City Council Member Ryan Alter, left, makes a $100,000 donation to the Austin Parks and Recreation Department with a ceremonial big check presented to Parks and Recreation President Jesús Aguirre, Oct. 22, 2025.
Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman
Underneath a large tree outside the city of Austin’s Parks and Recreation Department headquarters late last month, a small gaggle of reporters gathered around City Council Member Ryan Alter, who waxed poetic about the city’s greenspaces. An oversized ceremonial check with “ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND” scrawled across its face leaned against the tree’s thick trunk.
“I love our park system,” Alter said. “It’s where our kids go play, we have our birthday parties, our soccer games, and our communities come together. I really wanted to be able to do more to enrich our parks, and decided to use savings from our office account and invest that directly in our parks for our community.”
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City Council Member Ryan Alter makes a $100,000 donation to the Austin Parks and Recreation Department, Oct. 22, 2025.
Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman
City Council Member Ryan Alter makes a $100,000 donation to the Austin Parks and Recreation Department, Oct. 22, 2025.
Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman
District 4 Council Member José “Chito” Vela is the lead sponsor of “The APD Open Policing Data Release” resolution.
Mikala Compton/American-Statesman
Council Member Krista Laine speaks during a City of Austin press conference regarding homelessness in Austin Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
Austin City Council member Jose Velasquez speaks about the youth mental health first aid training available at Integral Care Dove Springs Clinic Wednesday, July 17, 2024. Travis County supports the program, which is available for free and offered by Integral Care to individuals, schools, businesses and organizations in Austin and the county.
Mikala Compton/American-Statesman
Alter said the $100,000 transfer to the parks department was “made possible by consistent fiscal restraint in his office budget” and will contribute to “shovel-ready” upgrades at Garrison Park and Piney Bend Playground in his South Austin district.
The transfer — the largest donation Alter has given from his office budget during his time on the council — is not his first. It also came shortly after the American-Statesman inquired about other donations he charged to his city credit card.
Besides the park donation, Alter has distributed nearly $10,000 in taxpayer funds to schools, nonprofits and, in a few cases, political organizations — a practice prohibited by other large Texas cities like San Antonio, which bars council members from donating city funds to nonprofits.
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And Alter is not the only council member who is funding pet projects on the taxpayer’s dime after the council voted to increase their own discretionary budgets for this fiscal year, a Statesman analysis of council member credit card statements found. The analysis covered each member’s entire tenure in office.
Others have spent thousands on furniture, artwork, consultants, training, international travel and more using public dollars, despite being among the highest-paid and best-funded council members in the state. Experts and fiscal watchdogs said the expenditures suggest Austin council members’ budgets are simply too big and that the city has overly permissive spending policies.
The revelations come as the city is asking voters to support Proposition Q, which would hike city property taxes by more than 20% to generate $110 million for a variety of initiatives council members say are vital to Austin’s quality of life. The average homeowner would pay $300 a year more in taxes if the measure passes on Nov. 4 — and that doesn’t account for hikes from other taxing entities like Travis County.
It also comes during months of scrutiny by the Statesman into discretionary spending among Austin’s top leaders that uncovered misuse of city credit cards and a spendthrift culture at City Hall. Previous reporting has already prompted Alter to reimburse the city $1,200 after the publication found that he and City Manager T.C. Broadnax routinely used city money to pay for meals during “working lunches” in violation of city policy.
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Public money, private causes
The Statesman’s analysis found that some City Council members occasionally make taxpayer-funded donations to advocacy organizations, nonprofits and other groups — but for Alter, it’s a habit.
Since taking office in 2023, he has donated some $10,000 in public money to outside groups, some of which are political or may advocate for causes that not all his constituents support and, according to experts, may toe an ethical line.
Organizations that have received taxpayer-funded donations from Alter’s office include nonprofits like Liberal Austin Democrats and Hispanic Advocates Business Leaders of Austin, or HABLA. The purpose cited for the latter donation was an “event to improve the economic landscape and quality of life for Hispanics in Austin,” according to city records. The former donation was “to support voter registration and engagement efforts” in 2024. However, Alter’s office said that it mistakenly mischaracterized the purpose in expense reports and that it was actually intended for homeless outreach through Mobile Loaves and Fishes.
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Last year, records show, he gave $1,100 to the Other Ones Foundation to clean up a homeless camp in his district, and this year gave to the Community First Village for homelessness services and the affordable nonprofit Foundation Communities.
Alter also has donated to advocacy groups like Texas Gun Sense, Clean Water Action and the Save Barton Creek Association, and to a variety of schools and education-related groups. In 2023, he donated $1,000 to the PTA at Blazier Elementary — a school not in his district — and sent the organization $200 more a year later.
Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, said the kind of contribution Alter is prone to make would typically come from campaign fundraising rather than a taxpayer-funded city account.
“A campaign account can be used to give to all of these kinds of entities, schools, political organizations,” Jillson said. “It’s less clear that it’s appropriate out of the City Council public funds.”
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Alter’s office told the Statesman that most of the contributions fit their understanding of the city’s spending policies since they were given in exchange for goods or services, as required by city spending rules.
“We have looked for opportunities to help enrich our community,” Alter told the Statesman. “I don’t think we can just give (money) away; that’s not how the system is set up, but where we can receive a benefit and also help benefit the community, that’s something we have tried to do.”
Alter’s single largest contribution — $2,500 in January — went to the Texas Bar Foundation for a lifetime membership to the exclusive, attorneys-only philanthropic group that “provides funding to enhance the rule of law and the system of justice in Texas,” according to its website.
An invitation to join the group is “one of the highest honors that can be bestowed upon a member of the State Bar of Texas,” the site says. Alter is a graduate of Harvard Law School and licensed to practice in Texas.
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Most other members of the City Council have given little or no office funding away to nonprofits, the Statesman’s analysis found.
Austin District 1 City Council member Natasha Harper-Madison speaks during the council’s first meeting of 2023 on Thursday Jan. 26 at City Hall in Austin.
Aaron E. Martinez / American-Statesman, Austin American-Statesman
One exception is Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison, who in 2019 used her city credit card to purchase a table at an NAACP banquet for $750 and to pay for a program advertisement for an additional $200. She also sponsored the Black Women in Business Extravaganza that same year for $250. In 2024, she spent $500 on an expense simply labeled “sponsorship of community event.”
“The expenses noted from the District 1 Council office budget are fully in line with City of Austin policy, which allows for the use of city funds to co-sponsor a non-profit or charitable organization’s event when it serves a public purpose,” said Sharon Mays, Harper-Madison’s chief of staff.
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But Austin’s spending policies are far looser than those of many peer cities, a previous Statesman investigation found. Other large Texas cities, like Fort Worth, Dallas and Houston more explicitly outline how members can spend their office funds and some explicitly ban such donations.
Austin’s policy is “about as minimal as you can get while still having a policy,” ethics lawyer Andrew Cates previously told the Statesman.
According to the Texas Municipal League, “a gratuitous donation or gift by a city is prohibited by the Texas Constitution,” but case law establishes that an expenditure is valid if it accomplishes a legitimate public purpose.
Even so, Andrew McVeigh, the president of Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, said elected officials should not be using taxpayer funds to support other organizations, especially political ones.
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“This idea that these officials should just be able to spend taxpayer money wherever they want, including giving it to other agencies without having to take a vote on it … that’s highly concerning,” McVeigh said. “That’s not what taxpayer funds are for.”
Consultants, coach and couches
The Statesman’s analysis found that other council members prefer to spend on things like consultants, staff development, artwork, office furniture and international travel.
Council Member Vanessa Fuentes, for instance, has spent more than $10,000 on consultants since she took office in 2021. She paid $4,500 via Paypal for “consulting services” in 2021. The next year, she hired a facilitator for a staff retreat at a cost of $2,000.
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In 2024, Fuentes paid $4,120 to Alejandra Mielke — a “Latina Power” career coach — for personality testing and one-on-one coaching, according to spending documents the Statesman reviewed.
Amelia Casas, an advisor in Fuentes’ office, said the expenses “relate to the training, education, and professional development of District 2 team staff.”
City of Austin Council Member and Mayor Pro Tem Vanessa Fuentes speaks during a press conference celebrating CapMetro’s 40th Anniversary at their headquarters in East Austin, July 1, 2025.
Sara Diggins, Austin American-Statesman
Alter, likewise, has invested in staff development, spending $10,000 to send a staffer to an executive course on climate change at Harvard University.
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Council Member Mike Siegel, who took office in January, has spent thousands on consultants during his first 10 months in office. That included $7,200 to a firm called SGC Strategies for an office consultant in May and June. The firm belongs to another council member’s chief of staff, according to city records, and Siegel’s spokesperson Jess Robertson told the Statesman the consultant “had significant expertise as a result of working in multiple city council offices and in nearly every staff role.”
Siegel also purchased art and furniture for his office with taxpayer dollars, spending about $2,000 on decorative artwork. He’s also spent the most on furniture among his peers, dropping $2,800 since he took office earlier this year.
Siegel’s staff doesn’t know what happened to the furniture and art used by his predecessor.
“When we arrived at the office there was insufficient furniture and no art,” Robertson said. “We weren’t told, we just arrived in January to a pretty barren office space.”
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Siegel, just weeks before Election Day, continued the council’s tradition of traveling internationally for advocacy work, flying to Germany for a meeting of the Berlin Urban Nature Pact. Austin is one of 17 signatories to the pact, which “seeks to halt and reverse biodiversity loss to put nature on a path to recovery,” its website notes. Robertson said Siegel flew coach and stayed only for the duration of the four-day conference.
“He presented on three panels at the conference, sharing data gathered from the City’s programs on climate action, watershed, and wildlife preservation,” she said, noting that the city will convene a biodiversity stakeholders group as a result of the trip.
But the taxpayer-funded international travel on the eve of a tax rate election drew ire from Austin netizens, who said the trip suggests Siegel is “out of touch” with his constituents.
District 7 council member Mike Siegel, along with other city council members and activists, spoke out against automated license plate readers during a press conference at City Hall on Wednesday, June 4, 2025.
Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman
Fuentes, meanwhile, led a delegation of 27 Austinites to Oita, Japan just last week to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the municipalities’ sister-city relationship, her office confirmed.
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A spokesperson told the Statesman that the majority of expenses for the delegation was paid by the Austin-Oita Sister City Committee or the delegates themselves, while Fuentes only paid for a few flights out of her office travel budget.
Big budgets getting bigger
Jillson and other experts say the expenses underscore the need for council members to be more judicious about their own spending when asking taxpayers to bolster the budget.
Responding specifically to Alter’s $100,000 park donation, Jillson said it makes sense to give surplus funding to another department that needs it — but “it does suggest the office budgets are inflated if that kind of flexibility exists,” he said.
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Said McVeigh: “If you’re being responsible with your budget, why are you transferring money into parks and rec and at the same time asking Austinites to pony up a 20% property tax increase because you supposedly don’t have enough money?”
Each Austin City Council member receives a base budget of $898,000 for Fiscal Year 2026, a 4.5% increase over last year. Council members also voted to increase their own travel allotments by 55% and food budgets by 43%, the Statesman previously reported.
Austin council office budgets are already higher than some other major Texas cities compared to the number of constituents.
For instance, Houston’s district-based council members receive $1.2 million a year and have about 212,000 constituents on average. That’s $5.65 per constituent. Austin council offices get $898,000 but represent fewer than 100,000 people on average. That’s more than $9 per constituent.
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Austin council members also earn significantly more than many of their counterparts in other major Texas cities.
In 2022, the City Council quietly approved a roughly 40% pay raise for its part-time members, boosting council salaries from about $83,000 to $116,000 and the mayor’s salary from $97,000 to $134,000 — a move that drew sharp criticism for its lack of transparency. By contrast, Houston City Council members make just under $63,000 per year, even though they serve far more constituents.
San Antonio City Council members make $77,000. No other council member in a major urban city makes six figures.
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Those facts led McVeigh, the fiscal watchdog, to this conclusion:
“People in Austin need to really focus in on what their elected officials are doing and hold them accountable.”