r/askaustin • u/dmweinberg1 • 3d ago
What do y'all think about the Audit election coming up in Nov?
Howdy. I'm David Weinberg, a candidate running for Austin City Council District 5 this November. I'm running in a district south of the river which is pretty heavily Democratic. There's a measure on the ballot that will require the city to do an independent audit. Opponents of this measure say they are against because Save Austin Now worked to put it on the ballot, or that its not needed because Mayor Watson initiated a Council-led outside audit earlier in the year. Most voters I have talked to seem to be in favor of the idea, and a recent poll I ran in the district showed support for it above 70%.
What are your thoughts?
•
u/Snowonthebrain 3d ago
If it wasn't for the people behind this...
•
u/yolatrendoid 2d ago
And yet Weinberg is somehow not getting this part:
I'm running in a district south of the river which is pretty heavily Democratic.
Correct. So why TF are you proposing Republican ideas in D5? Are you assuming people have forgotten the past?
The entire point of an audit – and as you noted, Mayor Watson already ordered one on his own – is giving the Republican-run lege a pretext for messing with local affairs. An audit would be a line-item cheat sheet for them to pluck out whatever TF they want, oftentimes for bullshit reasons. They don't like the county spending X amount on services for trans people? Anything whatsoever for people who aren't documented? They can simply ban it, much like they did in overturning our plastic bag ban.
It's their argument, not ours, that Austin is "mismanaged," and they've been pushing this shit for at least the last eight years. (Yes, I know the city's mismanaged in ways, but not any an audit can fix.) The TRCP has been demanding audits since 2018. "Citizens for an Accountable Austin" and "Save Austin Now" are Republican-run groups utterly obsessed with the false notion that we're paying "too much" in property taxes.
Most voters I have talked to seem to be in favor of the idea, and a recent poll I ran in the district showed support for it above 70%.
Dare I ask whom you "polled"? If it's anyone in the Zilker or Barton Hills NAs – or, God forbid, you polled people via Nextdoor – you may as well throw it out as NIMBY hysteria. Or anyone in D5 who's owned the same home for at least 20 years. The Austin Nextdoor groups seem to exist in some sort of alternate reality, one not at all reflective of actual prevailing sentiment.
Btw I don't live in D5, but I did until two years ago. You're unlikely to get anywhere pushing a NIMBY agenda at this point – and I think D5 voters already made that quite clear when we elected Ryan Alter, in part as a rejection of Ann Kitchen's NIMBY-enabling (plus Alter won by 30 points) – and thankfully the likes of Bill Bunch & Robin Rather have been successfully outed as exactly that. Plus this will likely be the heaviest-turnout midterm ever, so good luck convincing anyone under 60 who rents in D5 of it (a majority of its residents, I'm guessing).
•
u/dmweinberg1 2d ago
What (tf) about my post was “proposing” something? Is this /askaustin or /proposeaustin?
This was a poll of registered voters in D5 done by a reputable D polling firm, PPP. D5 is a district of 100,000 people which goes from Zilker Park to Onion Creek.
Since you brought it and many other topics up, Donald Trump’s approval rating in this poll was 20%. Ryan Alter clocked in at 19% (which is a point above the poll I ran last fall, where he was at 18).
•
u/bmtc7 2d ago
Consider the wording of the polling question. It doesn't tell the full story, such as how the City of Austin already conducts routine audits to check for waste and fraud.
•
u/dmweinberg1 2d ago
Sure. But Austin already conducting routine audits isn’t going to be in the ballot language of what people are actually voting on this November.
•
u/bmtc7 2d ago
But it will be part of the conversation as this ballot initiative starts to get more attention. And anybody who uses a voter guide will also probably learn about that too. It's unfortunate that the ballot wording is deceptive.
•
u/dmweinberg1 2d ago
I just sent out an email to D5 voters where I talk about existing audits being in conflict with this measure. So I am making that a part of the conversation. In the poll my interest was in gauging the public’s response to the ballot language they will be voting on in Nov.
•
u/ahjuicy22 2d ago
That doesn't mean you can't provide voters a complete picture before the actual vote. Are people really this dumb (rhetorical)
•
u/yolatrendoid 2d ago
What (tf) about my post was “proposing” something? Is this /askaustin or /proposeaustin?
You're proposing that people vote in favor of an external audit being pimped by GOP proxies. Suggesting that a random poll with a stilted question – obviously inferring Austin is "wasting" its budget on whatever, and absent any context about this being a repeated Republican stunt and based on conspiracy theories about "budget bloat" – is in any way "definitive" is silly.
Sorry, but this isn't Nextdoor, and this sub doesn't have an average user age north of 60 that "identifies" as a "progressive Democrat" all while supporting MAGA-tinged get-off-my-lawn notions. We don't really give a shit about the possibility of slightly higher property taxes, or having apartment towers with seven (gasp!) stories; we simply don't want assholes running the show. What you're suggesting would give them that power.
•
u/dmweinberg1 2d ago edited 2d ago
Still missing where I am asking people to support this. Maybe you should write a sentence to two actually explaining your argument instead of just restating it.
Did you read what I wrote about how the poll was conducted and by whom or is this some kind of bot account?
•
u/yolatrendoid 1d ago
Still missing where I am asking people to support this.
You didn't, or at least not literally. You're avoiding taking an explicit stand on an issue – despite obviously supporting it (why bother even posting the survey results otherwise?) – for purposes of dodging entirely valid questions like mine and weirdly denigrating me as a "bot."
In other words, you're doing a variation of Tucker Carlson's "just asking questions," also known as "JAQing off." (Slightly cringe, but I didn't come up with it.) To sound all fancy for a sec: JAQing off is a type of paralipsis that's used to introduce controversial theories & steer people toward specific conclusions while maintaining plausible deniability. You're also aping Joe Rogan: this is straight out of his "inquisitive everyman" book. (Rogan's usual gambit is similar to Carlson's in concept, except Rogan differs in not delivering his stuff from a script.)
Or for those who think this is tl;dr: "Don't bullshit a bullshitter."
Interesting that you think a technique used by two of the most odious Republican commentators will work on D5 as a whole, however. But your intent is more than a smidge obvious, and since no one here is MAGA as far as I know, you don't seem to realize we have functioning brain cells and understand terms like "logical inference."
Did you read what I wrote about how the poll was conducted and by whom or is this some kind of bot account?
Yes, but you also failed to add any context (or even a link for folks to verify its accuracy - I suppose this'll come as a shock, but politicians have been known to lie, particularly those aping Carlson/Rogan). Who devised the wording of the poll question, and on what basis? When was the survey taken, and how? Calling landlines as well as mobile numbers? Online and/or offline? Where was it conducted, and with whom? If by phone, how did they compensate for the reality that almost no one under 60 still has a landline?
Did they draw a sample truly representative of D5 – with an even mix of homeowners & renters that's also representative of all of it, along with age, race, gender and socioeconomic status – or did the result stem solely from the tiny number of people who happen to be home on weekdays and still use landlines? Have they previously asked about either this ballot proposal or earlier ones relative to audits? How have they framed the specific questions, including any previous polls for the 2026 audit proposal? If they've had prior questions on similar topics, did their poll results accurately reflect the outcome?
Just asking questions.
•
u/dmweinberg1 1d ago
Happy to share the entire poll with you including its methodology.
•
•
•
u/Virtual_Athlete_909 2d ago
I came to say that. If it weren't for the fact Save Our Springs/Austin is the one pushing it I would be inclined to agree with the measure. They only want to get their foot in the door and cause havoc for city government as they have done in the past- very shady and interested in nothing more than chaos.
•
u/LexiLan 2d ago
Yeah, I just did some reading on them am now hesitant to support it. So frustrating bc of how badly we need a true, bipartisan audit. I’m glad I paid attention and participated in this post which taught me a few important things today. Sigh!
•
u/dmweinberg1 2d ago
For posterity, Save Our Springs isn’t doing anything on auditing and to conflate them with Save Austin Now is some bush league political discourse.
•
u/Alternative_Eye3822 2d ago
Eh they surprisingly overlap a lot especially when pushing back against changing building codes or building bike lanes. Bill Bunch is a useful idiot for Save Austin Now.
•
u/Snowonthebrain 1d ago
In what universe?
•
u/Alternative_Eye3822 1d ago
They’ve co-endorsed and overlapped on a bunch of stuff, especially around NIMBY issues.
•
•
•
u/LexiLan 2d ago
Who cares about who got it on the ballot? I’m grateful they did. That whole internal council audit is BS. That’s like asking students to grade their own tests 🤣
•
u/yolatrendoid 2d ago
And asking the lege to audit them is akin to letting Dan Patrick decide school curricula & tell students they can't read "To Kill A Mockingbird," "Huckleberry Finn" or any book that references the reality that white people have done some truly heinous shit.
Btw they could readily decide, for example purposes: "The COA is only spending $2M a year on Flock cameras?? We know those fucking leftists are plotting a coup to institute Sharia law, so let's up that 15x to $30M!"
•
u/Either-Cake-892 2d ago
It kind of sucks that we have gotten to the point where, if you think the city is corrupt, or that there is fraud, waste and abuse in some departments, yet you can’t trust the auditors either.
•
•
u/BenTheHokie 3d ago
This is a Save Austin Now measure intended to save billionaires some money on their taxes while services are reduced for the average resident. I am opposed.
•
u/patrickAMDG7509 2d ago
How would that work? Honest question.
I don’t see how requiring an external audit is doing anything but actually holding our city government (which has made some horrible financial decisions) accountable
•
u/tthomas48 23h ago
We already have audits. How would another audit "hold them accountable"? The audits have to find something worth acting on and CMs have to act on the audits. We all know most of the budget is APD and we can't cut that budget without getting Democratic leaders at the state level so there's really no point to more audits.
If you don't like your council member's policies another audit is not going to suddenly make them start voting your preferred way.
•
u/patrickAMDG7509 23h ago
Do we already have audits? If so, they don’t seem to work. We still have insane budget items, a council that seems to have no understanding that they are bound by a budget, and what I would say is wasteful spending.
I don’t see what anyone has to fear with an audit, and if it’s going to happen, I think it only makes sense that it’s external.
Sure, there might be an issues with CMs not acting on information from an audit. But that’s also an issue. “Audits need to find something and CMs need to act, but they don’t” is precisely why an audit should be external, and seems to be an issue with the current system.
It’s not about them “voting my way,” it’s about them managing our money well.
•
u/tthomas48 23h ago
https://www.austintexas.gov/auditor
Do you do the budget exercise they send out every year, go to townhalls and let your council member know how you'd like them to prioritize funding?
•
u/patrickAMDG7509 22h ago
Sure do. I’m pretty engaged.
I think the thing here for me is the argument about the importance of an external auditor. What does that hurt? Why would that be a bad thing?
I’ve been using these mechanisms for years, for three different council members with three different sets of beliefs. To me, that indicates that this current way of doing things doesn’t work.
•
u/tthomas48 21h ago
It just sounds like a waste of money to me. If you say the current auditing and budgeting doesn't work, what mechanism would an external audit have to make things better?
•
u/tthomas48 21h ago
I mean we know APD is the biggest budget item, is wasting money left and right and there's nothing we can do about it. If we paid external auditors to tell us that I think that would be a huge waste of money.
•
u/luckyartie 3d ago
If SAN is truly involved, proceed with caution. They are so irresponsible
•
u/papertowelroll17 3d ago
I have disagreed with SAN on a lot of issues but they have some things that were good. The camping ban reinstatement especially...
•
•
u/TheTrombiculidae 2d ago
Nothing says “not wasteful” like spending a bunch of money on an audit of city finances without evidence of significant fraud.
•
u/Javi_in_1080p 3d ago edited 2d ago
honestly I'm pretty skeptical on how all SAN proposes is an audit. they don't have any practical concrete ideas other than trying to rage bait people into voting for them.
•
u/bmtc7 2d ago
How much will the audit cost? My concern is that it could easily cost more than it would save.
•
u/Alternative_Eye3822 2d ago
It’d definitely cost more, the point isn’t to actually save money but to undermine a municipal government in a blue city as much as possible. I bet any results from this would say we need to cut library funding because of “woke” but APD definitely needs a bigger budget.
•
u/Alternative_Eye3822 2d ago
I’ll never trust anything being pushed by Save Austin Now/Adam Loewy. This will end up being a backdoor way for local conservative reactionaries to slash anything the city does that they don’t like.
•
u/aipac125 3d ago
From the people who brought you complaints against spending on outside consulting companies, comes a proposal to hire an outside consulting company. This time, they will really do it, and if not, we will keep hiring them till they can figure it out.
•
•
u/finalcutfx 2d ago
I think independent audits are a good thing. I think this one is a partisan witch hunt and nothing about it is independent.
•
u/Alternative_Eye3822 1d ago
Same folks pushing for this third party audit are also a big reason the city budget is cannibalized by record police budgets year after year. 🤡
•
u/dmweinberg1 1d ago
Does that include Ryan Alter? Because he voted yes on the APD contract.
•
u/Alternative_Eye3822 1d ago
It definitely includes the police union. Where do you fall as a candidate on bloated APD funding?
•
u/likesblackcoffeebest 2d ago
Oppose. The city already does audits. This isn't a good use of funding. (I'm in your district and undecided on who to vote for, but I really dislike the incumbent.)
•
u/sushinestarlight 2d ago
Yeah the incumbent is useless and is actually one of the primary drivers of "spending more" on pretty much everything... He also really hasn't been helpful when people truly have issues. And frankly the people in Western Trails and parents at Joslin are "long suffering" and still don't know if Sunrise is going to move all services east to the new center on IH35 or not. That intersection around Ben White/Menchaca is like a zombie apocalypse near daily. What might have started as a church program with good intentions turned a mid-century neighborhood of cute homes into a wandering feeding ground for bike/tool/package thieves and a school disposal site for needles. And Alter will barely acknowledge that there is "any issue" at all.
•
u/Nonaveragemonkey 2d ago
I mean its an internal audit, aint it? That would be like the same police department investigating their own behavior.
•
u/logtron 2d ago
The audits they've done in the past have seemed pretty good. Do you find issue with them or were they missing anything significant?
And an outside auditor hired by the city would have the same issue you're worry about, if not more. Their next contract depends on the results from the first.
•
u/Nonaveragemonkey 2d ago
I would recommend reading up on sarbanes-oxley.
What youre worried about, its handled.
•
u/logtron 2d ago
Which portion of Sarbanes Oxley are you referring to?
•
u/Nonaveragemonkey 2d ago
The auditing requirements.
•
u/logtron 2d ago
No idea what you are trying to say.
I'm worried that if we hire an additional outside auditor, we will just be doing work that is both duplicate and more expensive.
•
u/likesblackcoffeebest 2d ago
Precisely. I think a lot of people who favor this are unclear about how audits work.
•
u/Nonaveragemonkey 2d ago
We will be doing an actual audit, not an audit by someone who fears their job.
•
u/catturd6996 2d ago
It’s internal. However the city auditor does not do the deeper dive of why departments and programs exist. Why does a department add a level of management that costs over a $1 million a year?
•
u/Flashy-Cherry8774 2d ago
I mean it's redundant and wasteful. The city is audited annually and you can find those results very easily online.
•
u/KeyCoyote9095 2d ago
I do not support the audit theu just wany to cancel project connect and they could have the accounting department preform an audit, that's literally in their job description so why pay a third party. If people would stop delaying the project it would have been so much cheaper. I nean come on ee've been waiting 26 yeats for a rail system and we have a nearky useless portion running tjrough idk where out yo cedar park, like what? So you run through the white northwest north crntral austin to crdat park. Um ok, not like to easy riverside not through zilker or bartonjills or even travis heights not to dove dprings not to ditmar area or subsey valley, not to eastgovinfo or govalle, not to thevbartholomew pool neighborhood not to rundberg or nortb lamar, not to manor rd /airport, not to 78723 not to Loyola not to the bedicheck, south south first area, not go mlk or levander loop not 183 and cesar chaveznone of the places you woukd think coukd despetately need public transportation thay goes down town and tra erses the city, badically we made sure the yuppie children of insufferable nimbys could ride into their pretty cushy, all things. considered, tech jobs downtown and get a cocktail after work without having to drive back out to cedar park bc thats the only place you find a starter home to buy your kids if you're rich
•
u/sushinestarlight 2d ago
Dillos went the majority of places you speak of with free circulating trolleys... CapMetro said they were "too expensive" lol and got rid of them in like 2009 or something.
How has Project Connect in any way been delayed by lawsuits? That's complete nonsense - they are busy planning and spending since day 1 - any lawsuits are happening concurrently behind the scenes, but there has never been a restraining order or any pause on Project Connect whatsoever!!
To imply that any of the lawsuits have delayed anything is a complete lie (that I often see spread by proponents)!!
Any delays so far are because they hadn't planned things out before they presented it to voters, and they totally bungled the price tag and scope of the project, with underground stations and tunnels... Any delays have been that they sold us a project they could not deliver for the price they had us vote on and then they had to redo the plans multiple times. The delays were of their OWN MAKING - It's behind schedule because they bungled this from the start in planning/scope.
Lawsuits have delayed nothing (I wish they had) - and they are currently signing long term contracts for stuff and they don't have any federal funding yet - they are missing $4 Billion in federal funding which may never come... and spending like they have the money already.
•
•
u/bruno_antony 2d ago
The bullshit part of this audit is that is compares us to "Peer Cites" to see if we're complying with "norms", without layout out what that criteria means.
•
u/Alternative_Eye3822 2d ago
Exactly. Also these chuds always ignore that the city owns the utilities when they show their bullshit budget graphs
•
•
u/patrickAMDG7509 2d ago
For all the people skeptical of the proposed audit because of the SAN connection - do you think the city has a financial problem?
I’ve never heard much of the SAN controversy, but I’m if the opinion that the city has pretty horribly managed a budget and made some awful financial decisions.
Do people agree and just not trust SAN? Or do people disagree with the premise?
•
u/sushinestarlight 2d ago
The peeps (or bots) that flood ATX reddits seem to be more extreme liberally (based in up/down numbers) - and they seem to all have some grand issue with SAN or any sort of financial accountability... but the peeps (bots) on reddit showed the same sentiment during the Prop Q debate (and the outcome showed the reddit peeps weren't the norm) - MOST people WOULD like better spending. Hoping that is the same here.
And while the city seems to now be potentially doing an efficiency audit themselves, that likely would never have been done without the looming pressure of SAN petition. Sometimes you need people to question city government and spending, even if you don't like the politics of the leaders of those organizations.
•
u/tradesman6771 22h ago
All spending is already public records.
Audits are already performed by outside agencies as per state law.
Some of us have lived here long enough to have seen Save Austin Now’s agenda for a long time.•
u/sushinestarlight 22h ago
The audits done per state law are basically to make sure the money isn't completely missing and matches the bank account records - it's not an efficiency audit in any way, nor does it look for wasteful programs or redundancies.
Actually "SOME OF US" have been here since the late 1980s and seen the city government go from laid back hippies okay to go with the flow and chill and not waste too much money - to the current council who doesn't feel like they are progressive enough if they aren't throwing money at every social program presented to them.
Austin used to be affordable... and a town of slightly lower paid state/UT workers who essentially took a pay cut to live in beautiful Austin rather than move to Dallas or Houston...
We still have all those people who are now nearing or in retirement but getting $20k+ tax bills on tiny bungalows because TCAD says the properties are worth a lot.
Seems like your definition of "long enough" is way shorter than mine!
At the end of the day, wild spending by taxing entities makes Austin unaffordable particularly for people on fixed incomes... To ask that the spending is more frugal isn't an unfair thing to ask! You want to understand why people were forced out of their generational homes in East Austin and why Austin went from 12% African American to 6% - it's property taxes!! Those homes were already paid off!! But if you get a $20k tax bill it makes it difficult to stay in your home - even with homestead where value increase is 10% a year.
•
u/tradesman6771 21h ago
I’ve been here since 93.
Judging by your post, you already have enough information to evaluate city spending. Why should we hire an outside firm to opine?
I pay taxes. Our problem is that we don’t have income tax and we have to send a bunch more fuck taxes outside of district to pay for their schools.•
u/sushinestarlight 18h ago
Recapture is indeed the largest issue for property taxes in Austin - but AISD never had a problem with the amount of taxes collected, only that they didn't get to keep them for themselves!! AISD has not been good stewards with taxes received.
But just because AISD largely drives the high taxes, it doesn't eliminate responsibility from all the OTHER taxing entities that habitually increase our annual taxes to unaffordable levels. They want to blame AISD and recapture and disclaim any role in our affordability!! Travis raised taxes like $30 a month for childcare for a handful of parents - yes people stupidly voted for that since it sounded good - but when this happens year after year, $30 extra a month for Travis, $30 extra a month for Central Health, $40 extra a month for Austin, $10 extra a month for ACC - it all adds up!!! And repeated YEAR AFTER YEAR - death by 1000 cuts.
Your post history would indicate you are a librarian for Austin - cheers to you and thanks, but being a city employee you are far from an independent voice on city spending!!
When the libraries were closed for a year during the pandemic and you were still getting paid - I realize some did public health outreach stuff - but literally the libraries were closed for a long time and people were paid in full - I'm sure you will have some explanation to make this sound better, but what was everyone doing for full pay while the libraries were closed for a year??
•
u/tradesman6771 18h ago
I was working full time doing curbside deliveries to customers in the parking lot. I never worked from home.
I’m definitely able to form an independent opinion of the City. I haven’t always worked for them.
I respect your right to have different opinions, but this post is about a so-called efficiency audit, which, as I pointed out, is entirely unnecessary. You already have the information necessary to develop your opinions.•
u/sushinestarlight 18h ago
Yes you are correct, I DO think they waste money!! I've seen no-bid contracts from during the pandemic where they spent $50k for a consultant to setup a Zoom call meeting so they could get feedback from the public on some project they were going to do anyway....
My frustration is that I would have setup the 1 zoom call for $25K had it not been a no-bid contract! And seriously does city staff need to outsource public commentary (particularly with an expensive virtual meeting)???
My frustrations is that I believe the waste on consultants and 3rd party "non-profit" entities and software/cloud contracts needs to be exposed - and those issues would never be exposed without an efficiency audit!!
The regular audits just make sure the money adds up, and perhaps a small sampling of invoices to make sure they aren't bogus companies - but a general audit isn't particularly investigative in nature.
•
u/tradesman6771 18h ago
And you found all that information without an outside audit. That’s my point.
•
u/sushinestarlight 17h ago
Solely because there was some dude on Twitter who liked to expose Austin waste by requesting contracts via freedom of information requests - but clearly the media never picked up on it and no one is generally paying attention to Austin spending because that would indicate they are MAGA or something no one wants to be associated with here... I vote for democrats mostly but the national democrats rarely increase my cost of living since my income hasn't fluctuated - the local democrats cost me money every time they get a harebrained idea!! Seriously my mortgage payment went up $200 a month after the Travis county childcare and AISD voter approved increases!! $200 a month is a lot extra for me and it sucked... And then AISD only kept like $40M of the $175M and closed schools and just generally sucks! I'm sick of the wild spending. I HAVE A FIXED BUDGET and the city/county/AISD/ACC/Central Health need to do better in not raising my monthly budget!! I'm sick of it.
→ More replies (0)•
•
u/Tedmosby9931 3d ago
Every form of government should be audited. This isn't a party line thing. This is people's money, and the country/state/city is supposed to be for the people.
Anything being wasted is theft.
•
u/imsoupercereal 3d ago
Good thing we already have an auditor then? https://www.austintexas.gov/auditor
•
u/LexiLan 2d ago
Again with my point above. Having COA audit their own spending is like asking students to grade their own tests.
•
u/SpeakCodeToMe 2d ago
Having the state or SAN audit the city's spending is like having the fox audit chicken coop security.
•
u/sushinestarlight 2d ago
The city auditor mostly does reactive investigations, often triggered by internal complaints made by city employees or departments - often initiated long after any fraud has been going on for years..
Like the city employee who had been funneling money to bogus companies owned by family members for work not actually performed or needed on the facilities he was overseeing. It was $1.5M or something and had already gone on for like 7 years before anyone noticed.
Someone reported the guy, and only then did the audit office do an investigation and audit on what had happened and who knew/should have known... It's not like the auditing office "discovered" this on their own.
Had the audit office "discovered" this on their own in say year 2, perhaps you might have a point. But they didn't notice anything amiss until it was reported in year 7.
•
u/Fun_School_6252 2d ago
The office you guys should be looking at is Capital Delivery Services. They've been entirely overhauled in the last year or so, and the new direction is fantastic IMO
Specifically, they take the lead role in reviewing projects (future, ongoing, and past) to see what problems there are/were, what hurdles need to be addressed, and if the scope should be adjusted/the project canceled.
The City is also working to completely update their public-facing accounting reporting software. It'll take a few years still, but they're trying to get us to the point Dallas is at, where the public can go to a dashboard and click the budget bucket or project to check progress, macro-expenses, and funding status.
•
u/sushinestarlight 2d ago
So will the accounting software update improve the check register function? They have some stuff online - but if you drill too far down to view details, 90% of the time it seems to say the contract or details aren't available... Like it's supposed to allow you to see more and then it craps out with an oooops error.
•
u/Fun_School_6252 2d ago
Yup, 100%
IIRC, data transparency, site usability, and centralizrd reporting are the three main issues they're trying to solve with the new software
Rolls out in waves, but the every department and project should end up there when it's done
Edit: sorry, skipped over the language about contracts being available. No, this still needs to be sourced elsewhere, but that's also to be expected. Still publicly available, but that has to be a different effort to centralize things like that
•
u/sushinestarlight 2d ago
Well hopefully the contract part comes eventually - as I feel perhaps with greater transparency and more easy availability to the public and journalists - would potentially stem some questionable spending.
There used to be some guy online that got contracts by request (largely to expose waste) - some of the ones he posted during the pandemic were certainly troubling - at least to me...
Like a no-bid contract to pay an external consultant ~$50K to facilitate 1 Zoom meeting for "public feedback" on some idea (that city will likely do regardless of feedback received). Like the city needs to pay a consultant $50k to setup a Zoom call for feedback??
I guess I find contracts like that troubling... Of the > $1M logo debacle - hundreds of thousands of dollars were paid to consultants to get "public feedback" - yet the majority of Austinites had no exposure or input that the logo was even being redone (so they weren't doing broad reach out for all the consulting money spent).. and the feedback given was "yes, blue and greens like river and trees is so Austin".
And I think the consultant spending and say software license spending are areas I believe true savings could be accumulated with efficiency audit.
•
•
u/Fun_School_6252 2d ago
Waste is entirely subjective (this is not up for debate) and is an inherently bad metric
•
u/kmillerbrenner 2d ago
I think it’s throwing significant tax dollars away to contractors. We need a city based independent (reports to council) internal audit.
•
•
u/bikedaybaby 1d ago
I think it’s not needed, but that we should do it to prove that it wasn’t needed to begin with. There are too many people who doubt the government, especially with trying to reduce property taxes and avoid any kind of income tax. We need to prove that there’s no way to make ends meet, and you can’t fund the city programs we need with hot air.
•
u/Euphoric_Anxiety_162 22h ago
Depends on the objectivity of the auditors. With ppl vulnerable to financial influencers, great caution must be exercised, sadly.
•
•
u/sushinestarlight 3d ago edited 3d ago
I'm all for it - the current council outside of Duchen and Watson seemed to not get the memo on wild spending after Prop Q failed.
They all claimed they did (for like a month) and then went back to their wasteful spending ways on stuff like expanded cap and stitch and adding a bond vote this year against the advice of city staff.
The city manager cut some programs and the current city council added the funding back and issued certificates of obligation as well to fund their spending. It will never stop unless we get some new people on the council.
Any efficiency audit is better than no audit, but I'm unsure if who they hired is really going to "investigate".. Kind of feel they were hand picked to audit with kid gloves. I mean they were previously picked to audit Chicago and Baltimore in the past - and if you can't find much fraud/waste or efficiencies in Chicago/Baltimore government - you probably weren't tying too hard... Both cities have a long history of governmental fraud/waste/mismanagement and downright corruption.
•
u/barcoder96 3d ago
It would be nice to know where and how our government is spending money vs the vague promises and ideological diatribes that our elected representatives dribble out for the masses.
•
u/logtron 3d ago
The city website has some pretty good views for that, at least high level. For more detailed views it depends on the department, but most seem pretty decent.
And the city's auditor already has highlighted a lack of transparency into homelessness funding a few years ago, which the department is behind in addressing. I think the consolation into a single department was the first step of those changes.
The calls for more auditing seem to just want an additional audit the to what the city is already checking, it would be completely redundant and a waste of money.
•
u/SpeakCodeToMe 2d ago
If you actually cared you would already know. You're more interested in Reddit grandstanding.
•
u/barcoder96 2d ago
How would I know when the city itself claims to not know.
•
u/SpeakCodeToMe 1d ago
Where and when did the city itself claim to not know?
•
u/barcoder96 1d ago
Just recently even when the homeless person claimed not to know key stats.
What rock did you crawl out from?
•
u/LexiLan 2d ago
We absolutely need this audit!!!! Why would anyone be against and OUTSIDE organization figuring out where the heck all of our funding is actually going?
How many times have we voted for something and then seen it get massively delayed over lacking funding it supposedly already had?
I can’t even imagine why someone would consider opposing this.
•
u/Reptilian_American06 2d ago
Because of who is doing the audit. But if you liked DOGE results, this is for you.
•
u/tradesman6771 22h ago
https://www.austintexas.gov/auditor/audit-reports
Audits are routinely performed. They’re submitted to outside scrutiny.
•
•
u/OrdinaryGuy2712 2d ago
Come on folks! This is why!
•
u/SpeakCodeToMe 2d ago
Deliberately misleading propaganda because the city of Austin budget includes Austin Utilities, which makes money.
Why do we have to point this out to you A holes in every thread? 🤔
•
•
•
u/biolox 3d ago
Feels like a fig leaf for some Temu DOGE shit