Petition calls for audit of Austin's city budget

Group calls for audit of Austin's city budget

Austin Mayor Kirk Watson is responding to a group calling for an audit of city spending. ‘Save Austin Now’ opposed Prop Q and has since started a petition.

AUSTIN, Texas - Austin Mayor Kirk Watson is responding to a group calling for an audit of city spending. 

‘Save Austin Now’ opposed Prop Q and has since started a petition.

What is the petition?

What they're saying:

Earlier this month, voters in Austin rejected Prop Q, which would have raised property taxes to help fund city services. Matt Mackowiak with ‘Save Austin Now’ and who pushed for Prop Q to fail, said it was a sign of Austin residents not trusting city officials and their spending.

"We always want our city leaders to look for efficiencies. That should have happened before they chose to pursue a tax rate election and I think it did happen to a modest extent, but it has not happened to the level it should have," Mackowiak said.

He and other local leaders are calling for an independent audit of the city’s budget.

"We really strongly believe that the first way you rebuild trust, if there's distrust between taxpayers and city leaders, as you do that through an outside external performance audit of the entire city budget," Mackowiak said.

Austin finalizes priorities in amended city budget

The City of Austin has finalized its priorities that could impact emergency services and housing for homeless people. The amended city budget and tax rate were approved after voters rejected Prop Q earlier this month.

The petition requires the city of Austin to immediately review its budget and then do so every five years, as well as no less than a year before another tax rate increase is proposed.

"What we're trying to do here is try to have a serious firm that the city will select within the parameters of the charter amendment, take a full review of how our city spends money, of how all these departments are performing, and make serious recommendations on how we can improve things," Mackowiak said.

Those pushing for the petition said it is needed.

"If you want to restore trust, you have got to let this process work independently of the kind of political or selfish protection that the incumbents may have. You're going to get more benefit for taxpayers if it's done this way," Attorney and Former Travis County Judge Bill Aleshire said.

The other side:

Mayor Kirk Watson responded Monday morning.

"For a long time now, I've taken the position that performance review of our services and how our services perform is something we ought to do just as part of and parcel of what we do as a local government," Mayor Watson said.

Mayor Watson said they have had audits in the past on development services, homeless services, and the Austin Police Department’s spending that have been beneficial. He said they are already looking into hiring consultants to see how they can spend money more efficiently.

"I don't know that I support the petition. I need more time to look at what they do with that because what I don’t want, and let me say two things that I don't want. One is what I do not want is the use of something that we all may agree we need to become political weaponry," Mayor Watson said. "Doing things like that is not an all or nothing sort of situation where we almost create political parties where if you're not for that way of doing it then you're anti providing the services in a good way, or vice versa and I need a little more time to look at that."

What's next:

In order for this to become an ordinance in the city, about 20,000 signatures from qualified voters are needed, then the city council can choose to outright adopt it or send it to Austin voters in the next election.