Pflugerville Charter Amendments (2026)

Council members serve unpaid today, with expenses reimbursed. This would pay the Mayor $750 a month and each Council member $500 a month, about $45,000 a year total. Any future raise would need another public vote.

Pflugerville already carries some of the highest taxes and water rates in the region, and voters turned down Council pay in 2023. The amount is too small to change who can afford to run, and it adds a cost before the city has addressed residents' concerns about spending and accountability. The one good feature, that Council can't raise its own pay, doesn't outweigh that.

Requires Council to adopt policies on city data, facial recognition, surveillance technology, and AI, including a public approval process for those technologies.

Pflugerville's Flock license plate camera contract showed how surveillance technology can be adopted with little public scrutiny. Residents pushed back and the cameras are gone, but nothing stops the next system from arriving the same way. This requires public rules and a transparent approval process before it does. It doesn't go far enough, since it leaves the actual rules to Council, but it is a necessary first step.

Today a new city law must be read at two separate Council meetings, at least 72 hours apart. This drops that to one meeting. A second reading would only happen if Council votes to require it.

The second reading is the main window residents have to notice a proposed law and show up before it passes. Making it optional means important rules can pass in a single night. Routine items are not a big enough burden to justify losing that protection.

Lowers the signatures needed for a citizen initiative or referendum from 15% to 10% of registered voters. Recall petitions are not affected.

At 15%, a citizen petition takes several thousand valid signatures, which is out of reach for most residents. 10% still requires a serious effort and matches Cedar Park. Austin and Round Rock set the bar lower.

When two Council members ask for an item to be placed on the agenda, it must appear within 60 days, and the Mayor must include it.

Today the Charter only says the item goes on "a subsequent regular council meeting," with no deadline and no explicit duty for the Mayor to include it. This gives Council members an enforceable right to get their items heard. Most requests will still go on the next agenda; the 60 days is an outer limit, not a target.

If a citizen petition comes up short on valid signatures, organizers get four weeks to fix it instead of two.

Two weeks is a short window for volunteers to replace invalid signatures. This makes it less likely a real citizen effort fails on a technicality.

Adds a five-year financial forecast, budget-to-actual comparisons, and an online tracker for major construction projects. It also requires the budget to follow an outside professional standard (the Government Finance Officers Association) and removes the Charter's current list of eleven specific things every budget must show, including debt payment schedules, utility budgets, and the five-year capital plan.

The new forecast and project tracker are good, but Council can require both by policy tomorrow without changing the Charter. What this actually does is trade guaranteed disclosures written into the Charter for an outside standard that can change without a local vote. In a city with Pflugerville's debt load, the debt schedule and utility budgets are the last things that should become optional.

Lets the Mayor, instead of a Council vote, excuse the City Manager from attending a Council meeting.

The City Manager answers to the whole Council, not the Mayor. Any Council member who needs the Manager present to answer for something should be able to insist on it. This shifts oversight from seven people to one.

Lets Council appoint residents who live just outside city limits (the ETJ) as non-voting advisers on selected city boards. They could not vote, chair, or count toward a quorum.

It's advisory only and limited by state law. There is a fair argument that people who don't vote in city elections shouldn't shape city recommendations, and a fair argument that nearby residents are affected by city decisions. Low stakes either way.

Changes the Charter from saying Council "determines policies" to saying Council sets the "strategic direction and general policy framework" of the city.

No one has explained what problem the current wording causes. Council already has the authority to set policy. "General policy framework" reads like a step back, and it invites the argument that detailed decisions belong to staff. Pflugerville's problem has been Council not getting enough information from staff, not Council overreaching.

When Council holds a hearing to remove one of its members, residents could speak without Council first voting to allow it.

Residents should be able to speak when Council decides whether to remove an elected official. Council can still set reasonable time limits.

Removes the requirement that the municipal judge live in Pflugerville. The judge must still be a licensed Texas attorney.

Few qualified attorneys who want the job live within city limits, which makes the position hard to fill. Opening the search to the surrounding area gets the city a better pool of candidates without lowering the qualifications.

Lets residents submit written comments on any agenda item and have them included in the meeting record, and allows remote public comment where state law permits.

Many residents work evenings or care for family and can't sit through a council meeting. This gives them a voice that goes on the record.

Standardizes capitalization, updates outdated legal references, and replaces some specific statute citations with "state law."

Mostly housekeeping. Replacing specific citations with "state law" makes the Charter slightly less self-explanatory, but nothing in it changes how the city operates.