A newly-approved ordinance will set up a recurring “comprehensive efficiency assessment” \u2013 essentially a systemic audit of all city departments and operations.<\/p>\n
AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 The Austin City Council took a unanimous vote on Thursday that could change how taxpayer dollars are tracked.<\/p>\n
Council members approved an ordinance designed to give taxpayers a clearer picture of how their money is being spent and to rebuild public trust.<\/p>\n
The ordinance sets up a recurring, citywide “comprehensive efficiency assessment” \u2013 essentially a systemic audit of all city departments and operations. It directs the City Auditor’s Office to contract with outside experts and examine everything from management structures to contracting practices, looking for ways to save money and improve services.<\/p>\n
“It’s both a back to basics [step] and a modernization of local government, and that’s really important because it arises out of a determination for us to safeguard public confidence,” Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said.<\/p>\n
The audit must be launched within 12 months, and results and recommendations will be published online to boost transparency.<\/p>\n
Supporters say this is a novel approach for a city of Austin’s size, tying recurring reviews of services to taxpayer accountability.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, critics \u2013 including outside groups pushing for a charter amendment \u2013 argue an ordinance alone can be too easily overturned without a vote of the people.<\/p>\n
The city says the hope is that the ordinance will not only find savings but also influence how future budgets are shaped in Austin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A newly-approved ordinance will set up a recurring “comprehensive efficiency assessment” \u2013 essentially a systemic audit of all…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-183063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183063","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=183063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}