Austin City Council trying to reform spending policies
City of Austin spending review
Austin City Council is trying to reform its own spending after passing a resolution in November. This comes after a failed tax rate election and criticism of how the city is spending money.
AUSTIN, Texas - Austin City Council is trying to reform its own spending after passing a resolution in November.
This comes after a failed tax rate election and criticism of how the city is spending money.
Criticism of city spending
What they're saying:
One example of criticism is Council Member Vanessa Fuentes leading a delegation of 27 Austinites on a cultural exchange trip to Japan through the organization Austin Sister Cities. That happened when Austinites were asked to vote on a property tax increase, or Prop Q, last month.
That drew comments like "I do question the wisdom of posting this while voters are considering Prop Q."
Another instance is Council Member Ryan Alter donating $100,000 from his office budget for parks. That drew comments like, "I will feel even better now when I vote no on Prop Q."
Dig deeper:
At an Audit and Finance Committee meeting Wednesday, council members looked at how other Texas cities do their expensing and found other places have more uniform policies, while Austin's is a bit more scattered.
"There's not really a single policy that applies to us, but that's part of what we're attempting to do is to compile that to create greater clarity," Mayor Kirk Watson said in the meeting.
One of the areas they want to work on is travel and reimbursements.
"The reason we made that part of the [presentation] slide is because it has received some attention," Watson said.
Right now, travel has to have a clear public purpose and fall within a per diem limit. There has to be documentation.
"Some of the things we're looking at are how we can provide clarity to what is a 'public purpose,'" Watson said.
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Council Member Krista Laine suggested looking at inventory management and having more specifics on using funds for food and refreshments.
"Travel has come up a lot, and it is important to give more clarity to public purpose," Laine said.
Council Member Chito Vela suggested having a council liaison to look at reimbursements.
"I think that would be helpful, because right now it's really our office and essentially finance staff," he said.
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He doesn't want to eliminate expenses like town hall food or translation services because it helps with community outreach.
"I just want to make sure we don't sacrifice the quality of events, because that makes a difference and definitely brings people out," Vela said.
Council Member Vanessa Fuentes proposed making monthly expense reports more accessible to the public.
Council Member Marc Duchen flagged looking at how council office budgets roll over at the end of the year, especially if a council seat is empty for a while or if a council member was recently elected.
"How do we appropriately motivate this and make sure someone doesn't get penalized for saving money or someone doesn't get penalized for being new," Watson said.
What's next:
After Council gives their feedback, they hope to have a proposal by mid-January and put the policy into effect at the end of January.
The city has hired a consulting firm to look at where they could save money on things like shared technology services across departments.
There's also a petition from the group Save Austin Now that calls for an independent audit and routine budget reviews.
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The Source: Information from interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin's Angela Shen