Austin voters will decide in November whether to require independent audits through the city charter, a proposal that mirrors a City Hall plan already in motion. The debate isn’t whether the city should conduct independent audits. It’s over whether those audits should be permanently required by voters or left to future city councils through ordinance.

The measure on the ballot would amend the city charter to require an independent audit of all city operations every five years. But if voters reject it, an independent audit will still happen. In February, the Austin City Council approved an ordinance requiring recurring efficiency assessments of all city departments every three years. If voters approve the charter amendment while the ordinance remains in place, the city says it could be required to conduct two separate audit processes.

Both proposals grew out of the same political moment: Proposition Q. The tax rate election’s decisive defeat last year was widely viewed by people in and outside City Hall as a referendum on city spending and a sign that voters were losing confidence in how the city manages public funds. Now, both City Hall and the political action committee Save Austin Now say they want greater accountability, but they disagree over how to guarantee it.

The Save Austin Now PAC began collecting signatures last November in hopes of placing a charter amendment on the ballot and reached that goal in June. Similarly, in the weeks after Prop Q’s failure, Austin Mayor Kirk Watson began thinking of ways to improve trust with voters. Among other things, he proposed an independent, system-wide audit to safeguard public confidence in City Hall spending going forward.

In a June statement, Watson said the Save Austin Now team was invited to be a part of drafting the ordinance but instead moved forward with their own proposal.

“We’re already doing the substance of what Save Austin Now is asking for,” Watson said. “This is a political move and a repetitive, haphazard proposal.”

Same goal, different approach

Attorney for Save Austin Now, Bill Aleshire, who drafted the charter amendment, argues the only way to ensure the city conducts regular, independent audits is by having it written in the city charter.

“If you really want to see an audit done, it needs to be mandated, and the only way to really do that for this and future councils is to put it in the charter,” Aleshire said. “Under an ordinance, (council members) can just ignore it, or if they do away with it, then no citizen has standing to sue a council for not obeying its own ordinance.”

The fact that the audit requirement would be written into the city charter if voters approve the proposition is the key difference between the two approaches. The other central differences include:

• The charter amendment calls for an audit every five years, while the ordinance requires one every three years.
• The charter amendment requires the audit to begin at least one year before a tax rate election, while the ordinance does not.
• The charter amendment requires the independent contractor to identify savings that exceed the cost of the audit.

Further, Aleshire said the charter amendment explicitly includes stronger transparency requirements not stated in the ordinance.

“If you want to see this kind of audit done on an ongoing basis as a requirement,” Aleshire said, “not only for this City Council, but for future city councils, the only way to do that is to put the requirement in the charter.”

Could Austin end up with two audits?

Despite the PAC collecting enough signatures to place the charter amendment before voters, City Hall is moving forward with its own plan. On July 2, Watson announced the Austin City Auditor’s Office had completed a nationwide search and recommended Public Works LLC, a government consulting firm, to conduct the audit.

The mayor and other City Council members have rejected the assertion that the charter amendment is a better approach and criticized its requirement that the independent auditor identify enough savings to offset the cost of the audit.

If the charter amendment is approved, “the auditor doesn’t get to use independent judgment regarding what it recommends. The auditor must find something, anything, to justify the audit and the fees charged,” Watson said in his statement. “Such a requirement creates a financial conflict of interest. The proposed charter provision isn’t seeking true independence. It’s a political attack on local government.”

Council Member Marc Duchen said he is concerned that if the charter amendment passes and the first audits are successful, subsequent audits may not identify sufficient savings to cover their costs.

“At some point, you have diminishing returns where we’ve implemented a lot of recommendations,” Duchen said. “At some point, you’ve cut things to the bone.”

The city also confirmed it’s possible there could be two separate independent audits if voters approve the charter amendment while the city’s ordinance remains in effect. The city has not indicated it would repeal the ordinance if the charter amendment proposition passes.

Duchen said if this happens, “one option would be to explore a way to harmonize both of them, so we’re only doing a single process that complies with both.” But if that is not possible, he said, “then you’re talking about, potentially, many audits being done in a five-year window.”

“The last thing we would want is an efficiency process that isn’t efficient.”