Austin Energy workers Reese Blaha, left, and Matt Reinhardt restore power to a neighborhood on Wycliff Lane in northwest Austin on Monday February 6, 2023, after an ice storm last week caused a major power outage.
Jay Janner / American-Statesman
An Austin Energy supervisor paid his neighbor $27,611 for lawn care and landscaping at two utility sites, overpaying the neighbor by as much as $16,200, according to a recent investigative report by the Austin City Auditor’s Office.
The report, released late last month, stemmed from a larger review by city auditors into potential misuse of city credit cards. The office launched the effort last year after a separate investigation found that a former Austin Energy employee had routed nearly $1 million to fictitious vendors over six years.
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An Austin Energy crew works on a utility line on Metlink Road in Austin on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman
The broader review, which examined transactions on all city-issued credit cards from July 2024 to June 2025, uncovered two vendors that auditors could not verify. Further investigation found two city code violations by the Austin Energy supervisor, while the other instance proved inconclusive.
Brian Molloy, chief of investigations for the Auditor’s Office, said the case showed the value of the broader review. The office informally aims to conduct one integrity project each year, he said.
Molloy said he hoped the report would remind city employees to act in the city’s best interests and use public resources responsibly.
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“Hopefully this report creates a bunch of awareness across all the ProCard holders in the city,” he said.
Austin Energy case
The investigation found that Austin Energy Operations and Maintenance Supervisor Bradley Jarrell used his position to secure special privileges for his neighbor, hiring him to provide lawn care and landscaping 11 times between August 2023 and April 2025 at the Domain and the ACC Highland District Cooling Center.
Jarrell did not require his neighbor to document the work accurately, provide quotes for his services or sign a contract for recurring work costing more than $5,000, the report found. Jarrell also did not define the work’s scope or attempt to negotiate pricing.
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He told auditors he first asked his neighbor about doing work for the city while the neighbor was cutting trees at Jarrell’s home.
Jarrell paid the neighbor $27,611 in total, according to the report. Based on quotes from a private company and Austin Energy Facilities Services staff, auditors found that Jarrell “significantly overpaid his neighbor” and could have paid $9,600 to $16,200 less for all services provided if he had used another private company or a city contractor instead.
A manager with Austin Energy Facilities Services told auditors the request for lawn care was“‘so small and insignificant” that his team planned to buy supplies and do the work itself. City staff could have cared for the ACC District Cooling Center site for about $1,200 — 89% less than the $10,642 Jarrell paid his neighbor for that work, the report found.
“Jarrell’s use of his neighbor to provide lawn care services was grossly uneconomical, as Jarrell could have negotiated pricing with his neighbor or leveraged more affordable and easily accessible vendor or facilities options to perform work,” auditors wrote in the report.
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Employee and Austin Energy response
Austin Energy linemen work to restore power during a Feb. 1, 2023, winter storm.
Jay Janner / American-Statesman
Jarrell was the second-highest-paid employee at Austin Energy after General Manager Stuart Reilly, earning $363,881 from October 2024 to September 2025, according to an American-Statesman analysis. He has worked for the utility since 2016 and is still employed there.
Jarrell declined to comment on the audit, citing city Human Resources guidance on speaking to the press.
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In written testimony included in the report, Jarrell acknowledged that some invoices should have contained more detail and that he could have sought additional procurement guidance after his neighbor performed multiple jobs. But he said, “those administrative issues do not establish the much more serious ethical violations alleged.”
Jarrell said Winter Storm Mara made landscaping vendors difficult to find in 2023. He criticized the report for not providing evidence to support its estimate of how much it would have cost to do the work in-house, and for not accounting for factors such as wage assumptions, benefits, payroll costs, supervision, the number of visits and equipment.
Jarrell said all transactions went through the city’s financial system and no reviewer informed him that the invoices were unacceptable.
“When a control system later scrutinizes an employee for transactions that the same control system repeatedly reviewed without correction, that history must be evaluated fairly,” he said.
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He added that his last ProCard training was in 2020 and he had not received a refresher closer to the transactions under investigation.
Jarrell requested that the findings be withdrawn and the investigation closed. He also asked that auditors not publish the draft investigation.
Auditors said they obtained comparison quotes from vendors and staff with firsthand knowledge of the sites and the work and said they “reviewed the subject’s response and believe our findings stand.”
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In a memo included in the report, Reilly said the utility would work with Human Resources to “determine the appropriate action to address the violations.” He said the utility has continued to reinforce ProCard expectations, and that all cardholders and approvers received training from Austin Energy staff in June 2026. He also said the utility fully cooperated with the auditor’s investigation and would continue strengthening its processes.
Austin Energy spokesperson Matt Mitchell said the utility could not comment on confidential personnel matters.