occurred<\/a> last month, involved Chief Information Security Officer Brian Gardner and Senior IT Enterprise Architects Hawre Sulaiman and William Snead. <\/p>\nCity officials described the moves as the result of \u201can ongoing review\u201d and said they were unrelated to cybersecurity threats or information security issues.<\/p>\n
According to city employees familiar with the firings, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation, Sulaiman and Snead worked full-time for both Austin and Dallas for about six months after being hired in Austin last fall. <\/p>\n
Snead was on family leave from his Dallas position while collecting a salary from Austin. Gardner was let go after officials learned he operated an undisclosed limited liability company.<\/p>\n
All three men had previously worked in Dallas\u2019 IT department during the tenure of Austin City Manager T.C. Broadnax, who held the same post in Dallas before moving to Austin in 2024.<\/p>\n
Broadnax declined to be interviewed.<\/p>\n
The dual-employment allegations surfaced in November when the Dallas Office of Inspector General received an anonymous tip through its confidential whistleblower hotline. Interim Inspector General Baron Eliason opened an investigation and notified the Dallas Police Department\u2019s Public Integrity Unit, City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, and Austin officials.<\/p>\n
\u201cInterim Inspector General Baron Eliason opened an investigation and notified the Dallas Police Department\u2019s Public Integrity Unit and City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert,\u201d the Dallas office said in a statement, per The Austin American-Statesman. \u201cThe inspector general also alerted the city of Austin, and City Manager Tolbert directed the IT department to take appropriate action.\u201d<\/p>\n
Austin spokeswoman Jenny LaCoste-Caputo said in a statement, \u201cThis is an ongoing investigation, and so we will not be sharing any further information,\u201d The Statesman reported.<\/p>\n
In a follow-up comment, she added that Broadnax \u201cwas not aware of the dual employment until it was revealed by the investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n
City of Austin employees are required to disclose outside employment and potential conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n
In a prepared statement on Thursday, Mayor Kirk Watson said he supported the decision but emphasized that personnel matters fall under the city manager\u2019s authority.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe City Manager is responsible for the day-to-day administrative operations of the City, including the hiring and firing of personnel, a responsibility independent from the Mayor and Council\u2019s input,\u201d Watson said, noting that Broadnax had informed him of the firings. \u201cI fully support his decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
The situation has raised questions about hiring practices and professional standards. Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University, said the firings reflect on Broadnax\u2019s judgment, given his prior working relationship with the three men in Dallas.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresumably from Broadnax\u2019s perspective, you would bring the people that you know and trust,\u201d Jillson said, according to The Statesman. \u201cHe really does have to expect to be judged on this. It\u2019s not all going to fall on these malefactors here. This is a question of judgment and insight into character because these folks had worked together before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ethics attorney Andrew Cates said the case highlights basic expectations for full-time public employees.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of the ethical implications, generally speaking, when you\u2019re full-time, you\u2019re full-time. You don\u2019t have a side gig,\u201d he said, The Statesman reported. \u201cFailure to disclose that \u2013 I\u2019m not at all surprised resulted in termination.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cates added that the employees\u2019 roles in IT made the violations especially troubling.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe put a lot of trust in them to find vulnerabilities and patch them up and not exploit them,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we can\u2019t trust you to not have two jobs, then what else are you betraying our trust about, and what else are you doing with all this sensitive information?\u201d<\/p>\n
Gardner and Sulaiman declined to comment, citing advice of counsel, but Sulaiman provided a statement purportedly from his lawyer, claiming that the allegations against his client were \u201csimply false.\u201d Snead could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n
The investigation remains ongoing, and both cities have declined to release additional details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Austin has fired three senior information technology leaders after discovering they held undisclosed second jobs, including two who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[132,93526,93523,93522,93524,102,104,103,93525,19479,12015,16993],"class_list":{"0":"post-245050","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-dual-employment-scandal","10":"tag-austin-fires-it-leaders","11":"tag-austin-it-firings","12":"tag-brian-gardner-fired-austin","13":"tag-dallas","14":"tag-dallas-headlines","15":"tag-dallas-news","16":"tag-hawre-sulaiman-william-snead-austin-dallas","17":"tag-information-technology","18":"tag-it","19":"tag-t-c-broadnax"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245050","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=245050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}