree that the innate potential of a child to better themselves and eventually contribute to our society is not determined by the bank accounts of their parents.

They tried to get a bill passed to deannex from the city but it did not make it through the House.

Pro tip: You can buy Amazon gift cards and just give them to your kids' teachers. Or VISA gift cards. Or bags o' cash. You don't have to just buy stuff on the wish list. Encourage/force your kids to write a nice handwritten note at the end of the school year and hand it over with the cash/gift card. Most of the handwriting will not be legible but that gives the teacher a little mystery to work on in May.

Does it make sense to anyone to hold school spending constant in a time of high inflation? I would be OK with this if there was an accompanying bill to kill Robin Hood payments and allow local school districts to set whatever tax rates they wish, so long as voters approve. Maybe not so much for I&S taxes, because folks might borrow too much, but if a town wants to set their O&M taxes high and pay their teachers a lot they should be able to do that.

Teacher are falling behind in pay; I'm not sure folks realize how far. Cap Metro is starting mechanics at $71k-$84k per year. The TSA is paying $48k to $59k in Austin for people to check IDs, move plastic tubs, and watch x-ray machines. As of Sept 2022, the Austin Transit Partnership employed 41 people. Thirty-one of those made more than $100k and eight made more than $200k. Austin Police pays an officer with two years experience about $81,000. These are all public, taxpayer-funded jobs and other than ATP do not require a college degree. Most early career Austin ISD teachers are stuck in the $50k salary range, although you can make more if you speak Spanish, teach special ed, or coach a sport. Teaching requires a college degree and certification. Many teachers that I have met feel called to do the work and inspire the next generation. Somehow we as a society feel it's OK to take advantage of this and pay them less than other public servants. It's not right, and we are close to the point where the new teacher pipeline out of college will dry up and we will wonder where our teachers went.

About $116K. A bit more for the mayor.

Hey it's public money so it's free so no biggie... Do they really need a building 50% larger than city hall? In the WFH era, with the need for office space plummeting, can they not drive a better bargain for the citizens than $478 per sq ft? Also, just for the sake of irony, here's a picture of the new home of the bus service. Ample parking day or night:

Some stats about our Great State of Texas: Public K-12 enrollment, 2021-22, sorted from largest percent to smallest: * Hispanic: 52.7% * White: 26.2% * Black: 12.8% * Asian: 4.8% * Native American: 0.3% * Pacific Islander: 0.2% * Multiracial: 2.9% Total enrollment was 3,224,916 in 1987-88, and increased to 5,427,370 in 2021-22, which is about 417,000 students per grade UT Austin student profile, fall 2022, sorted in the same order as the top table, adding International and Unknown: * Hispanic: 24.8% * White: 34.6% * Black: 5.3% * Asian: 21.1% * Native American: 0.1% * Pacific Islander: 0.1% * Multiracial: 2.7% * International: 9.8% * Unknown or Blank: 1.6% Total undergrad population 41,000 ... about 9,000 freshman enrolled per year. Your odds of attending UT coming out of K-12 are about 2 in 100. About a fourth of students are first generation. UT is about the same size it was in 1980, so obviously it's harder to get in. Are we OK with these numbers? If not, what do we want to do about it?

I think it may have something to do with the probability that the camp is still there, but I'm not sure.

Someone made a map of Austin's homeless camps, no idea if this is accurate or not. If you live south of the river and you're thinking, hey there's a bunch of homeless camps around, you're not wrong...

There is no way the Austin area will have enough water for 22 million people in 2100... Probably not even 2 million. Austin headlines for the year 2100: "Rail extension to the airport approved" "East Austin focus group raises concerns about West Austin" "Texas may finally turn blue during the coming election cycle" "Traffic, affordability highlight local election issues"

Zoom in. There's a little road that goes north from Texline all the way to the state line (Shamburger) then you can turn right onto Texas State Ln road, which appears to be just over the actual state line. It's on that map but that map is not showing it going all the way to the state line ... Google Maps shows it going all the way. Or, just ignore the roads and drive where you want, it's west Texas and it's really flat.

The eastern border of New Mexico and Oklahoma is not lined up with the eastern border of New Mexico and Texas. You can drive north from Texas into New Mexico, take a right, and still be in New Mexico. Seems like someone screwed up and they just decided to live with it.

10,900 without power in Austin according to the outage map

I was in Georgia earlier today headed east to the Atlanta airport to catch a flight back to Austin. A police car went by going 110 easy. Then five minutes later three more, same speed, then two more after that, pedal to the metal. My first thought was "Where the heck are they going and why do they need so many cops?" My second thought was "Holy shit, it's the Bandit..."

I saw that line walking up to the airport yesterday and panicked a bit. Total time in line for precheck was 12 minutes. The suckers in the main line had a longer wait, but it was moving. The throughput appeared to be gated by the number of folks they had checking IDs. Add one more and the queue would have probably gone to zero.