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City of Austin, Texas 2021 SLFRF Recovery Plan Report

City of Austin, Texas

Recovery Plan 

State and Local Fiscal Recovery 

Funds

2021 Report

(March 3, 2021 – July 31, 2021)
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City of Austin, Texas 2021 SLFRF Recovery Plan Report

City of Austin, Texas

2021 Recovery Plan 

Table of Contents

General Overview........................................................................................................... 3

Executive Summary...................................................................................................... 3

Uses of Funds............................................................................................................... 4

Promoting Equitable Outcomes .................................................................................... 8

Community Engagement ............................................................................................ 12

Labor Practices........................................................................................................... 12

Use of Evidence.......................................................................................................... 12

Table of Expenses by Expenditure Category .............................................................. 13

Project Inventory.......................................................................................................... 14

4400-A110 EOC Emergency Response Project ..........................................................14

4400-A365 Resilience Food Access .......................................................................... 15

4400-A375 Resilience Hubs.........................................................................................17

5000-9100-A6 Homelessness General ....................................................................... 20

5500-A240 Colony Park Sustainable Community Health Center.................................. 22

5500-A340 Non-Profit Emergency Relief - Arts / Music............................................... 25

5500-A341 Arts ...........................................................................................................27

5500-A342 Music ....................................................................................................... 29

5500-A345 Community Navigators ..............................................................................31

5500-A350 Childcare/Early Childhood/Family Connects ............................................ 33

5500-A360 Workforce Development: General .............................................................35

5500-A365 Food Security/Food Access.......................................................................40

8600-A361 Workforce Development: Austin Civilian Conservation Corps (ACCC)....... 43

8600-A362 Workforce Development: Homelessness and/or Creative Sector ............. 47

9100-A248 Public Health- IT Project ............................................................................49

9100-A249 Public Health- Communications Project.....................................................51

9100-A250 Public Health- Staffing and Support...........................................................53
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City of Austin, Texas 2021 SLFRF Recovery Plan Report

GENERAL OVERVIEW

Executive Summary 

President Joe Biden signed the federal American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) into law 

on March 11, 2021, apportioning $1.9 trillion to address the devastating health and 

economic impacts caused by the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. Through ARPA, Congress 

established the Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund and Coronavirus Local Fiscal 

Recovery Fund. These funds provide a combined $350.0 billion to eligible state, local, 

territorial, and tribal governments to meet pandemic response needs and rebuild stronger 

and more equitable economies. 

On May 17, 2021, the United States Department of the Treasury (Treasury Department) 

issued an interim final rule outlining the implementation of the Coronavirus State and Local 

Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF). In summary, the Treasury Department’s rule allows

recipients to use federal aid to: 

1. Support public health expenditures, by, for example, funding COVID-19 mitigation 

efforts, medical expenses, behavioral healthcare, and certain public health and 

safety staff.

2. Address negative economic impacts caused by the public health emergency, 

including economic harms to workers, households, small businesses, impacted 

industries, and the public sector.

3. Replace lost public sector revenue, using this funding to provide government 

services to the extent of the reduction in revenue experienced due to the pandemic.

4. Provide premium pay for essential workers, offering additional support to those who 

have and will bear the greatest health risks because of their service in critical 

infrastructure sectors.

5. Invest in water, sewer, and broadband infrastructure, making necessary 

investments to improve access to clean drinking water, support vital wastewater and 

storm water infrastructure, and to expand access to broadband internet. 

Recipients cannot use this funding to offset a reduction directly or indirectly in net tax 

revenue due to a change in law from March 3, 2021 through the last day of the fiscal year 

in which the funds provided have been spent. The Treasury Department also forbids 

recipients from using these federal funds to make deposits into pension funds. 

The Treasury Department’s allocation methodology for the Coronavirus State and Local 

Fiscal Recovery Funds resulted in the City of Austin (the City) receiving $188.5 million to 

help offset lost revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the City’s ongoing 

commitment to supporting Austin residents, businesses, and organizations that were 

impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, City Council and staff worked diligently for several 

months to establish a spending framework for the ARPA allocation. On June 10, 2021, City

Council approved an ARPA Spending Framework totaling $245.0 million, which includes 

$188.5 million from ARPA – SLFRF, $35.3 million from ARPA – Emergency Rental 

Assistance, $11.4 million from ARPA - HOME, and $9.8 million from the City’s General Fund 

Reserves.

The Uses of Funds section of this report provides a more detailed overview of the City’s 

intended uses of the ARPA-SLFRF funding, whereas the Project Inventory section provides 
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City of Austin, Texas 2021 SLFRF Recovery Plan Report

additional information by project, including key outcome goals, progress to date on those 

outcomes, and noteworthy challenges or opportunities identified during the reporting period.

Uses of Funds

The COVID-19 public health emergency resulted in a significant reduction in revenue for 

the City. All City of Austin tax revenue categories, except for property taxes, declined in 

2020. The tourism industry, including airport and convention center operations, was hit the 

hardest due to travel and tourism‐related mandates put in effect to help mitigate the spread 

of the disease. In addition, City of Austin facility and program revenue was well below 

budget due to facility closures and program reductions caused by COVID-19.

City staff calculated the reduction in revenue by using the methodology outlined in the 

Interim Final Rule issued by the Treasury Department. Actual revenues were compared to 

a counterfactual trend representing what could have plausibly been expected to occur in 

the absence of the pandemic. The counterfactual trend began with the last full fiscal year 

prior to the public health emergency and projected forward with an annualized growth 

adjustment. Based on this calculation, the City experienced a net revenue reduction of 

$566.9 million, or 24.2%, during calendar year 2020, which is well above the $188.5 million 

allocated to the City under ARPA - SLFRF. The following is a summary of the calculation:

The City will use the $188.5 million of ARPA - SLFRF funding to help offset this lost revenue 

and provide relief services and assistance to Austin residents, creatives, non-profits, and 

businesses to address the needs created by this public health emergency. The table below 

Background Information 

Fiscal Year End September

Base Year Revenue Period 9/30/2019

Calculation Date 12/31/2020

Estimate Revenue 

Base Year Revenue $ 2,104,587,575

Growth Rate 9.0%

Counterfactual Revenue $ 2,343,817,557

Actual Revenue $ 1,776,884,672

Reduction in Revenue 

Revenue Reduction $ 566,932,885

Revenue Reduction % -24.2%
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City of Austin, Texas 2021 SLFRF Recovery Plan Report

summarizes the City Council approved ARPA - SLFRF Spending Framework by program 

area followed by narratives of the services to be provided for each program area.

Program Area Budget

Health $46.3 Million

Homelessness $95.3 Million

Economic Development $28.9 Million

Resilience $6 Million

Creative Sector $12 Million

Health - $46.3 Million

Public Health

Public health funding of $44.3 million is allocated to continue the operations of noncongregate shelters, isolation facilities, alternate care sites, infusion centers, and the 

Emergency Operations Center (EOC). Also included is funding for testing services; the 

purchase of personal protective equipment, and other necessary supplies; the Eating Apart 

Together (EAT) program for unsheltered homeless and the AISD Caregiver Meals program; 

and contact tracing, epidemiology, and general public safety.

Community Navigators

Through contractors (referred to as “Community Navigators”), the City allocated $500,000 

to ensure businesses, civic organizations, and creative professionals receive the assistance 

necessary to recover from the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Activities 

supported by this funding include outreach and engagement to historically underserved 

communities; high-quality technical assistance for businesses, civic organizations, and 

creative professionals; and application assistance for federal, state, and local COVID-19 

pandemic-related recovery and resiliency programs. 

Colony Park Sustainable Community Health Center 

An allocation of $1.5 million will be used to install critical infrastructure (water, wastewater, 

and storm water) needed to construct the Northeast Health and Wellness Center in the 208-

acre Colony Park Sustainable Community. Residents living in the Colony Park, Lakeside, 

and nearby communities disproportionately experienced higher COVID-19 cases and 

hospitalizations, compounded by their historical experience with higher rates of chronic and 

preventable diseases. Constructing a health center in this community will improve these 

outcomes by enhancing residents’ access to high-quality and affordable healthcare.

Homelessness - $95.3 Million

The $95.3 million total allocation for homelessness is divided into four subcategories: 

general ($88.6 million), emergency shelter ($4.2 million), workforce development ($2.0 

million), and capacity building ($500,000). Consistent with a motion the City Council

adopted as part of the ARPA Spending Framework, staff is continuing conversations with 
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City of Austin, Texas 2021 SLFRF Recovery Plan Report

Central Texas jurisdictions and philanthropic organizations with the goal of having partners 

commit significant monetary resources to help address homelessness in Austin.

Additionally, staff is reviewing recommendations from the recently convened Summit on 

Homelessness to affirm or revise the recommendations, including financial assumptions. 

Once this review is complete, City staff will host community meetings to discuss the plan 

and will use public feedback to inform final recommendations for the general funding 

subcategory to City Council. 

Economic Development - $28.9 Million

Childcare/Early Childhood/Family Connects 

This allocation of $11.0 million is planned to enhance Austin’s childcare and early childhood 

education systems, and City staff continue to coordinate childcare and early childhood 

efforts with Travis County officials and local community partners. The types of programs 

that could be supported with these funds include:

• expanding the Family Connects program (a joint partnership between United Way 

for Greater Austin and Austin Public Health that provides free in-home nursing visits 

to all families with a newborn),

• expanding access to dual-language full-day Pre-K for four-year-olds; providing 

additional childcare funding to address gaps created for families due to changes in 

employment status,

• sustaining and scaling innovative infrastructure to increase access to affordable 

high-quality care meeting needs of all families,

• implementing solutions to address identified gaps and to strengthen the childcare 

system, and

• stabilizing the childcare workforce and programs that support families with young 

children outside of full-time childcare. 

Workforce Development 

The $17.9 million total funding allocated for workforce development is divided into three 

subcategories. 

• Workforce: General ($15 million): City staff continue to coordinate workforce 

development efforts with Travis County officials to optimize the use of funds to 

support residents who were economically impacted by the pandemic. Programs 

include evidence-based job (re)training and placement services, along with those 

that prepare residents for career pathways into nursing and skilled trades. 

• Workforce: Austin Civilian Conservation Corps (ACCC) ($1.9 million): This program 

helps Austinites earn income, serve their community, and gain equitable access to 

skills, training, and certifications which can lead to careers in sustainability and

environmental fields. This expands on an already existing City program. 

• Workforce: Homelessness and/or Creative Sector ($1.0 million): Staff is in the 

process of evaluating options for maximizing the effectiveness of this funding and 

anticipate proving an update to City Council in the fall of 2021. 
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Resilience - $6 Million

The $6 million allocated to resilience activities is divided into two subcategories, food access 

and resilience hubs, of $3 million each.

• Resilience: Food Access ($3 million): This allocation will support several activities 

consistent with motions that City Council adopted as part of the ARPA Spending 

Framework. Approximately $2.5 million will support ongoing food access needs 

resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The remaining balance will support the 

development of nonprofit or community-owned grocery stores in areas of the City 

that lack healthy food retail outlets; and supporting the development of a regional 

food system plan that includes sustainable operational structures, policies, food 

sector resilience planning, programs, and financing.

• Resilience: Resilience Hubs ($3 million): This allocation will support the 

development of resilience hubs in local communities. Resilience hubs are 

community-facing places of refuge during emergencies. These hubs will include

redundant power, water and communications, emergency supply storage, and have 

the ability to serve as central staging areas for City and community-based 

emergency response. During non-emergency times, these hubs can provide 

culturally sensitive, multilingual programming for community-building efforts that 

increase resilience. Per City Council direction, staff will provide budget analysis, 

funding strategies, and intergovernmental agreement options for potential resilience 

hub locations, including equity-centered strategies considering the most vulnerable 

populations. 

Creative Sector - $12 Million

The total $12.0 million allocation for creative sector support is divided into three 

subcategories. 

• Nonprofit Emergency Relief-Arts/Music ($2.0 million): Staff will use these funds for 

an Austin Arts and Culture Nonprofit Relief Grant. This grant program will support 

creative sector nonprofit organizations that were impacted by the COVID-19 

pandemic. 

• Arts ($6.0 million) Sector Support: Staff will use these funds to benefit the creative 

community based on guidance and direction from City Council and collaboration 

with the Arts and Music Commissions. 

• Music ($4.0 million) Sector Support: Staff will use these funds to benefit the creative

community based on guidance and direction from City Council and collaboration 

with the Arts and Music Commissions.

Additional Federal Funding

In addition to the ARPA - SLFRF funding, the City also received, or will receive, the following 

federal funding to help with the pandemic recovery process:

• $170.8 million allocated to the City under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic 

Security (CARES) Act was used on emergency response and recovery activities.
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• $58.7 million allocated to the Airport under the CARES funding is being used for

monthly debt payment reimbursements and reimbursement of parking expenses.

• $14.6 million allocated to the Airport under the Coronavirus Response and Relief

Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSAA) will be used for monthly debt payment

reimbursements and reimbursement of parking expenses.

• $1.8 million of CRRSAA-Concession funding will be passed through to Airport

concessionaires as a credit to their outstanding balances.

• $54.1 million allocated to the Airport under ARPA will be used for monthly debt

payment reimbursements and reimbursement of parking expenses

• $7.3 million of ARPA-Concession funding will be passed through to Airport

concessionaires as a credit to their outstanding balances.

• $64.9 million allocated to the City under the ARPA-Emergency Rental Assistance

program will be used to provide emergency rental assistance to income eligible

households vulnerable to eviction.

• $11.4 million allocated to the City under the ARPA-HOME program will be used on

affordable housing and services.

• An estimated $50 million of emergency protective measures costs will be claimed

by the City under Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Public

Assistance program.

• An estimated $40 million of vaccine distribution activities will be claimed by the City

under the FEMA-Expedited Vaccine program.

Promoting Equitable Outcomes 

Austin is a beacon of sustainability, social equity, and economic opportunity; where diversity 

and creativity are celebrated; where community needs and values are recognized; where 

leadership comes from its community members, and where the necessities of life are 

affordable and accessible to all. 
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City of Austin, Texas 2021 SLFRF Recovery Plan Report

On March 8, 2018, the Austin City Council adopted Strategic Direction 2023, or SD23, to 

help guide priorities and budgeting to proactively address multiple time horizons, more 

thoughtfully assess performance, and improve community outcomes. Under SD23, the 

City’s goal is to create a community where every Austinite has choices at every stage of life 

that allow them to experience and contribute to all of the following outcomes:

The following are the values that support Quality of Life in Austin under SD23:

EQUITY: To advance equitable outcomes, the City is leading with a lens of racial 

equity and healing. Race is the primary predictor of outcomes and it is time to 

recognize, understand, and address racism at its various levels: personal, 

institutional, structural, and systemic. Equity is the condition when every member of 

the community has a fair opportunity to live a long, healthy, and meaningful life. 

Equity embedded into Austin’s values system means changing hearts and minds, 

transforming local government from the inside out, eradicating disparities, and 

ensuring all Austin community members share in the benefits of community 

progress. 

AFFORDABILITY: Austinites deserve to experience the necessities of life as 

affordable and accessible. Simply put, this means a household can afford rent or 

mortgage, transportation, childcare expenses, utilities, and taxes. This strategic 

direction lays out strategies to increase economic opportunities and affordable 

choices across Austin, so that Austinites, families, businesses, City employees, and 

all generations can thrive.
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INNOVATION: In Austin, we define innovation as any project that is new to you with 

an uncertain outcome. Aimed at addressing pressing challenges that affect our 

community, human-centered innovation means a new approach to exercising

authority and decision-making that starts with the needs, behaviors, and 

experiences of our community, and continues through a process of questioning 

assumptions, engaging with empathy, stewarding divergent thought, reflecting, and 

learning. Innovation is future-oriented around what outcomes could be created 

together, rather than an analysis of already formed alternatives. 

SUSTAINABILITY AND RESILIENCY: Being a sustainable and resilient community 

requires proactive steps to protect Austin’s quality of life now, and for future 

generations. A sustainable city finds a balance among three goal areas: (1) 

prosperity and jobs, (2) conservation and the environment, and (3) community 

health, equity, and cultural vitality. Resiliency is the capacity of individuals,

communities, institutions, businesses, and systems to survive, adapt, and grow from 

difficult times. In Austin, we bounce back stronger. 

PROACTIVE PREVENTION: The City embraces the dual responsibility of being 

responsive to emerging challenges while also dialing up efforts to prevent problems 

on the front end. For example, this translates into addressing social determinants of 

health outcomes, rather than only treating the disease. This means investing in 

preventative maintenance of public assets like bridges, service vehicles, and 

community facilities. An intentional focus on prevention today leads to a brighter 

future. 

COMMUNITY TRUST AND RELATIONSHIPS: Austin is a place where leadership 

comes from the people. We believe in honoring the spirit and soul of Austin and 

creating opportunities for civic engagement that are easy, meaningful, and inclusive, 

and that lay a foundation for lasting relationships. Trust must be earned and through 

strengthening partnerships with the community, we will make more progress 

together to advance these six outcomes.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the City began to take strides in addressing equitable 

outcomes for project and service delivery through the creation of SD23, which prescribes 

reporting detail with greater granularity. Another accomplishment was the establishment of 

the City’s Equity Office whose work is to provide training on racial equity and hold City of 

Austin programs and services accountable for tracking the metrics as dedicated in SD23. 

During the pandemic, the Chief Economic Recovery Officer for the City required 

departments providing economic stimulus to the community to produce dashboards for each 

of the economic relief programs provided. This data is available to the public under 

Economic Impact on ATXrecovers.com. Additional dashboards are created as new 

programs and projects are launched. Each dashboard includes demographic information 

about applicants and awardees, as well as other factors that demonstrate historical 

challenges, such as: legal business structure, industry type, and the City of Austin Council 

District in which customers reside.

The City plans to use the revenue replacement ARPA - SLFRF funding in a manner which 

helps promote the Quality of Life values outlined in SD23. Funding will be used to provide 

relief services and assistance to Austin residents, creatives, non-profits, and businesses 

that were most affected by this public health emergency and to provide long term resiliency 
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to help support the health of Austin residents and the Austin economy. Equity is central to 

the City’s development of the projects outlined in this report and most projects will focus on 

achieving more equitable outcomes for historically marginalized and adversely impacted 

populations, including low-income residents, communities of color, LGBTQIA+ persons, and 

those living with disabilities.

Staff is developing communication and outreach activities, as well as partnering with 

external organizations, such as Travis County, to improve awareness of, and access to, the 

various services provided under the ARPA Spending Framework.

Project plans are developed in a manner that ensures equal access and distribution of

benefits and services for marginalized groups of the community. Some of these activities 

include, but are not limited to:

• Addressing challenging racial and geographic disparities in COVID-19 rates of 

infection, vaccination, and health literacy in an urban area of focus made up of 15 

zip codes with high social vulnerability indices and populations of color;

• Developing mobile and multi-lingual friendly applications, FAQs, and support;

• Working with third-party providers to support applicants in their request for support; 

and

• Addressing transportation challenges that would prevent a resident from receiving 

benefits.

Projects are also being designed with outcomes that are focused on closing equity gaps 

and universal levels of service. The planned outcomes include, but are not limited to: 

• Reducing the rates of homelessness for all Austinites, with a particular focus on

reducing the disproportionate harm in adversely impacted populations – African

Americans, LGBTQIA+, and people living with disabling conditions;

• Improving housing choice for populations who have historically been subject to 

discriminatory housing patterns;

• Closing racial, ethnic, LGBTQIA+, and disability community gaps in ownership and 

leadership of small businesses and non-profits in Austin;

• Ensuring childcare, early childhood education support, and parent education and 

support programs are available to groups most in need of service, especially 

households from racial, ethnic, geographic, and socioeconomic groups that are 

disproportionately impacted by the lack of quality programs;

• Catalyzing food sector business development in underserved areas;

• Addressing challenging racial and geographic disparities regarding COVID-19 rates 

of infection, vaccination, and health literacy by focusing on an urban area made up 

of 15 zip codes with high social vulnerability indices and populations of color; and

• Establishing resilience hubs in low-income communities and communities of color, 

which have traditionally borne the brunt of climate change impacts, to provide 

hyper-localized, contextually, and culturally relevant solutions to address ongoing 

stressors in communities and distributed disaster response and recovery efforts.

Additional information on the City’s effort to promote equitable outcomes by project can be 

found in the Project Inventory section of this report.
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Community Engagement

In 2020, the Chief Economic Recovery Officer launched a series of focus groups intended 

to gather real-time feedback on the programs and types of relief needed to allocate the 

Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funds. Over the course of 

several months and 125 unique engagement sessions, staff presented to City Council a

framework of opportunities and strategies to provide relief based on the community 

engagement focus groups. Each of the six focus groups were specifically curated with 5-40 

community members representing voices not typically heard in citizen communication. 

These community members represented multi-racial or ethnic groups, historically 

marginalized groups like LGBTQIA+ and members of the disability community, as well as 

intentional inclusion of all City Council Districts and both large and small organizations. 

Each engagement allowed staff to listen and learn about the real challenges experienced 

by local business owners, employees, residents, and City staff. Dozens of community 

members volunteered their time to share personal accounts of the pandemic’s impact on 

their businesses, jobs, and families. These community members also offered their 

perspective on the types of assistance needed to help communities and businesses survive 

the pandemic and to become more resilient. While these focus groups were developed to 

help determine the allocation of CARES funding, the feedback collected is still relevant and 

helped guide the development of the ARPA Spending Framework and will be considered 

during program design. 

Additionally, as part of the approval of the ARPA Spending Framework, City Council 

directed staff to create a SpeakUp Austin! page and to hold a minimum of two City of Austin 

community meetings to discuss the spending plan and intended ARPA investments and 

solicit public feedback. This feedback should be used to inform recommendations and 

proposed revisions to the ARPA Spending Framework.

There may be additional community outreach activities at the project level. Additional

information on community engagement activities by project can be found in the Project 

Inventory section of this report.

Labor Practices

The City has a women and minority owned enterprise procurement process that ensures 

worker safety and compensation. The compliance team reviews solicitations; sets project

goals for department solicitations to contract with women and minority owned enterprise 

contractors or subcontractors; collaborates with project managers to help identify scopes of 

work on projects; and verifies Compliance Plan information submitted by bidders/proposers 

which includes labor agreements, community benefits agreements, prevailing wage 

requirements, and local hiring expectations. Additionally, in 2020 the City hired its first Chief 

Civil Rights Officer to enforce civil rights anti-discrimination ordinance and federal statutes. 

Use of Evidence

While projects under the ARPA - SLFRF Spending Framework are still being developed, 

the City seeks to use the ARPA - SLFRF funds to advance the use of evidence-based 

practices as well as evaluate projects through project evaluations designed to build 

evidence. Additional information on the use of evidence by project as well as the planned 

project spending that will be allocated towards evidence-based interventions can be found 

in the Project Inventory section of this report.
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Table of Expenses by Expenditure Category

The City budgeted various government services to be provisioned from the revenue 

replacement from ARPA - SLFRF allocation. Each program area noted in the Uses of Funds

narrative has one or more projects to help execute the program objectives. The individual 

projects are listed in the table above and in greater detail in the Project Inventory section of 

this report. The project inventory section of this report provides additional information by 

project including detailed information on promoting equitable outcomes, community 

engagement, labor practices (if applicable), use of evidence (if applicable), and key 

performance indicators.

6 Expenditure Category: Revenue Replacement Cumulative 

expenditures to date

Amount spent since 

last Recovery Plan

6.1 Provision of Government Services 430,145 430,145

Cumulative 

expenditures to date

Amount spent since 

last Recovery Plan

4400-A110 EOC Emergency Response Project $ - $ -

4400-A365 Resilience Food Access $ - $ -

4400-A375 Resilience Hubs $ - $ -

5000-9100-A6 Homelessness General $ - $ -

5500-A240 Colony Park Sustainable Community Health Center $ - $ -

5500-A340 Non-Profit Emergency Relief - Arts / Music $ - $ -

5500-A341 Arts $ - $ -

5500-A342 Music $ - $ -

5500-A345 Community Navigators $ - $ -

5500-A350 Childcare/Early Childhood/Family Connects $ - $ -

5500-A360 Workforce Development: General $ - $ -

5500-A365 Food Security/Food Access $ - $ -

8600-A361 Workforce Development: Austin Civilian Conservation Corps (ACCC) $ - $ -

8600-A362 Workforce Development: Homelessness and/or Creative Sector $ - $ -

9100-A248 Public Health- IT Project $ - $ -

9100-A249 Public Health- Communications Project $ - $ -

9100-A250 Public Health- Staffing and Support $ 430,145 $ 430,145

As of 7-31-21

Expenditure Category (EC)

Project Inventory List of Government Services
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City of Austin, Texas 2021 SLFRF Recovery Plan Report

Project Inventory

Project 4400-A110: EOC Emergency Response Project 

Funding amount: $6,000,000

Project Expenditure Category: 6.1 Provision of Government Services

Project Amount Obligated to Date: $0

Project Amount Expended to Date: $0

Project overview

This project will support Emergency Operations Center (EOC) response activities. EOC 

activities have been ongoing since February 2020, but the costs reported here include 

expenses from March 3, 2021 and later. The role of the EOC in the COVID-19 emergency 

is to provide support and coordination for public health response activities from communitywide COVID-19 testing, sheltering for those who are COVID-19 positive or under 

monitoring, sheltering for individuals at high risk of contracting COVID-19, strike team 

support for group homes, provision of emergency medical overflow services, public 

information campaigns, and managing logistics such as the distribution of personal 

protective equipment (PPE).

Expenses include an isolation/quarantine facility (hotel lease) to provide shelter for those 

who are COVID-19 positive or are awaiting results, and some logistics expenses for the 

Alternate Care Site (ACS). The ACS was created to establish a field hospital for COVID-19

positive patients who need low to intermediate acuity care. An ACS was activated at the 

Austin Convention Center in January 2021, in partnership with the State of Texas 

Department of Emergency Management. This ACS was deactivated in March 2021. In 

August 2021, due to the surge from the Delta variant, the facility to house an ACS was 

prepared at the Travis County Expo Center but is not activated at this time.

The intended outcomes are coordination among responder agencies, a reduction in 

community transmission of the virus, and a relief valve for the hospital system if they 

become overwhelmed with care of COVID-19 patients.

Promoting Equitable Outcomes

The isolation facility and Alternate Care Site are open to all who have the medical need.
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Project 4400-A365: Resilience Food Access 

Funding amount: $500,000 

Project Expenditure Category: 6.1 Provision of Government Services

Project Amount Obligated to Date: $0

Project Amount Expended to Date: $0

Project overview

Consistent with City Council’s direction, $500,000 for regional food systems planning will

support the growth and stabilization of the local food system (managed by City of Austin

Office of Sustainability). ARPA - SLFRF funds will be used to support enhanced food

resiliency, regional food system planning, and development of a nonprofit or cooperative

grocery store in an underserved area. Additionally, City staff are actively collaborating with

Travis County staff to optimize alignment of the City and County’s food security investments.

Promoting Equitable Outcomes

Goals: There is a pronounced food access problem for low-income and communities of 

color in Austin. In 2016, the City’s Office of Sustainability issued a report to City Council 

outlining the challenges and goals of the food ecosystem. The funding has been limited up 

to now and while the Resilience Food Access project is yet to be designed, some of the 

goals listed in the 2016 report will be attempted as well as the recent resolution set forth by 

City Council.

Awareness: This project will have the marketing and communications support of three 

highly communicative departments: Austin Public Health, City of Austin Office of 

Sustainability, and the Economic Development Department (EDD). In EDD alone, the 

Marketing & Communications team aims to extend the communication and outreach to the 

existing 28,000 department contacts via email and social content packaged for partner 

departments and external organizations, like Travis County, to spread the word. All 

opportunities are listed on the one-stop hub of economic opportunities for Austin: 

ATXrecovers.com.

Access and Distribution: As mentioned above, City staff will work with third party 

providers to support applicants in their request for support. In the project design, staff will 

work with partners to ensure the applications themselves are mobile and multi-language 

friendly with staff and system capacity to review.

Outcomes: The project is still being designed, but in the near-term, EDD is focusing on the 

deployment of ARPA funding to support nonprofit or cooperative grocery store development 

and the development of Food Equity and Economic Development (FEED) Program, a 

program which will utilize CDBG funding to catalyze food sector business development in 

underserved areas. The intent of FEED is to provide funding to projects that will strengthen 

the food sector, improve food access, and demonstrate the viability of food sector 

investments for private sector funders.

Negative Economic Impacts: Project is in the design phase.
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Services to Disproportionately Impacted Communities: Prior to the COVID-19 

pandemic, the City began to take strides in addressing equitable outcomes for program and 

service delivery. These strides include a City Council adopted five-year strategic plan, 

Strategic Direction 2023 (SD23), which prescribes reporting detail with as much granularity 

as possible, including specific metrics on the number and percentage of persons who 

successfully complete workforce development training; the number of people moved out of 

poverty into middle skills jobs; and unemployment rates with the granularity of demographic 

data. EDD committed to collecting demographic data (age, gender, race or ethnicity, zip 

code, and City Council District representation) for all project participants and fund recipients. 

Another stride taken was the creation of the Equity Office in the City, whose work is to 

provide training on racial equity and hold City of Austin programs and services accountable 

to tracking the metrics as dedicated in SD23. 

At the onset of the pandemic each City department providing economic stimulus to the 

community began reporting data on the projects provided on the public facing dashboard at

ATXrecovers.com under the Economic Impact section. In 2020, the City provided childcare 

facilities with economic support through the Austin Childcare Provider Relief Grant. Data 

related to this project is available on ATXrecovers.com, or directly here. As new programs 

are launched dashboards are provided. Each dashboard includes demographic information 

about applicants and awardees, as well as other factors that demonstrate historical 

challenges, such as: legal business structure, industry type, and what City of Austin Council 

district their customers reside in.

Community Engagement 

In addition to community engagement activities discussed in the General Overview section 

of this report, this project is expected to conduct additional community outreach in 2021, 

prior to the launch of project offerings.

Use of Evidence

The project is still in the design phase but expects to use evidence-based criteria such as 

number of food access retailers per capita and by geography for food access as well as 

project evaluation for the retail providers. Staff anticipates an administrative fee between 

5% and 15% to be incurred.

Key Performance Indicators

Output and outcome measures not yet established.
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City of Austin, Texas 2021 SLFRF Recovery Plan Report

Project 4400-A375: Resilience Hubs

Funding amount: $3,000,000

Project Expenditure Category: 6.1 Provision of Government Services

Project Amount Obligated to Date: $0 

Project Amount Expended to Date: $0 

Project overview 

On April 8, 2021, Austin City Council passed Resolution 20210408-028, directing staff to 

engage with school districts, external partners, and communities to conduct a resilience hub 

assessment to identify potential locations throughout the City to serve as resilience hubs, 

including designing and equipping pilot hubs for disasters, including the necessary power 

and water redundancies. 

Resilience Hubs are community locations that provide hyper-localized, contextually, and 

culturally relevant solutions to address ongoing stressors in communities and distributed 

disaster response and recovery efforts. 

Office of Sustainability staff worked with over 30 individuals from 18 City departments and 

several external partners and community leaders to develop initial cost estimates to 

implement Resilience Hub pilots in low-income communities. 

Over the next 18-24 months, staff will plan, design, and build features needed to provide at 

least two initial Resilience Hub pilot projects within the “Eastern Crescent” of the City, in 

addition to creating a community-wide Resilience Hub Plan. The “Eastern Crescent” is an 

area that represents the highest number of communities of color and low-income residents. 

The goal of the pilot projects is to gather lessons learned from a limited number of scenarios 

and inform a large city-wide Resilience Hub Plan. 

Promoting Equitable Outcomes 

Goals: The goal of this work is to identify areas within the City that could benefit from the 

activation of a “resilience hub” and where efforts should be prioritized to establish, support, 

and fund institutions to serve this purpose. To create pilots, staff will work closely with the 

community most sensitive to climate shocks and stressors. In Austin, low-income 

communities and communities of color are bearing the brunt of climate change impacts, 

often being hit first and worst and lacking the investment and resources needed to recover. 

Because of this, Resilience Hub work will center around low-income communities and 

communities of color in the planning processes, build an equity lens for all staff participating 

in these processes, and move toward community leadership and ownership to the maximum 

extent possible. 

Awareness: Once the pilot Resilience Hubs are completed, an outreach strategy will be 

developed to ensure that community members are aware of them and are able to access 

them in the event of an emergency. 

Access and Distribution: Resilience Hubs provide hyper-localized, contextually, and 

culturally relevant solutions to address ongoing stressors in communities and distributed 

disaster response and recovery efforts. They increase accessibility by bringing City services 

and support into communities and empowering residents in the selection and distribution of 

services. The City will assess the accessibility of the two pilots to ensure that they are 

reachable by all adjacent residents including seniors and children, disabled individuals, and
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individuals without vehicles. Street and other public realm amenities will be analyzed to 

determine bicycle and pedestrian access. 

Outcomes: The implementation of Resilience Hubs will prioritize communities where these 

services will be most impactful, such as those most impacted by historical disparities and

inequities and most vulnerable to climate-related shocks and stressors. 

The City is already experiencing the effects of climate change with more extreme heat and 

flooding. These impacts are expected to become more severe over the next few decades, 

including more hot days, increased extreme precipitation, and longer droughts. These 

effects will not be felt evenly throughout the city. Communities with fewer resources 

experience hotter summer days and nights from the urban heat island effect while other 

communities are more susceptible to flooding. Within these communities, certain 

populations will be more vulnerable to climate impacts, including older adults, children, 

people of color, people with limited-English proficiency, low-income individuals, people with 

disabilities, and people with medical illnesses. This project will focus on providing 

meaningful equity results by inviting residents and trusted community leaders to help design 

and implement hub operations and programming. The lessons learned from these two hubs 

will inform future hub planning and provide results at scale. 

In Austin, low-income communities and communities of color are bearing the brunt of 

climate change impacts, often being hit first and worst and lacking the investment and 

resources needed to recover. These impacts will continue to result in various immediate 

shocks and long-term stressors in our community, often on top of existing stressors and 

disparities related to income, health, etc. Because of this, climate resilience work should 

include a sharper focus on low-income communities and communities of color in the 

planning processes, build an equity lens for all staff participating in these processes, and 

move toward community leadership and ownership to the maximum extent possible. 

The criteria to select the pilot hub sites will be based on factors including near-term 

implementation opportunity, ability to provide community gathering space and that the 

structures are not exposed to flooding or wildfire. To achieve equitable outcomes, staff will

use datasets such as: 

• Calls to 211 by Zip Code & Call Type 

• Unemployment and underemployment rates 

• Poverty and low-income neighborhoods 

• Focus areas identified in the Central Health 2020 Demographics Report 

• Housing insecurity areas 

• Areas vulnerable to flooding 

• Areas lacking tree canopy coverage 

• Neighborhoods near brownfields, landfills, recycling, and wastewater treatment 

facilities 

• Food insecurity 

The Office of Sustainability is in conversations with external partners and community groups 

about adding resilience-related upgrades to pilot hubs in the “Eastern Crescent”. Based on 

community equity and “Eastern Crescent” datasets, the pilot hubs will be in areas of Austin 

with traditionally marginalized communities. 
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Community Engagement 

The process to create Resilience Hubs focuses heavily on the values, goals, and needs of 

the community, and the tasks and costs noted reflect estimates to co-create Resilience 

Hubs with community members in a meaningful way. This means better, more inclusive, 

and varied events (house meetings, focus groups, etc.), and costs that reflect the need to 

reduce barriers for engagement (translation and interpretation, non-traditional outreach and 

communication channels, childcare at events, etc.). Community engagement costs, 

however, are estimated and included in the total pilot hub cost estimate. 

Use of Evidence 

The goal of this work is to identify areas within the City that could benefit from the activation 

of a “resilience hub” and where efforts should be prioritized to establish, support, and fund 

institutions to serve this purpose. The ARPA - SLFRF funds will be used to stand up two 

Resilience Hubs in low-income communities. This includes costs for additional technology 

(solar, battery backup, etc.), community engagement, and an allowance to explore 

emerging technologies. To select the two pilot locations, staff recommends working with 

community members most impacted by recent weather-related events. 

Key Performance Indicators 

Output and outcome measures and indicators are not yet established. These will be 

developed in collaboration with key stakeholders and shared in future reporting.
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City of Austin, Texas 2021 SLFRF Recovery Plan Report

Project 5000-9100-A6: Homelessness General

Funding amount: $95,300,000

Project Expenditure Category: 6.1 Provision of Government Services

Project Amount Obligated to Date: $0.00

Project Amount Expended to Date: $0.00

Project Overview

The City will utilize $95.3M of ARPA - SLFRF funding as part of a comprehensive, 

community-wide effort to reduce levels of unsheltered homelessness. Expenditures will 

begin in August of 2021 and are anticipated through at least April of 2024. Primary service 

types within the broader project include:

• Emergency Shelter

• Street Outreach

• Diversion/Rapid Exit

• Rapid Rehousing

• Permanent Supportive Housing

• Targeted Prevention

• Landlord Outreach & Incentives

• Mental Health/Substance Use Disorder Services

• Supported Employment/Workforce Services

• Service Provider Capacity Building

• Planning, Management, and Administration

• Housing Development – Capital Subsidy

While some activities will be carried out by City of Austin staff, the majority of services 

delivered via the ARPA - SLFRF project will be outsourced to third-party service providers 

via City of Austin contracting processes. The City anticipates partnering with a wide variety 

of nonprofit and public entities to execute the project and leverage additional funding.

Promoting Equitable Outcomes

Equity is central to the City’s work to address homelessness, particularly given the 

disproportionately high incidence of housing instability among African Americans, the 

LGBTQIA community, and people living with disabilities. 

Goals: The project will focus on achieving more equitable outcomes for historically 

marginalized, adversely impacted populations, including African Americans, LGBTQIA

persons, and people living with disabilities. 

Awareness: Project activities will be integrated into the local Homeless Response System, 

and housing referrals will be made via the community’s Coordinated Entry System, which 

is a known single point of entry for people experiencing homelessness. In addition, the City

anticipates utilizing a portion of its funding to support Street Outreach efforts to improve 

awareness of, and access to, services. 

Access and Distribution: The City is committed to working with the local HUD Continuum 

of Care Lead Agency (ECHO) to improve equitable access to services. Access is mediated 
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City of Austin, Texas 2021 SLFRF Recovery Plan Report

via a centralized referral system and common assessment tool that prioritizes the highest 

need individuals for services. The Continuum of Care, recognizing concerns that the legacy 

assessment tool tended to de-prioritize African Americans, has recently adopted a new tool 

focused on equity across dimensions of race, LGBTQIA status, and disability. The 

availability of in-person assessments for the Coordinated Entry System has been 

constrained over the course of the pandemic, and the City will assess potential ARP

investments to support expanded and equitable access. 

Outcomes: The project is intended to reduce rates of homelessness for all Austinites, with 

a particular focus on reducing the disproportionate harm in adversely impacted populations 

– African Americans, LGBTQIA, and people living with disabling conditions. Project

outcomes will be disaggregated in key areas to assess progress. Given the extreme 

marginalization of people experiencing homelessness, all funding under this project falls 

under ‘Services to Disproportionately Impacted Communities.’ While services will be funded 

across the geographic area, the City is committed to Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing 

by ensuring that capital investment is distributed across the community, improving housing 

choice for populations who have historically been subject to discriminatory housing patterns.

Community Engagement 

The City Homeless Strategy Division has initiated a community engagement process to 

further refine and guide its investments under this project. Initial community engagement 

activities will include a survey of people with lived expertise in homelessness, an online 

survey for the general public, and solicitation of input from homeless service providers. In 

addition, the city’s Homeless Strategy Officer serves on the local Continuum of Care’s 

Homeless Response System Leadership Council, whose composition and practice centers 

the experience of people with lived expertise and disproportionately impacted communities. 

The City anticipates working closely with the Leadership Council and its committees to 

shape and prioritize investments. To further the meaningful capacity of community 

organizations to meet the needs traditionally underserved groups, a portion of project 

funding will be utilized to support capacity building efforts.

Use of Evidence

The City seeks to advance the use of evidence-based practices across the local response 

system. Evidence-based interventions currently utilized in city-supported projects include, 

but are not limited to, Permanent Supportive Housing, Assertive Community Treatment, 

Motivational Interviewing, Harm Reduction, and Trauma-Informed Care. No allocation of 

funding to the various types of service have been made to date, such that neither the dollar 

amount allocated to such interventions, nor specific evaluation plans are available at this 

time.

Key Performance Indicators

Additional performance indicators will be added as funding is committed.

a. Number of people or households receiving shelter services

b. Number of bed-days of shelter provided

c. Number of people or households re-housed 

d. Number of affordable housing units preserved or developed 

e. Number of people or households receiving eviction prevention services 
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City of Austin, Texas 2021 SLFRF Recovery Plan Report

Project 5500-A240: Colony Park Sustainable Community Health Center

Funding amount: $1,500,000

Project Expenditure Category: 6.1 Provision of Government Services 

Project Amount Obligated to Date: $0 

Project Amount Expended to Date: $0 

Project overview

EDD staff is finalizing the project scope and timeline to utilize ARPA funds for the 

engineering and construction of the water, wastewater, stormwater, and related 

infrastructure required for the successful development of the Colony Park Sustainable 

Community Health Center in partnership with Central Health. The delivery of the Health and 

Wellness Center will help address the critical health needs of northeast Austin residents, 

who experienced disproportionate health impacts throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

Promoting Equitable Outcomes

Goals: To deliver a healthcare center and services to the Colony Park Sustainable 

Community, a historically marginalized neighborhood of 208 acres of City-owned property 

on Loyola Lane between Johnny Morris Road and Decker Lane. In order to deliver this 

healthcare center and services to Colony Park residents most gravely impacted by the

COVID-19 pandemic, there are necessary infrastructure improvements that must be made.

Awareness: The project is led by a group of community leaders known as the Colony Park 

Core Team. This “Core Team” consists of representatives from the Colony Park, Lakeside, 

Agave, Woodland Hills and LBJ neighborhoods. Together, the Core Team crafted a 

community-focused vision for this area and the Colony Park Sustainable Community. To 

unify their vision, they created Eight Pillars to guide their work:

• Improve mobility, connectivity, and safety of community

• Improve access to health care resources and services

• Improve access to open spaces and activate parks

• Improve access to healthy food resources

• Improve access to economic vitality of community

• Improve educational opportunities

• Improve equal access to workforce housing

• Improve quality of life through accessing available City/County resources

The Colony Park Core Team, with the support of a contracted third-party community 

engagement contractor has been convening community meetings throughout the Colony 

Parke Sustainable Community master planning process. The timeline of activity can be 

observed here on the Colony Park website.

Access and Distribution: This infrastructure will help deliver a public health facility that 

will serve low-income residents of Austin and Northeast Travis County through Community 

Care, an entity related to Travis County Central Health. This population has been 

significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. 
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Outcomes: The agreement between the City and the regional Central Health organization 

fills a critical need for healthcare services in northeast Austin. To date, affordable services 

are non-existent in this community. On February 6, 2020, City Council authorized an 

interlocal agreement with Central Health to evaluate the suitability of a Health and Wellness 

Center within the Loyola Town Center of the 208-acre Colony Park Sustainable Community. 

The opportunity to develop a Health and Wellness Center further aligns the development at 

the 208-acre Colony Park site with the City’s Strategic Outcomes of Economic Opportunity 

& Affordability and Health & Environment.

Community Engagement 

In the three-year community engagement and planning process, the Colony Park Core 

Team developed a COMMUNITY HEALTH IMPROVEMENT PLAN (CHIP) over several 

engagements with other neighborhood residents. The CHIP is noted on page 12 of the 

Master Plan and Design Guidelines. The Steering and Core Coordinating Committees 

participated in a prioritization activity and identified the following priority health issues that 

would be addressed in the CHIP: 

Chronic Disease – Focus on Obesity:

1) Reduce burden of chronic diseases caused by obesity among Austin/Travis 

County residents.

Built Environment – Focus on Access to Healthy Foods: 

2) All in our community have reasonable access to affordable quality nutritious 

food.

3) Local and regional stakeholders will collaboratively increase accessibility to 

community resources via safe, active transportation. 

Access to Primary Care and Mental/Behavioral Health Services - Focus on Navigating 

the Healthcare System: 

4) Expand access to high-quality behaviorally integrated patient-centered medical 

homes for all persons.

Labor Practices

The City has a women and minority owned enterprise procurement process that ensures 

worker safety and compensation. The Compliance team reviews solicitations; sets project 

goals for department solicitations to contract with women and minority owned enterprise 

contractors or subcontractors; collaborates with Project Managers to help identify scopes 

of work on projects; and verifies Compliance Plan information submitted by 

Bidders/Proposers which includes labor agreements, community benefits agreements, 

prevailing wage requirements, and local hiring expectations. Additionally, in 2020 the City

hired its first Chief Civil Rights Officer to enforce civil rights anti-discrimination ordinance 

and federal statutes. 

Use of Evidence

All $1.5 million spent towards infrastructure improvement is based on evidence based public

health need. The technical advisory group of the Colony Park Sustainable Community 

consists of subject matter experts from the following City of Austin departments: 
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City of Austin, Texas 2021 SLFRF Recovery Plan Report

Austin Energy - Green Building

Austin Housing Finance Corporation 

Austin Fire Department 

Austin Police Department 

Austin Resource Recovery 

Austin Water

CAMPO 

CAPCOG 

Capital Planning Office

Capital Metro 

Austin Code Department

Colony Park Neighborhood Association 

Downtown Austin Community Court 

Community Development Commission 

Communications & Public Information Office 

Capital Contracting

Economic Development Department

Fleet Mobility Services

Austin Public Health

Austin Public Library 

Housing and Planning Department

Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management 

Office of Sustainability 

Parks and Recreation Department 

Development Services Department 

Public Works Department

Office of Small Minority Business Resources 

Transportation Department 

University of Texas - Public Engagement

There are recommendations from these groups on how to achieve the public health goals 

set by the community. Those reports can be found on the public facing Colony Park 

Sustainable Community website, under Documents.

Key Performance Indicators

Output and outcome measures not yet established, but may include:

• Number of contracts awarded to women and minority owned enterprises for 

engineering and construction of the water, wastewater, stormwater, and related 

infrastructure.

• Number of healthcare providers located in Colony Park.

• Number of behavioral or mental health appointments made by Colony Park

residents per year at the Colony Park Central Health healthcare center.

• Median wage of contracted providers delivering engineering and construction of the 

water, wastewater, stormwater, and related infrastructure.

• Decrease in obesity rates of Colony Park residents.
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City of Austin, Texas 2021 SLFRF Recovery Plan Report

Project 5500-A340: Non-Profit Emergency Relief - Arts / Music

Funding amount: $2,000,000

Project Expenditure Category: 6.1 Provision of Government Services

Project Amount Obligated to Date: $0 

Project Amount Expended to Date: $0

Project overview

Non-Profit Emergency Relief: Arts/Culture EDD staff launched the Arts and Culture NonProfit Relief Grant on July 14, 2021. The grant project provides one-time unrestricted 

$20,000 grants to local arts and culture non-profit organizations facing hardships due to the 

economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Applications for the grant opened on July 

14, 2021 and closed on August 2, 2021. EDD contracted with the Austin Better Business 

Bureau to serve as EDD’s third-party administrator for this grant, and EDD contracted with 

the Austin Revitalization Authority and Mission Capital to provide application assistance for 

this grant. Awarded applicants were selected for funding based on a scoring matrix. More 

information about this project, including a dashboard featuring project metrics, is available 

at www.ATXrecovers.com.

Promoting Equitable Outcomes

Goals: The relief project aimed to serve registered 501c (3) non-profit organizations with 

programming that promotes or develops art in any medium (visual, performing, music, etc.), 

preserves or commemorates historical events and local cultures, or promotes the 

distribution of ideas. The grant prioritized organizations that have been historically 

underserved and whose Board demographic makeup and Executive Director are from 

historically underserved communities. The scoring matrix included criteria for race/ethnicity, 

gender, LGBTQIA, and disability, with funds being allocated to applicants that scored the 

highest in these areas. 

Awareness: The EDD Marketing & Communications team extended the communication 

and outreach to the existing 28,000 department contacts via email and social content 

packaged for partner departments and external organizations, Mission Capital and the 

Austin Revitalization Authority, to spread the word. All opportunities were listed on the onestop hub of economic opportunities for Austin: ATXrecovers.com.

Access and Distribution: The ATXrecovers website provided FAQs, checklists, and 

eligibility requirements for applicants to review prior to applying. Applicants were also 

offered technical support from City staff as well as Mission Capital and Austin Revitalization 

Authority. Applications were mobile and multi-language friendly with staff and system 

capacity to review. 

Outcomes: Intended outcomes were to stabilize arts and culture non-profit organizations 

impacted by COVID-19 and during the pandemic. This became especially critical as the 

pandemic took a turn for the worse. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the City began to take 

strides in addressing equitable outcomes for project and service delivery. These strides 

include a City Council adopted five-year strategic plan, called Strategic Direction 2023 or 

SD23 for short, which prescribes reporting detail with as much granularity as possible. As 

well as specific metrics on number and percentage of persons who successfully complete 
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City of Austin, Texas 2021 SLFRF Recovery Plan Report

workforce development training; number of people moved out of poverty into middle skills 

jobs; and unemployment rates with the granularity of demographic data. EDD has

committed to collecting demographic data (age, gender, race or ethnicity, zip code, and City 

Council District representation) for all project participants and fund recipients. Another stride 

taken was the establishment of the Equity Office in the City whose work is to provide training 

on racial equity and hold City of Austin projects and services accountable to tracking the 

metrics as dedicated in SD23. 

During the pandemic the Chief Economic Recovery Officer for the City required 

departments providing economic stimulus to the community to produce dashboards for each 

of the economic relief projects provided. This data is available to the public under Economic 

Impact on ATXrecovers.com. In 2020, the City provided childcare facilities with economic 

support and this dashboard is available on ATXrecovers.com, or directly here. As new 

programs are launched dashboards are provided. Each dashboard includes demographic 

information about applicants and awardees, as well as other factors that demonstrate 

historical challenges, such as: legal business structure, industry type, and what City of 

Austin Council district their customers reside in.

Community Engagement

In addition to community engagement activities discussed in the General Overview section 

of this report, EDD sought a third-party organization to administer technical assistance and 

expertise to eligible applicants for the Austin Nonprofit Relief Grant, referred to as a 

Community Champion. EDD evaluated third parties based on their experience providing a 

combination of consultation, outreach, recruitment, one-on-one sessions, phone inquiries, 

document preparation and a technical assistance program that consists of a “tailored”

approach to assist in grant deployment. EDD contracted with the Austin Revitalization 

Authority and Mission Capital to provide application assistance for this grant.

Community Champions have been identified to support the Nonprofit Relief Grant to ensure 

historically underrepresented communities receive direct correspondence, access, and 

education on project requirements, timelines, and application materials and general project

support as needed. The City prioritizes the focus on entities less likely to receive assistance 

elsewhere and those most vulnerable to the effects of COVID-19 and service delivery. 

Equitable distribution of information about the relief grant project is the core mission of 

contracting with our Community Champions who have established relationships in the 

Austin community and can serve in lead roles to support overall recovery efforts.

Key Performance Indicators

Output and outcome measures include the items below and can be found under Economic 

Impacts “Austin Arts & Culture Non-Profit Relief Grant" dashboard on ATXrecovers.com:

• Number of applicants and awardees by Leadership or Board demographics

• Open status during the pandemic

• Annual revenue

• Applicants and awardees by arts & culture North American Industry 

Classification System (NAICS) 

• Amount awarded

• Number of permanent employees retained
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City of Austin, Texas 2021 SLFRF Recovery Plan Report

Project 5500-A341: Arts

Funding amount: $6,000,000

Project Expenditure Category: 6.1 Provision of Government Services

Project Amount Obligated to Date: $0

Project Amount Expended to Date: $0

Project overview

This project is in the design phase. Austin City Council has asked for the feedback from 

the City volunteer citizen Arts Commissioners to help inform project creation. City Council 

will receive an update from EDD staff after staff receives and reviews the Arts Commission’s 

feedback and will begin project design after further guidance from City Council.

Promoting Equitable Outcomes

Goals: The project is still being designed, however, it is known to the community that 

unemployment, though overall low for the region, is disproportionately high for non-white 

Austinites. Additionally, affordable childcare keeps some community members – both 

historically non-white and residing in east Austin - currently out of reach of quality childcare 

solutions and therefore forced to remain out of the workforce. Further affordability friction is 

the hourly median wages of creative workers is almost $5 less per hour than the hourly 

wage required to sustain a family in Austin, demonstrating the struggle to retain creative 

workers in Austin.

Awareness: The goal of the EDD Marketing & Communications team is to extend the 

communication and outreach to the existing 28,000 department contacts via email and 

social content packaged for partner departments and external organizations, to spread the 

word. All opportunities are listed on the one-stop hub of economic opportunities for Austin: 

ATXrecovers.com.

Access and Distribution: As mentioned above, staff will work with third party providers 

and the technical assistance providers established in the Community Navigators project to 

support applicants in their request for support. In the project design, staff will work with our 

partners to ensure the applications themselves are mobile and multi-language friendly with 

staff and system capacity to review.

Outcomes: The project is in the design phase.

Community Engagement 

In addition to community engagement activities discussed in the General Overview section 

of this report, this project is expected to conduct additional community outreach and gather 

input from the Arts Commission from September 2021 through November 2021, prior to the 

launch of project offerings.
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Use of Evidence

The program is still in the design phase but will be created from use of evidence. In addition, 

disaggregated applicant information (those applied and served) will be available by 

demographic and evidence-based groups.

Key Performance Indicators

Output and outcome measures are currently being developed.
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City of Austin, Texas 2021 SLFRF Recovery Plan Report

Project 5500-A342: Music 

Funding amount: $4,000,000

Project Expenditure Category: 6.1 Provision of Government Services

Project Amount Obligated to Date: $0

Project Amount Expended to Date: $0

Project overview

Proposed Spending Framework for Music approved at Special Called Music Commission 

Meeting on Friday, August 20, 2021:

1. Live Music Venue Preservation Fund: $1.7M to fund the remaining scored Phase 

2 Applicants that are eligible based on adhering to project requirements for Equity 

Strategic Planning training.

2. Austin Music Disaster Relief Fund 3.0: $2.3M Project Budget remains after 

estimated 3rd Party fee subtracted from total available funds.

• Music Commission approved recommendations for updated grant guidelines, 

including:

o Expand criteria to include music industry workers based on past eligibility 

requirements for Creative Worker Grant

o Grant awards of either $2,000 or $1,000 based on scoring that prioritizes 

equity and greatest financial need

o Awardees remain eligible for Live Music Fund Event Program

o Extend eligibility to those living in the Austin–Round Rock Metropolitan 

Statistical Area (MSA) and Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (ETJ)

o Collect and deliver data to counties in MSA and ETJ about applicant 

need within their jurisdictions

o Consider previous or new 3rd Party to facilitate project using City 

provided guidelines and application system. Reach out to Musicares to 

inquire if they can serve as either 3rd Party again or at least as a 

Community Champion

o Scoring Requirements:

 Lead with equity based on new federal direction from Treasury, 

as well as using scoring criteria from latest COA relief & recovery 

programs focusing on equity

 More points for greater losses and those in extreme need

 More points for applicants that are financially responsible for 

multiple dependents

 More points for applicants that have lived in Austin area for 

multiple years

 Priority given to those who haven’t yet received any City relief 

and recovery funding since March 2020

Promoting Equitable Outcomes

Goals: The project is still being designed, however, it is known to the community that 

unemployment, though overall low for the region, is disproportionately high for non-white 

Austinites. Additionally, affordable childcare keeps some community members – both 

historically non-white and residing in east Austin - currently out of reach of quality childcare 

solutions and therefore forced to remain out of the workforce. Further affordability friction is
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City of Austin, Texas 2021 SLFRF Recovery Plan Report

the hourly median wages of creative workers is almost $5 less per hour than the hourly

wage required to sustain a family in Austin, demonstrating the struggle to retain creative

workers in Austin.

Awareness: The goal of the EDD Marketing & Communications team is to extend the 

communication and outreach to the existing 28,000 department contacts via email and 

social content packaged for partner departments and external organizations, to spread the 

word. All opportunities are listed on the one-stop hub of economic opportunities for Austin: 

ATXrecovers.com.

Access and Distribution: As mentioned above, staff will work with third party providers 

and the technical assistance providers established in the Community Navigators project to 

support applicants in their request for support. In the project design, staff will work with our 

partners to ensure the applications themselves are mobile and multi-language friendly with 

staff and system capacity to review.

Outcomes: Project is in the design phase.

Community Engagement 

In addition to community engagement activities discussed in the General Overview section

of this report, this project is expected to conduct additional community outreach and gather 

input from the Music Commission from September 2021 through November 2021, prior to 

the launch of project offerings.

Use of Evidence

The program is still in the design phase but will be created from use of evidence. In addition, 

disaggregated applicant information (those applied and served) will be available by 

demographic and evidence-based groups.

Key Performance Indicators

Output and outcome measures are currently being developed.
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Project 5500-A345: Community Navigators

Funding amount: $500,000

Project Expenditure Category: 6.1 Provision of Government Services

Project Amount Obligated to Date: $0

Project Amount Expended to Date: $0

Project overview

Community Navigators will help support local businesses, non-profit organizations, and 

creative professionals impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic by offering application 

assistance and technical assistance for local, state, and federal relief projects. EDD staff 

intends to contract with several experienced, culturally informed, and technically 

knowledgeable third parties to deliver these services. Staff anticipate publishing a Request 

for Applications in September 2021. Services are expected to begin in November 2021. The 

intended outcomes are increased knowledge to gain access to new patrons and revenue 

streams. 

Promoting Equitable Outcomes

Goals: Several questions in the Request for Applications require potential third parties to

demonstrate their ability to deliver services to “historically underserved communities.” For 

the purposes of this Request for Applications, “historically underserved communities” 

means local communities that have experienced exclusion, marginalization, and 

discrimination because of City policies and practices. These include communities in the 

following zip codes: 78617, 78653, 78660, 78702, 78719, 78721, 78722, 78723, 78724, 

78725, 78741, 78744, 78745, 78747, 78748, 78752, 78753, and 78754. Additionally, third 

party contractors must have capacity to deliver services in languages other than English, 

and they must have capacity to deliver services without discrimination of technological 

access.

Awareness: In addition to leveraging owned communications assets (e.g., the

department’s existing newsletter with 45,000 contacts, social media accounts, etc.), EDD

staff will partner with local chambers of commerce, business associations, and commercial 

districts to inform businesses about the Community Navigator Project. Additionally, EDD 

staff will contract with third-party organizations to conduct outreach and engagement to 

raise awareness about the Community Navigator Project services. Outreach and 

engagement will include marketing materials in languages other than English. 

Access and Distribution: Austin businesses and creatives seeking support from the 

Community Navigator project will self-select the type of assistance they need.

Outcomes: EDD has set forth objectives of closing racial, ethnic, LGBTQIA+, and disability 

community gaps in ownership and leadership of small businesses and non-profits in Austin. 

The application will collect these data points and are used as measures of outreach 

success. An evaluation rubric, not yet designed for this project, will be deployed to ensure 

technical assistance is provided to groups most in need of service. All this information will 

be aggregated and displayed to the public in the form of a dashboard for a comparison of 

application demographics and service provided demographics. 
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Negative Economic Impacts: The City’s Chief Economic Recovery Officer published an

Economic Recovery & Resiliency Framework which outlined the economic situation of the 

community and the metrics to monitor whether equitable outcomes are achieved over the 

course of the deployment of economic relief of all kinds (p. 11 and p. 27 of the PDF). 

The Community Navigator project will likely target only Austin businesses and creatives 

who reside or are located in the Austin city limits, but that may change to include the broader 

MSA region due to the affordability issues in our City. Businesses, non-profits, and creative 

professionals from Austin’s historically underrepresented communities will be especially 

encouraged to participate in the project. 

Community Engagement 

As discussed in the General Overview section of this report, feedback collected in 2020 

from focus groups which were developed to determine the allocation of CARES funding is 

still relevant and helped guide the development of the ARPA Spending Framework. This 

feedback will be considered during project design. In fact, one of the strategies 

recommended in the Framework reflects the need for workshops, one-on-one coaching, 

and technical assistance.

Use of Evidence

The project is still in the design phase but will be created from use of evidence. In addition, 

disaggregated applicant information (those applied and served) will be available by 

demographic and evidence-based groups.

Key Performance Indicators

Output and outcome measures not yet established, but likely will gather: 

1. Total number of businesses or creatives utilizing technical assistance

2. Number of hours of technical assistance service

3. Survey results of satisfaction or gaining knowledge or support.
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Project 5500-A350: Childcare/Early Childhood/Family Connects

Funding amount: $11,000,000

Project Expenditure Category: 6.1 Provision of Government Services

Project Amount Obligated to Date: $0

Project Amount Expended to Date: $0

Project overview

EDD and Austin Public Health are designing projects that enhance childcare and early 

childhood outcomes in Austin, especially in the City’s historically underserved communities. 

Also, City staff is actively collaborating with Travis County staff to align and maximize 

outcomes from City and County early childhood investments. A final project plan is not 

complete, but staff anticipates finalizing a project plan within the calendar year. 

Promoting Equitable Outcomes

Goals: This ARPA - SLFRF investment intends to serve low-income households with 

children enrolled in childcare and early childhood education programs (e.g., prekindergarten). Many of these households reside in communities like East Austin and Del 

Valle, which are local historically underserved communities that lack access to affordable, 

quality-rated childcare facilities and early childhood education programs. These funds will 

also be used to support and stabilize the fragile childcare sector and childcare workforce, 

the majority of which is made up of women of color. 

Awareness: The City has a robust marketing and communications program. City staff will 

leverage existing owned media assets (e.g., newsletters, social media accounts, websites), 

community partnerships, existing relationships with schools and childcare providers, and 

paid campaigns to ensure residents are aware of these services. 

Access and Distribution: Staff anticipates differences in access levels due to project

guidelines that are intended to connect services to underserved communities that face the 

greatest challenges accessing quality childcare, early childhood education programs, and 

parent education and support programs (e.g., residents earning low wages, residents living 

in a historically underserved school district, etc.). To the extent possible, staff will limit 

administrative burdens that can result in participation disparities.

Outcomes: While the final project metrics are not complete, staff will collect metrics to 

ensure childcare, early childhood education support, and parent education and support 

programs are available to groups most in need of service, especially households from racial, 

ethnic, geographic, and socioeconomic groups that are disproportionately impacted by the 

lack of quality programs. Staff also anticipates using a portion of these funds to help a 

postpartum support program move toward reaching universal coverage. Project staff

anticipates supporting with these funds include evidence-based home visiting parent 

support and education, as well as improving access to early childhood education with the 

goal of reducing racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in kindergarten readiness in 

our community. 
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Community Engagement 

As discussed in the General Overview section of this report, feedback collected in 2020 

from focus groups which were developed to determine the allocation of CARES funding is 

still relevant and helped guide the development of the ARPA Spending Framework. This 

feedback will be considered during project design. In fact, one of the strategies 

recommended in the Framework reflects the need to enhance access to affordable and 

quality childcare. 

The planned support for early childhood education and families with young children was the 

result of recommendations from the community’s Success by Six early childhood coalition. 

The coalition’s recommendations were based on input from coalition partners, which include 

representatives of programs that serve people with significant barriers to services, including 

people of color, people with low incomes, limited English proficiency populations, and other 

traditionally underserved groups. For example, a portion of the funds will be used to expand 

our largest school district’s free Pre-K program for 3-year-olds from half-day to full-day. Free 

public Pre-K serves children from income-eligible families and those who are English 

language learners. 

Use of Evidence

The project is still in the design phase but will be created from use of evidence. In addition, 

disaggregated applicant information (those applied and served) will be available by 

demographic and evidence-based groups. A portion of these funds will be used for 

evidence-based programs that provide parent education and support. For example, Family 

Connects is an evidence-based, universal postpartum support program. A portion of the 

funding will be used for an evaluation of the impact of the local Family Connects program. 

The evaluation results will be used to build the case for sustainable funding sources. 

Key Performance Indicators

Output and outcome measures are currently being developed, but may include:

• Number of additional Pre-K classrooms for 4-year-olds opened

• Number of 4-year-olds served in new Pre-K classrooms

• Number of Pre-K classrooms for 3-year-olds expanded from half-day to full-day

• Number of 3-year-olds served in full-day Pre-K

• Number of early childhood educators receiving a wage supplement

• Number of educators supported to further their education in the early childhood field

• Number of families receiving childcare assistance 

• Number of providers participating in a family home childcare provider network

• Unemployment rate of parents 

• Number of parents participating in job employment programs 

• Number of parents successfully completing job employment programs

• Number of families served by home visiting
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Project 5500-A360: Workforce Development: General

Funding amount: $15,000,000

Project Expenditure Category: 6.1 Provision of Government Services

Project Amount Obligated to Date: $0

Project Amount Expended to Date: $0

Project overview

Economic Development Department (EDD) staff anticipate using Fiscal Year 2021 

workforce development funds for initiatives that support Austinites economically impacted 

during the COVID-19 pandemic; train Austinites for careers in the healthcare industry; and 

provide Austin creatives with job training and placement to complement media production, 

content generation, and facilities management services. The first contract is with Austin Film 

Society (AFS) for media production training and public access television facilities 

management. EDD staff will seek City Council approval in Fall 2021 for additional contracts 

with Workforce Solutions and Capital Idea, both of which have successful records of 

delivering required services. Staff is also actively collaborating with Travis County 

employees to align the City and County’s workforce development investments. In Fiscal 

Year 2022, EDD staff intend to solicit additional workforce development concepts and 

services from more third parties through a competitive Request for Proposals.

The $400K Austin Film Society contract will:

• provide workforce development training to economically disadvantaged individuals 

for occupations related to Austin’s creative sector residents and organizations,

• distribute local content and manage video programming over cable television 

systems and streaming content services, and provide community access to the 

Public Access Television Facility and production equipment, and

• advance access to services, community engagement, and leveraged opportunities.

Timeline: 10/1/2021 to 9/30/2024 with two 1-year extension options.

Link to the website of the project: https://www.austinfilm.org/austin-public/about-austinpublic/

Promoting Equitable Outcomes

The City Equity Statement was co-created with over 200 community members who logged 

over 900 volunteer hours in its creation. In the Austin Strategic Direction 2023, the City has 

identified equity as a core anchor across all of our strategic outcomes. The City Equity 

Statement is as follows:

Racial equity is the condition when race no longer predicts a person’s quality of life 

outcomes in our community.

The City recognizes that race is the primary determinant of social equity and therefore the

journey toward social equity begins with this definition. The City recognizes historical and 

structural disparities and a need for alleviation of the wrongs by critically transforming its 

institutions and creating a culture of equity.

The Austin Film Society contract prioritizes advancing racial equity in the area of media 

production and workforce training for our creative sector, historically underserved 
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community members, managing our community media/public access production facility and 

partnership development. Increasing equity while mitigating racism means examining the 

history of racial segregation and social justice issues in Austin. This includes considering 

the structural and systemic barriers that have contributed to racial inequities in our 

community. Government sponsored programs may not always be the best forums to create 

spaces for genuine, authentic engagement of all members of the community. Cable

television, streaming content services, and public facilities are not always relevant to all

members of the community to reach everyone. That’s where this contract comes in.

Through this contract, equity means ensuring all members of the Austin community, 

regardless of background or identity, positively benefit from Media Production Training and 

Public Access Television Facility Operations. The contractor shall center its approach in 

advancing racial equity and elevating equitable outcomes for all people as it relates to the 

services available to the community. Starting the work to fulfill the contract objectives with 

communities of color will allow the effort to elevate the voice of members of our community 

who have historically been underrepresented in media, production, and the creative sector 

workforce. This will mean focusing more Contract resources on building relationships and 

trust with historically underrepresented communities in the beginning of the process to 

create a more equitable playing field later in the project implementation. This does not mean 

that other parts of our community will be left out or ignored, merely that additional resources 

will be devoted up front to ensure equitable outreach.

Goals: The majority of this project is still being designed, however; it is known to the 

community that unemployment, though overall low for the region, is disproportionately high 

for non-white Austinites. In addition to facing disproportionately high rates of unemployment, 

non-White Austinites were also disproportionately impacted by pandemic-related job loss 

and have faced slow rates of pandemic job recovery. Barriers of access to affordable

childcare also keep some community members – historically non-white, female, and 

residing in east Austin - from being able to secure quality childcare solutions, therefore 

forcing them to remain either out of the workforce entirely or underemployed.

The Austin Film Society contract goals: Offer short term occupational training and nondegree certification to economically disadvantaged trainees, annual goal to be determined, 

with 3 pathways 1) Mentorship with IATSE Local 484, local chapter for all professional crew 

in studio film, 2) production in the Austin area which includes chapter’s Inclusion and 

Diversity Committee and 3) mentorship program.

Awareness: The goal of the EDD Marketing & Communications team is to extend the 

communication and outreach to the existing 28,000 department contacts via email and 

social content packaged for partner departments and external organizations, like Workforce 

Solutions Capital Area or Capital IDEA, to spread the word. All opportunities are listed on 

the one-stop hub of economic opportunities for Austin: ATXrecovers.com. In addition to

EDD’s outreach efforts, Workforce Solutions Capital Area and Capital IDEA both have 

extensive community ties and a history of collaborating with area nonprofits and communitybased organizations for information sharing sessions as well as for client and service 

referrals. 

The Austin Film Society contract awareness: The services are available to anyone who is 

interested in learning media production skills and creating digital content to air on the cable 
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channels which area also streamed. Community outreach efforts and partnerships 

established to raise awareness about services.

Access and Distribution: As mentioned above, staff will work with third party providers 

like Workforce Solutions Capital Area, Capital IDEA, and the technical assistance providers 

established in the Community Navigators project to support applicants in their request for 

support. In the project design, staff will work with our partners to ensure the applications 

themselves are mobile and multi-language friendly with staff and system capacity to review.

Outcomes: The majority of this project is still being designed. For the healthcare-specific 

track with Capital IDEA, staff anticipates that 75% of clients served will be women of color 

who will receive training in high-opportunity healthcare fields such as nursing (earning an 

RN BSN) or as dental hygienists. Staff anticipates that all data related to these programs 

will be disaggregated by race-ethnicity as well as hourly wage earned at project completion. 

The Austin Film Society contract outcomes: Intend to establish partnerships that focus on 

economically disadvantaged individuals.

Negative Economic Impacts: While the scope of work will target people facing barriers to 

employment and/or other negative pandemic-related impacts, the project itself has not yet 

been designed.

The Austin Film Society contract negative economic impact: Offer short term occupational 

training and non-degree certification to economically disadvantaged individuals – annual 

goal to be determined. Focus on creative sector industry and workers that were negatively 

impacted by COVID-19.

Community Engagement 

As discussed in the General Overview section of this report, feedback collected in 2020 

from focus groups which were developed to determine the allocation of CARES funding is 

still relevant and helped guide the development of the ARPA Spending Framework. This 

feedback will be considered during project design. In fact, several strategies recommended 

in the Framework identified ways to support workforce development.

The Austin Film Society contract

AFS is committed to ensuring all Austinites can access the training classes, media 

equipment, and studio resources available through the community media program at Austin 

Public. By partnering with public and private organizations, AFS will help Austin’s diverse 

communities understand and connect with the opportunities and services offered at Austin 

Public. These partnerships are vital to increasing participation from historically 

disadvantaged communities, and to facilitating civic dialogue and free speech as outlined 

in the Communications Act of 1986.

AFS will continue to administer services with the following guidelines in order to facilitate 

community accessibility:

• Maintaining the Producer Portal, public computer stations and remote and on-site 

content uploading options to maximize opportunities for self-service for users
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• Maintain at least 40 hours a week of open access to studios and equipment, with

additional hours for specific programs such as workforce development training

• Develop specific access tracks for groups and organizations

• Maintain virtual class options in addition to hands-on, in-person options

• Make classes available to anyone in the community regardless of their connection 

to the producer program subscription

• Offer classes in English and Spanish, both for virtual and in-person classes

• Offer scholarships to ensure that anyone in the community can access classes, 

while keeping class prices affordable

• Distribute content on cable access channels 10, 11 and 16, while also providing all 

content on over-the-top (OTT) services, streaming and on-demand, to make 

community content accessible via cable or a myriad of internet options

Outreach and community engagement are key ways AFS will maximize community 

accessibility. Over the last six years, AFS has engaged with 224 local organizations 

specifically to increase awareness of the opportunities and services offered through Austin 

Public, and to increase participation from historically disadvantaged communities in Austin. 

These engagements encompass different modalities through which the services and 

resources at Austin Public are utilized by these organizations to help further their own 

missions and goals. Additionally, the organizations help AFS connect to target communities 

and provide necessary partnership and feedback to support the community media 

programs.

AFS will also expand access to equipment and training services to the community through 

partnerships with host organizations. Classes, like Orientation, will be taught by AP staff at 

additional sites around the community, particularly in communities where transportation to 

the AP facility is challenging. Additionally, AFS will find partners who would like to engage 

their communities more regularly in the production of public access programming to host 

mini studios. Community members would be trained on how to use the remote production 

equipment kits and will be able to distribute content to the AP channels and digital platforms 

directly from their location. 

Use of Evidence

The program is still in the design phase but will be created from use of evidence. In addition,

disaggregated applicant information (those applied and served) will be available by

demographic and evidence-based groups.

Key Performance Indicators

Performance Evaluation Structure

The contractor will report on the Key Performance Indicators detailed below on a quarterly 

basis, and report final performance annually via a progress report.

Organizational data will be captured via classroom testing, workshop surveys, and annual 

surveys.

Output and outcome measures not yet established, but likely also gather:
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• Number of workers enrolled in sectoral job training programs

• Number of workers completing sectoral job training programs

• Number of people participating in summer youth employment programs: depending 

on project design

• Number of those who successfully completed training and obtained jobs with middle 

skill wages.

The Austin Film Society contract

Objective 1: Media Production (Workforce Development) Training

• Outcome 1: The number (and percent) of individuals who complete this 

workforce development project.

• Outcome 2: The number (and percent) of individuals who become employed 

in a job related to their training following this workforce development project.

• Outcome 3: The number (and percent) of individuals who increase their 

income following this workforce development project.

Objective 2: Community Content Distribution & Public Access Television Facility Operations

• Outcome 1: The Percent of programming that is non-repeat

• Outcome 2: Number of hours cablecast

• Outcome 3: Number of production media equipment checkouts

• Outcome 4: Number of studio and facility reservations

Objective 3: Access to Services, Community Engagement, & Leveraged Opportunities

• Outcome 1: Number of engagements with community partners

• Outcome 2: Percent of engagement opportunities that led to increased 

awareness and/or participation of these services

• Outcome 3: Number of challenges and needs addressed not served by 

existing resources or services
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Project 5500-A365: Food Security/Food Access

Funding amount: $2,500,000 

Project Expenditure Category: 6.1 Provision of Government Services

Project Amount Obligated to Date: $0

Project Amount Expended to Date: $0

Project overview

The proposed food system project will be centered on equity and resiliency and includes 

the following three components: 

1) Disaster preparedness, including the development of a Disaster Food and Drinking 

Water Appendix to the Emergency Operation Plan, 

2) Food Supply Chain Vulnerability Analysis, including engagement with supply chain 

stakeholders and development of recommendations, and 

3) Development of a community food vision including specific metrics, goals, 

strategies, and a dashboard.

City staff are actively collaborating with Travis County staff to optimize alignment of the City 

and County’s food planning efforts. 

Proposed Food System Planning Process and timeline:

● September - November 2021: Develop scope of work, solicit, and onboard a 

contractor to help lead with the food planning process

● December 2021 - April 2022: Recruit and onboard the Community Advisory 

Committee, conduct listening sessions, co-develop a vision for the plan, conduct a 

community food assessment

● March 2022: Hold Equity Workshops with all key stakeholders

● April - October 2022: Conduct community and stakeholder engagement to develop 

goals, strategies, and recommended actions

● October - December 2022: Identify and define evaluation indicators and determine 

accountability structures

● December 2022 - February 2023: Draft plan and associated deliverables, including 

a dashboard and web page

● March 2023: Solicit and incorporate feedback on draft plan

● Summer 2023: Present final plan to all stakeholders

Promoting Equitable Outcomes

Goals: There is a pronounced food access problem for low income and communities of 

color in Austin. In 2016, the City’s Office of Sustainability worked closely with the University 

of Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs to produce a report called “Food For All, Inclusive 

Neighborhood Food Planning in North Austin”. This pilot planning process and the 

subsequent report showed clearly how access to food was disproportionately affecting 

certain communities and the impact was split along racial and geographic lines. 

Subsequently, the Office of Sustainability issued a report to City Council outlining the 

challenges and goals of the food ecosystem. The funding for food system planning will 
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prioritize reaching out to these specific communities and documenting their voices and 

perspectives on how the food system could better serve their needs.

Awareness: The food planning process will include a significant amount of effort dedicated 

to community engagement and community involvement. A community Advisory Board will 

be created to provide leadership for the entire planning process. A series of community 

engagement sessions will be hosted to ensure a broad number of community voices can 

be captured and documented in the process of developing a plan. 

Access and Distribution: Language barriers exist to providing equal access to benefits 

and services to Austin’s Hispanic community. The food planning process will include multilingual engagement and address transportation challenges across the community.

Outcomes: The Food Planning team will include staff from the City’s Equity Office and 

have specific data collection strategies that disaggregate all information collected by race/ 

ethnicity. 

Negative Economic Impacts: The project has not yet been designed. However, negative 

economic impacts to disadvantaged groups will be a key consideration in project design. 

Specific targets and strategies to achieve those targets will be developed as part of project

design.

Services to Disproportionately Impacted Communities: The project has not yet been 

designed. However, services to disproportionately impacted communities will be a key 

consideration in project design. Specific targets and strategies to achieve those targets will 

be developed as part of project design.

The City measures and reports specific metrics on number and percentage of persons who 

successfully complete workforce development training; number of people moved out of 

poverty into middle skills jobs; and unemployment rates with the granularity of demographic 

data. EDD has committed to collecting demographic data (age, gender, race or ethnicity, 

zip code, and City Council District representation) for all project participants and fund 

recipients. The City Equity Office provides training on racial equity and holds City of Austin 

programs and services accountable to tracking equity-related metrics.

During the pandemic the Chief Economic Recovery Officer for the City required 

departments providing economic stimulus to the community to produce dashboards for each 

of the economic relief programs provided. This data is available to the public under 

Economic Impact on ATXrecovers.com. As new programs are launched dashboards are 

provided. Each dashboard includes demographic information about applicants and 

awardees, as well as other factors that demonstrate historical challenges, such as: legal 

business structure, industry type, and what City of Austin Council district their customers 

reside in. For more information, see ATXrecovers.com. 

Community Engagement 

As discussed in the General Overview section of this report, feedback collected in 2020 

from focus groups which were developed to determine the allocation of CARES funding is 
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City of Austin, Texas 2021 SLFRF Recovery Plan Report

still relevant and helped guide the development of the ARPA Spending Framework. This 

feedback will be considered during project design.

Since the project design is still underway, additional details will be provided in the future 

regarding how funds will build the capacity of community organizations to serve people with 

significant barriers to services, including people of color, people with low incomes, limited

English proficiency populations, and other traditionally underserved group.

Use of Evidence

The program is still in the design phase but will be created from use of evidence. In addition, 

disaggregated applicant information (those applied and served) will be available by 

demographic and evidence-based groups.

Key Performance Indicators

Output and outcome measures not yet established. These will be developed in collaboration 

with key stakeholders and shared in future reporting.
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Project 8600-A361: Workforce Development: Austin Civilian Conservation Corps

(ACCC) 

Funding amount: $1,900,000

Project Expenditure Category: 6.1 Provision of Government Services 

Project Amount Obligated to Date: $0

Project Amount Expended to Date: $0

Project overview

The Austin Civilian Conservation Corps (ACCC) is a workforce development project

established by City Council Resolution in May 2020. The project helps Austinites who have 

been economically affected by the COVID-19 pandemic earn income through work that 

beautifies our community and achieves community goals. Participants also receive training, 

certifications, and experience that will help them establish careers in conservation and 

sustainability-related job fields. The goals of the Austin Civilian Conservation Corp are:

• Creating lasting, positive effects for residents

• Inspiring hope and build community

• Advancing the City’s strategic sustainability & equity goals

In its first pilot year, ACCC used base funding from the City to create jobs for 100 individuals 

over 11 projects. Recovery Act funding for the ACCC will become available October 1, 2021, 

and at that point the next phase of the project will begin. To date, the ACCC working group 

has primarily focused on finding work and partners that can employ residents immediately 

and exploring longer-term and more diverse work that can be added to the project in FY21.

The design principles that shape the ACCC are as follows:

• Build hope, connectedness, and beauty. While the pandemic prompted the initial

creation of the project, it has long-term potential to contribute to a thriving future for

Austin and its residents. ACCC programs provide a positive employment experience

for residents who may feel left behind by Austin’s prosperity. Their ACCC work

builds closer connections with the natural environment, and directly improves the

city we love.

• Advance the understanding of green jobs. Many jobs, in many sectors, can be green

jobs. A green job is not necessarily defined by the type of work, but instead how the

work is done. It is a lens. Using this lens, the ACCC has the potential to establish

work and build pathways into many career fields.

• Pathways, not projects. The ACCC is not just a collection of projects that provide

income for residents in need. Nor is it only a career training program for

professionals to progress in their field. The ACCC establishes job pipelines through

a variety of programs, from low-barrier work to advanced training, which allow

residents to enter at many points and achieve their career goals.

• Jobs, with training. Many workforce development programs focus on training and

education to prepare for jobs, but don’t provide their participants income during the

program. This, in many cases, forces participants to forgo income or other

opportunities to make time to participate in the program, and they risk not getting a

job after the training. The ACCC provides a job and income along with training,

certifications, and experience. Participants can count on income in the ACCC; no

one has to hope that their participation will pay off.
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• Economic opportunity for individuals. Many initiatives focus on the economic 

development of businesses, which in turn provide opportunities to individuals. The 

ACCC focuses on the economic prosperity of individuals - providing low-barrier 

income, support, experience, training, and advancement - which in turn drives 

positive progress for Austin communities and our environment.

• Equitable access, equitable spaces. Many green job sectors, and natural areas in 

general, have become racialized and exclusionary spaces. The ACCC will provide 

equitable access to green and conservation careers and evolve the view of who 

typically holds them. The project will help communities reclaim spaces and evolve 

the narrative around the environment, outdoors, and sustainability.

• Meet people where they are. The ACCC strives to build a diversity of communitydriven programs that provide the right opportunities at the right time, based on what 

participants need, want, and the barriers they face. Rather than try to fit people to 

programs, we co-create programs that fit people.

• Regional alignment. Sustainability opportunities to not lie neatly within political 

boundaries. The ACCC will strive to create and scale collaborations at the local, 

regional, state, and federal levels to maximize opportunities for residents and 

positive outcomes.

• New operational practices. A new project as wide-ranging as the ACCC is a rare 

opportunity. We will use it to demonstrate new patterns of practice in the COA 

organization, such as operationalizing equity, focusing on individual economic 

prosperity, community-led data collection and feedback, and new types of 

collaborations, staffing models, and project focuses.

• Innovation and advancement. We acknowledge that many opportunities for 

advancement in conservation and workforce development do not yet exist. 

Therefore, the ACCC will constantly strive to identify gaps and opportunities in our 

program pipelines based on community- and landscape-level feedback and develop

new programs to fulfill them.

Project Website: www.austintexas.gov/accc

Promoting Equitable Outcomes:

ACCC focuses on job development for individuals in the conservation and sustainability 

arena and is a re-creation of the historic Civilian Conservation Corp. The roots of the Civilian 

Conservation Corp are steeped in racist culture. In addition, people of color are substantially 

underrepresented in the conservation and sustainability field. 

Goals: To focus in-equities by working with the community. During the pilot phase of the 

ACCC, Build with Humanity and Measure were contracted to build an understanding of the 

project’s potential users, their current and potential future needs, their desires for income 

and career training, and their current and potential future barriers to participation. Without 

this information, the project could invest in programs that residents do not actually want to 

participate in or are not structured in a way that lets them effectively participate. To avoid 

such pitfalls and create successful outcomes, ACCC is working with two highly experienced

user research organizations who have built trusted relationships within Austin communities. 

MEASURE and Build with Humanity are wrapping up their user research activities by the 

end of Fiscal Year 2021. These organizations have strong ties to communities of color and 

other underserved groups that may realize significant benefits from participating in the 

ACCC, but often face barriers to accessing such projects. MEASURE and Build with 

Humanity are also owned and operated by people of color.
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Awareness: The pilot phase of ACCC involved working with a limited number of community 

partners. More funding is available through the Recovery Act allowing for wider distribution 

using directed marketing and a broader variety of community partners to bring awareness 

of the opportunities provided by ACCC.

Access and Distribution: ACCC is aware of the disparities that arise in administrative 

requirements, and as a result has worked to partner with local community organizations to 

help with recruitment. This will be key in the next phases of ACCC to improve access to the 

opportunities provided in ACCC. Specifically, MEASURE’s research will detail the lived 

experience of those economically affected by the COVID pandemic at the neighborhood 

and community level. They will also highlight the historical and current experience (and 

understanding) of conservation-related work in the communities the ACCC is intended to 

serve. This will let ACCC to address barriers to participation and to design a project that is 

desirable to residents both now, and in the future. MEASURE will rely on surveys and focus 

groups and will create feedback mechanisms and metrics to gauge progress and 

opportunities for improvement.

Outcomes: The research from Build with Humanity will provide a framework to evaluate 

programmatic outcomes from the perspective of individuals in ACCC. This information will 

be used to develop future project outcomes once funding is made available.

Negative Economic Impacts: Assistance to households, small businesses, and nonprofits to address impacts of the pandemic, which have been most severe among lowincome populations. This includes assistance with food, housing, and other needs; 

employment programs for people with barriers to employment who faced negative economic 

impacts from the pandemic (such as residents of low-income neighborhoods, minorities, 

disconnected youth, the unemployed, formerly incarcerated people, veterans, and people

with disabilities); and other strategies that provide disadvantaged groups with access to 

education, jobs, and opportunity. The City Council resolution lays out a basic direction for 

the Austin Civilian Conservation Corps project, and the work initially aligned with it in the 

pilot phase focuses on outdoor environmental work. However, over the long term, 

communities in Austin should be able to have significant influence on what they consider 

conservation work to be and how it could be most useful, as well as what a communitydriven service corps could look like and function. This area is the most important for building 

a project that is equitable, and that delivers long-term value for all residents. The pilot phase 

of ACCC ensured that all participants were directly impacted by COVID through the 

application process and future phases will be guided by community-based research 

currently being conducted.

Services to Disproportionately Impacted Communities: Services to address health 

disparities and the social determinants of health, build stronger neighborhoods and 

communities (e.g., affordable housing), address educational disparities (e.g., evidencebased tutoring, community schools, and academic, social-emotional, and mental health 

supports for high poverty schools), and promote healthy childhood environments (e.g., 

home visiting, childcare).

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the City began to take strides in addressing equitable 

outcomes for project and service delivery. These strides include a City Council adopted fiveyear strategic plan, called Strategic Direction 2023 or SD23 for short, which prescribes 

reporting detail with as much granularity as possible. As well as specific metrics on number 

and percentage of persons who successfully complete workforce development training; 
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number of people moved out of poverty into middle skills jobs; and unemployment rates 

with the granularity of demographic data.

Community Engagement

As discussed in the General Overview section of this report, feedback collected in 2020 

from focus groups which were developed to determine the allocation of CARES funding is 

still relevant and helped guide the development of the ARPA Spending Framework. This 

feedback will be considered during project design.

Use of Evidence

Research currently being conducted on the ACCC pilot will:

• Develop a system-map of the current economic conditions facing Austin 

communities that includes micro- meso- and macro-level drivers. Such a map will 

help us understand how these drivers interact, and where the leverage points are to 

best serve residents in highly impacted and underserved communities.

• A deep understanding of the different ACCC user groups economically affected by 

the COVID-19 pandemic, including their work/income-related needs, desires, and 

barriers.

• An enhanced ability to recruit and scope ACCC work programs that most closely 

match participants’ needs.

• The ability to affirmatively target outreach and recruitment to the communities most 

economically affected, and/or the groups most likely to want the types of work the 

project provides.

• Ongoing feedback on whether the project is meeting the needs of the residents it 

intends to serve. This feedback will also allow us to adapt the project if/as economic 

conditions shift throughout the life of the ACCC.

• Identify the dollar amount of the total project spending that is allocated towards 

evidence-based interventions for each project in the Public Health (EC 1), Negative 

Economic Impacts (EC 2), and Services to Disproportionately Impacted 

Communities (EC 3) Expenditure Categories.

Funding will be allocated in Fiscal Year 2022 and at that time more details can be provided 

on the total project spending that is allocated to evidence-based interventions.

Key Performance Indicators

The project has not yet been designed but expects to use evidence-based criteria such as 

industry demand, educational qualifications, and applicant income.

Outcomes are still being designed given the research in progress on the ACCC pilot, but it 

will likely include the number of those who successfully completed training and obtained 

jobs with middle skill wages.
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Project 8600-A362: Workforce Development: Homelessness and/or Creative Sector 

Funding amount: $1,000,000

Project Expenditure Category: 6.1 Provision of Government Services

Project Amount Obligated to Date: $0

Project Amount Expended to Date: $0

Project overview

This project is still in the design phase, but City of Austin volunteer citizen Arts

Commissioners are interested in providing input to help inform project creation, and they 

created a corresponding Working Group for this purpose. City Council will receive an update 

from EDD staff after staff receives and reviews the Arts Commission’s feedback.

Promoting Equitable Outcomes

Goals: The project is still being designed, however, it is known to the community that 

unemployment, though overall low for the region, is disproportionately high for non-white 

Austinites. Additionally, affordable childcare keeps some community members – both 

historically non-white and residing in east Austin - currently out of reach of quality childcare 

solutions and therefore forced to remain out of the workforce. Further affordability friction is

the hourly median wages of creative workers is almost $5 less per hour than the hourly

wage required to sustain a family in Austin, demonstrating the struggle to retain creative

workers in Austin.

Awareness: The goal of the EDD Marketing & Communications team is to extend the 

communication and outreach to the existing 28,000 department contacts via email and 

social content packaged for partner departments and external organizations, to spread the 

word. All opportunities are listed on the one-stop hub of economic opportunities for Austin: 

ATXrecovers.com.

Access and Distribution: As mentioned above, staff will work with third party providers 

and the technical assistance providers established in the Community Navigators project to 

support applicants in their request for support. In the project design, staff will work with our 

partners to ensure the applications themselves are mobile and multi-language friendly with 

staff and system capacity to review.

Outcomes: The project is still being designed.

Community Engagement 

As discussed in the General Overview section of this report, feedback collected in 2020 

from focus groups which were developed to determine the allocation of CARES funding is 

still relevant and helped guide the development of the ARPA Spending Framework. This 

feedback will be considered during project design.
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Use of Evidence

The project has not yet been designed but expects to use evidence-based criteria such as 

industry demand, educational qualifications, and applicant income. Of the $1 million

allocated by City Council, staff anticipates an administrative fee between 5% and 15% to 

be incurred.

Key Performance Indicators

Output and outcome measures not yet established, but likely also gather:

• Number of those who successfully completed training and obtained jobs with middle 

skill wages.

• Number of workers enrolled in sectoral job training programs

• Number of workers completing sectoral job training programs

• Number of people participating in summer youth employment programs
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Project 9100-A248: Public Health-IT Project

Funding amount: $11,572,775

Project Expenditure Category: 6.1 Provision of Government Services

Project Amount Obligated to Date: $0

Project Amount Expended to Date: $0

Project overview

Over the next three years, one of Austin Public Health’s (APH) main activities related to the 

COVID-19 emergency response will be to continue the enhancement and development of 

the Austin Health Force platform into a comprehensive system for all 70+ reportable

conditions. This will also support improvements to the public-facing aspects of COVID-19 

testing and vaccinations as well as support epidemiology and disease surveillance 

functions.

Link to website: http://austintexas.gov/covid19 and

https://covid19.austintexas.gov/s/?language=en_US

Promoting Equitable Outcomes

Austin, Texas is home to a diverse population of 978,908 people constitute over 75% of 

Travis County. The health and socioeconomic disparities in Austin illustrate significant 

disadvantages for minority populations, particularly amongst Black/African Americans and 

Hispanics/Latinos/Latinx. APH reports that COVID-19 is now the leading cause of death for 

Hispanics in our community. Black/African Americans have the lowest vaccination figures 

when compared with Whites, Asians, and Hispanics of any race. APH, in collaboration with 

partners and community leaders, will provide outreach and vaccination services all 

populations including Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, people experiencing homelessness, and 

adults 65 and older by going to community settings where targeted populations reside or 

gather.

APH will address racial and geographic disparities in COVID-19 rates of infection, 

vaccination, and health literacy by focusing on an urban area of up of 15 zip codes with high 

social vulnerability indices and populations of color.

Project outcomes include:

• Outcome: Promote usability, interoperability, data sharing, and integration

o Improve the management and governance of data across APH

o Deploy an APH Business Intelligence Strategy that promotes data and 

information exchange standards

o Capture data sharing best practices from APH internal and external partners

o Promote interoperable exchange of data across APH

o Deploy an APH Business Intelligence Strategy that promotes data and 

information exchange standards

o Ensure attention to usability and accessibility of all systems and data access

throughout the life cycle by engaging user and critical partners.

o Increase APH's ability to use, benefit from, and manage advances in realtime electronic health information for public health surveillance, situational 

awareness, and targeted alerting
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o Increase APH's ability to manage electronic health information to inform 

planning and decision making to ensure continuity of appropriate care during 

disasters and public health emergencies.

• Outcome: Implementation & management of quality IT services that meet the needs of 

the business

o Ensure customer satisfaction

o Consistently meet customer outcomes

o Elimination of redundancies in processes and technologies through 

standardization

• Outcome: Protect critical systems and data

o Ensure regulatory compliance

o Improve the security and privacy posture of data and information systems

o Advocate for a secure, cloud environment, consistent with existing regulatory 

requirements

In order to promote equity, APH will align our data strategy with our business strategy. This 

will be accomplished by defining data standards, guidelines, formal processes, rules, and 

templates for controlled sharing of data in order to support open sharing while protecting 

sensitive information. Utilizing the City’s Strategic Direction plan as our guide, APH will 

collect, analyze, interpret, and distribute data throughout its life cycle. The data life cycle 

refers to the various stages of a data project that offer opportunities to practice greater 

consciousness of and commitment to equity, fairness, and access. 

APH will utilize current funding in order to address challenging racial and geographic

disparities regarding COVID-19 rates of infection, vaccination, and health literacy. This 

effort will focus on an urban area made up of 15 zip codes with high social vulnerability 

indices and populations of color.

Community Engagement 

During the project, APH will conduct user experience assessments to enhance the design 

of the system that encompasses the entire user journey. Scope would include accessibility, 

useability, functionality, and aesthetics.

Key Performance Indicators

Proposed Performance Measures:

Output: Numbers of individuals signed up with an Austin Health Force account.

Outcome: Percent of customers with a satisfactory rating of the system
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Project 9100-A249: Public Health- Communications Project

Funding amount: $10,412,754

Project Expenditure Category: 6.1 Provision of Government Services

Project Amount Obligated to Date: $0

Project Amount Expended to Date: $0

Project overview

Over the next three years, one of APH’s main activities related to the COVID-19 Emergency 

Response will be the continued public health education and awareness campaigns focused 

on high-risk populations. APH has begun the procurement process for engaging a public 

relations consultant specializing in behavior change messaging for longer-term campaigns 

development and implementation. Part of this communication strategy also includes 

material translation and interpretation services which will be partially leveraged by existing 

partnerships with local agencies.

Link to the website: http://austintexas.gov/covid19

Promoting Equitable Outcomes

Austin, Texas is home to a diverse population of 978,908 people and constitutes over 75%

of Travis County. The health and socioeconomic disparities in Austin illustrate significant 

disadvantages for minority populations, particularly amongst Black/African Americans and 

Hispanics/Latinos/Latinx. Austin Public Health (APH) reports that COVID-19 is now the #1 

cause of death for Hispanics in our community. Black/African Americans have the lowest 

vaccination figures when compared with Whites, Asians, and Hispanics of any race. APH,

in collaboration with partners and community leaders, will provide outreach and vaccination 

to Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, people experiencing homelessness, and adults 65 and older 

by going to community settings where the populations of focus reside or gather.

APH will address challenging racial and geographic disparities in COVID-19 rates of 

infection, vaccination, and health literacy in an urban area of focus made up of 15 zip codes 

with high social vulnerability indices and populations of color.

APH has developed communication procedures for the public with information about 

COVID-19, vaccination, and other mitigation measures. These procedures, which include 

materials and in-person messaging, were developed in accordance with Culturally and 

Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS standards), using the top 6 languages in the 

City's Language Access Plan. 

APH will leverage existing organizational partnerships and contracts focused on COVID-19 

outreach to help develop the culturally specific communications and COVID-19 operation 

strategies. Examples of organizations that APH has partnered with in the past include 

clinical provides like El Buen Samaritano (El Buen) and CommUnityCare (CuC) who use 

evidence-based strategies to advance health literacy objectives with clients and address 

vaccine hesitancy. These providers serve high-risk and racial and ethnic minority 

populations in the focus areas. El Buen provides culturally responsive clinical and social 

services for Latinx communities and focuses on family and health literacy programming with 

services provided by bilingual, bicultural staff. CuC is a Federally Qualified Health Center 

(FQHC) with 25 locations throughout Travis County that provide CLAS-standard services. 
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APH proposes partners employ a patient-centered ‘health literate care model’ in which 

providers confirm patient understanding and assess the impact of implementing this 

approach. 

APH will use outcome-based performance metrics that measure the reach of media 

campaigns and strategies by race, ethnicity and/or age.

Current funding is allowable throughout the areas that APH serves, however, APH will 

address challenging racial and geographic disparities in COVID-19 rates of infection, 

vaccination, and health literacy in an urban area of focus made up of 15 zip codes with high 

social vulnerability indices and populations of color.

Community Engagement 

APH, in conjunction with community partners, will enhance culturally and linguistically 

appropriate communications, outreach, education, and connections to services to decrease 

disparities in health literacy and vaccination and overall COVID-related health outcomes.

Addressing COVID disparities will take a comprehensive approach that addresses not only 

the mitigation of the virus, but also one that collaboratively addresses resources and 

partnerships to support community resilience and other factors that contribute to overall 

health and well-being. The Department utilizes Community Workers, which are individuals 

with lived experience and connections to the people in the community. APH also hires 

contract interpreters to ensure that in-person interpretation will be available at vaccine and 

testing sites to provide accurate information to both patient and provider. In addition to 

interpreters, APH contracts with translators who review and produce content in 8 to 10 

languages and align messages with population-specific strategies. APH also has bilingual 

staff that assures that translated content is updated on its website and that translates 

content in emergency situations when time precludes the use of a translation vendor. APH 

has established health equity task forces work with community organizations and the public.

APH pays for targeted advertising—in print, network media, radio, online and social media 

advertising, out-of-home, and text service advertising—to reach communities at various 

touch points, to be sure that messages are received in various ways and get through. And 

APH collaborates with ATXN to provide media question-and-answer forums and public 

service announcements that are available in Spanish and other languages and target 

vaccine hesitancy in communities disproportionately affected by COVID-19.

Key Performance Indicators

Proposed Performance Indicators:

Output 1: Number of individuals by race, ethnicity and age reached by APH media 

campaigns.

Outcome 1: Number of people contacted through outreach activities versus the 

number of engagements (comments, shares, likes) and click-throughs.
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Project 9100-A250: Public Health- Staffing & Support 

Funding amount: $16,314,471

Project Expenditure Category: 6.1 Provision of Government Services

Project Amount Obligated to Date: $430,145

Project Amount Expended to Date: $430,145

Project overview

Over the next three years, one of Austin Public Health’s (APH) main activities related to the 

COVID-19 emergency response will be to sustain a temporary workforce to reinforce our 

public health infrastructure and continued COVID-19 activities. These activities include 

planning, testing, vaccination, disease surveillance, case investigations, contract 

management, public information and communications, nurse and equity assistance lines, 

and support service functions. In addition to the staffing, APH’s response activities will also 

include general support of departmental operations including a Vaccine Call Center, 

supplies and the continued function of hygiene stations and sanitation services.

Link to the website: http://austintexas.gov/covid19

Promoting Equitable Outcomes

Austin, Texas is home to a diverse population of 978,908 people which constitutes over 

75% of Travis County. The health and socioeconomic disparities in Austin illustrate 

significant disadvantages for minority populations, particularly among Black/African 

Americans and Hispanics/Latinos/Latinx. APH reports that COVID-19 is now the leading

cause of death for Hispanics in our community. Black/African Americans have the lowest 

vaccination figures when compared with Whites, Asians, and Hispanics of any race. APH,

in collaboration with partners and community leaders, will provide outreach and vaccination 

services to all populations including Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, people experiencing 

homelessness, and adults 65 and older by going to community settings where targeted 

populations reside or gather.

The COVID-19 pandemic response has further highlighted the existing gap of core public 

health staffing. APH has designated a significant portion of the ARPA allocation for current 

and future temporary staffing needs for the COVID-19 response. Without additional staffing, 

APH will not be able to sustain response operations and provide core public health and 

social service programs to the public. Many APH direct service programs currently serve 

at a reduced capacity, assisting in a reduced volume, by appointment only, and with a 

curbside or remote access model. 

Since December 2019, the 549 staff of APH and hundreds of temporary staff have been on 

the frontline of the COVID-19 response, working diligently to protect the health and safety 

of Austin and Travis County, without significant breaks and limited overtime. The work 

performed includes epidemiology and disease surveillance, including case investigations of 

positive individuals; working with long-term care providers; staffing call centers, building IT 

infrastructure, operating testing and vaccination clinics, sharing information to the public 

through the media and in digital formats; collaborating with community organizations to 

ensure access to response resources; and providing support functions such as purchasing, 

finance, IT and human resources. 
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APH is experiencing high turnover and retirements among our regular workforce, similar to 

what is trending in public health nationwide. If this high turnover and retirement trend 

continues, APH will more than double its turnover rate due to retirement separations. The 

vacancy rate and retirement trend have combined to create a critical staffing and 

sustainability issue for APH that needs to be addressed. APH will utilize ARPA - SLFRF

funding to implement strategies to encourage existing APH staff to continue their current 

employment to maintain critical institutional knowledge and competency in public health 

practice throughout the pandemic response. 

Austin Public Health’s Equity Action plan includes finalizing an equity and inclusion policy 

and goals for hiring, recruiting, and retaining a diverse workforce. APH also has a Workforce 

Development Plan, which includes objectives to consider the characteristics of the 

populations served, and to recruit a diverse workforce reflective of the population served.

As data indicates, the current systems to respond to the pandemic require an approach that 

includes an equity lens to ensure that the most vulnerable in our community have trust in 

the systems of care and easy access to needed services.

Some of the metrics to track progress on these efforts include the diversity of applicants,

number of relationships built and changes to recruiting practices.

The Equity Line and the 311 Vaccine Call Center, both funded through APH’s ARPA -

SLFRF dollars, allows the department to be more responsive to historically underserved 

populations by providing individuals with information and resources to address health 

disparities. The Call Centers take calls in various languages including Spanish, Arabic, 

Mandarin, Vietnamese, Serbian and French.

APH will utilize current funding to address challenging racial and geographic disparities 

regarding COVID-19 rates of infection, vaccination, and health literacy. This effort will focus 

on an urban area made up of 15 zip codes with high social vulnerability indices and 

populations of color.

Community Engagement 

The City acknowledges in the importance of fostering community within the organization as 

well as the local communities where City employees, clients, and their families live and 

work. The City has Employee Affinity groups that accelerate development through 

mentoring, learning, networking, organizing outreach and service activities, and addressing 

challenges that are important to the community and the City through targeted initiatives.

The City believes that strengthening the community externally and internally will help create 

sustainable change.

The City has a partnership with Careers in Government, which is a Diversity Network 

designed to promote diversity-committed employers as well as to attract and engage 

potential applicants. Their network has over 80 job boards in all 50 states providing City job 

postings significant national reach. The network includes Latino job network, African 

American job network, LGBT job network, Women’s job network and Asian job network just 

to name a few.

APH is actively building a Workforce Development pipeline through many avenues. To 

highlight some of the initiatives in workforce development, for the last 20 years APH has 

partnered with Travis County to provide the Summer Youth Internship Program for 

approximately 750 underrepresented youth each year. The program prepares and 
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empowers Travis County’s young people with the foundation of career awareness, 

readiness, and access through training opportunities and paid internships. In the Summer 

of 2019, APH rolled out the Austin Public Health Internship Program as another component 

of the workforce development pipeline. Austin Public Health Department Internship 

Program has a mission to provide opportunities for high school and college students 

interested in exploring components of public health. One goal of the program is to introduce 

minority groups to the concept of public health work. By providing information that 

addresses disease, high blood pressure and cancer, the youth of Austin will have an 

awareness to the variety of diseases that are present in the community. Students will be 

educated and then provided with an internship assignment to gain a hands-on experience 

with the resources provided to the residents of Austin and how those resources are in place 

to help improve the health of Austin.

APH is committed to focusing on research and data to more clearly identify and outreach to

the populations more disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, typically historically

marginalized populations.  With the support of a dedicated senior research analyst, data will

be gathered and analyzed to inform strategies to address vaccine hesitancy and best 

practices to prevent infection. APH’s newly funded community engagement specialist will 

regularly engage key stakeholders, including members in communities of focus, grassroots

organizers, nonprofits, and the provider community, to develop, plan and implement the 

focused outreach and vaccination strategy.  The strategy will be based on local COVID-19 

health data, local vaccination data analyzed by race, ethnicity, zip code, and qualitative data 

concerning vaccine readiness collected by our community partners. It will be built on chronic 

disease prevention and education practices - culturally relevant messaging, placed-based 

options, mobile vaccination programs, education support and relationship building, utilizing 

the community health worker model. The data will be analyzed and tracked on a regular 

basis to continue to inform outreach efforts. 

Key Performance Indicators

Proposed Performance Indicators:

Output 1: Number of 311 Vaccine Support Call Center calls taken and interpreted in 

a language other than English

Outcome 1: Percentage of staff on payroll by race, ethnicity, and age