{"id":181956,"date":"2026-02-26T22:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T22:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/181956\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T22:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T22:46:08","slug":"austin-council-greenlights-outside-audit-following-voter-tax-revolt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/181956\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin council greenlights outside audit following voter tax revolt"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Austin City Council unanimously adopted an ordinance for a\u00a0citywide efficiency study<\/a> Thursday. The ordinance would establish a \u201ccomprehensive efficiency assessment program\u201d to examine city operations and identify potential savings with the help of a third party consultant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mayor Kirk Watson called it a \u201creally proud step\u201d for the city, noting that he does not know of any other city doing a systemic citywide ongoing independent efficiency assessment and that the move continues the practice of \u201cAustin being in a unique position of leading.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s both a back-to-basics and a modernization of local government,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The ordinance directs City Auditor Jason Hadavi to initiate the audit within a year and post the proposed schedule, recommendations and implementation progress on the city website.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe work doesn’t stop here,\u201d Council Member Marc Duchen, who first proposed the efficiency study in August<\/a>, said after the vote. \u201cWe’ll need to continue to be vigilant long after this vote. We\u2019ll need to work with the auditor and get regular updates and ensure that we’re receiving audit recommendations in a timely way to make informed budget choices and I look forward to that work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The audit ordinance comes in the wake of voters’ overwhelming rejection of Proposition Q<\/a>, a ballot measure proposed by council that would have raised property taxes by over 20% to fund an array of city projects including homelessness response services.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A parallel effort is currently ongoing to enshrine a citywide audit in the city\u2019s charter. That effort is spearheaded by Save Austin Now PAC, which also led the charge against Proposition Q. Though the group missed the deadline<\/a> to put the measure on the May ballot, PAC leaders told the Statesman \u00a0they expect to get the amendment on the November ballot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The PAC\u2019s co-lead, Matt Mackowiak, said the group supports the ordinance but believes a charter amendment is still the best path for an audit because city ordinances can be overturned with a council vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Austin City Council unanimously adopted an ordinance for a\u00a0citywide efficiency study Thursday. The ordinance would establish a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,1501,1823,134,133,251,27],"class_list":{"0":"post-181956","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-city-council","10":"tag-austin-city-hall","11":"tag-austin-headlines","12":"tag-austin-news","13":"tag-local-news","14":"tag-texas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}