Wednesday, October 15, 2025, 9:30 a.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall, 301 W 2nd St, Austin, TX 78701
Committee: Audit and Finance Committee
0:04 It's nine 30 on Wednesday, October 15th, 2025.
0:08 Uh, I will call to order the audit and finance committee of the Austin City Council.
0:13 We are meeting at 3 0 1 west second street in Austin, texas, in the City Council chambers, which are
0:18 located in City Hall.
0:19 And we have a quorum of the audit and finance committee present.
0:23 Uh, we have a very full agenda, so I'm just gonna jump in right into it.
0:27 Um, what I'm gonna do is, uh, ask mr. Johnson, mr. Johnson, you're the only person that signed up to
0:32 speak, so, uh, I'll, I'm, I can either let you speak now or we can wait till we
0:37 get to item number four, which is what you signed up to speak on.
0:40 But I, if you want, you can go ahead and speak to us now.
0:43 You'll have three minutes.
0:54 Welcome and thank you.
0:57 Good morning, Mayor and City Council members.
0:58 My name is scott johnson.
1:00 I value the city's boarding commission system.
1:02 I was on a board in the 1990s and realized the opportunity for people to get involved and
1:08 to share their insight and recommendations to the Austin City Council.
1:12 I liked it so much.
1:13 In the year 2000, I developed an idea that was to have a board and commission appreciation event
1:19 during Mayor watson's first term.
1:21 And this is the booklet that was made by the city clerk's office.
1:25 I chaired the planning committee on this, and it went off well, other than there was a lot
1:29 of no-shows, uh, who miss some good food.
1:33 This particular page is the page where we start with the most tenured people at that time.
1:38 There's actually someone who had a another year beyond chuy fath, the late chuy fath, and the others
1:43 on there for 25 years or more.
1:45 And you can read yourself that.
1:51 Next, next slide, please.
1:52 This is a letter sent to me by the late jackie goodman, former Mayor Pro Tem beverly griffith and
1:58 danny thomas to thank me for my work to generate the idea and to lead the planning team.
2:04 Next slide, please. And this is the letter from the younger version of Mayor Kirk Watson.
2:10 And you can read some of the relevant information up on top.
2:16 Thank you. Later. The next one are for other, this is the council members writing.
2:22 Thank you to the board and commissions members who were in attendance.
2:25 There were about 460 at that time.
2:27 Next slide, please. And then this is the proclamation that Mayor Watson did give to fath.
2:35 And, uh, mary, who is a very tenured person at that time, prior to the event, unfortunately Mayor
2:42 Watson had a conflict and couldn't be there at that event.
2:46 Next slide. Is there one more?
2:49 After the recession in the early two thousands, I reached out for former city manager, uh, toby rell,
2:58 and asked if we could have another one we did here in 2005.
3:02 And then there was one in 2007.
3:04 And I don't have a booklet for that one.
3:06 I've given you all booklets except for Council Member Vela.
3:09 And if, uh, any of you wanna keep it, please do.
3:12 It has more relevance to Mayor Watson, then to you all.
3:15 But you might find it interesting.
3:17 And then I'll get a booklet for if all of you keep the booklets.
3:21 I only have four.
3:21 I'll make another one.
3:22 And it's under the limit for don gifts to council members <laugh>.
3:27 And I did wanna say that I value the system a lot.
3:30 And I would, I go to several board of commission meetings regularly myself, and I would always like
3:37 the board commission members to be thinking about questions that they can ask.
3:42 I believe in this era, there aren't as many questions asked as before.
3:45 And I would ask the council members when they're appointing them, to set some structure and request for
3:51 them to check in with them regularly, send them updates, which I know some do, but, but not
3:56 all do. And just try to make the system as great as possible.
3:59 Thank you very much.
4:00 Thank you. And I particularly appreciate you pointing out that I wasn't at the event.
4:05 'Cause I've been sitting up here trying to remember the event and, and I was thinking, uh, oh.
4:09 I've, I've forgotten it, but, good.
4:12 And, and by the way, everybody, uh, I haven't aged hardly at all, <laugh>, but he hadn't aged
4:19 at all. So, uh, appreciate your bringing this to our attention.
4:22 Appreciate you being here this morning.
4:23 Thank you very much.
4:24 You're welcome. It's very thoughtful.
4:27 Okay, with that, we'll go to item number one, which is an approval of the minutes of the
4:31 audit finance committee meetings of September 17th, 2025 and October 14th, 2025.
4:37 I'll entertain a motion Council Member vala moves approval seconded by Council Member uchin.
4:41 Is there discussion without objection.
4:44 Uh, the minutes of those two, two, those two meetings are approved with the Mayor Pro Tem, uh,
4:50 off the, I'm going to say off the di uh, I'm assuming she'll be here, uh, at some
4:55 point, but if she's not, we'll show her absent for our record.
4:58 Item number two is discussion of possible action regarding setting the audit and finance committee meeting dates for
5:03 calendar year 2026. And I'll, uh, ask our deputy, uh, auditor to deputy city auditor to make a
5:10 brief presentation. Members you have, uh, dates in your packet.
5:14 One of the things that I will point out, well, I'll let you point it out, talk, and
5:18 then I'll see if I need to point anything out.
5:20 You go ahead. Sorry.
5:21 Thank you. Uh, jason avi, deputy city auditor.
5:24 Uh, we've got 10 dates that are posted in the backup.
5:27 The, the original list had a separate February and March meeting.
5:31 That's what I was gonna point out.
5:32 And in recognition of a small event called south by southwest, we usually move that March committee meeting.
5:37 So we've combined them into one in early March to avoid that.
5:40 And, and a isd spring break.
5:42 The rest of the meetings follow our typical protocols for, for the audit committee meetings.
5:49 Any questions? All right.
5:51 Um, uh, vice chair Alter moves approval of the, uh, meeting dates for calendar year 2026, seconded by
6:00 Council Member Vela. Discussion without objection, the motion is adopted.
6:05 Thank you very much.
6:06 That'll take us to item number three, which is discussing discussion of possible action on the calendar year
6:12 2026 audit plan. And again, I'll turn to our deputy city auditor morning, uh, jason daffy, deputy city
6:21 auditor. So we will pull up the plan here in just a second.
6:26 Uh, this is our proposed, uh, audit plan for calendar year 2026.
6:31 It is broken up into three sections, across two pages.
6:35 The first section, uh, with the blue headers, the new audits.
6:38 We have 10 new audits that cover a wide variety of topics that we've, uh, that we've been
6:44 looking at for a little bit.
6:46 Below that, we have four alternate projects as a reminder and calendar.
6:50 Year 25, we had two alternates, and we've initiated both of those projects.
6:55 So I'm, I'm confident that we'll at least get to initiate some of that work in the next
6:59 year. But that will all depend on the timing of the work above.
7:02 And then the last page has our carryover projects from this year.
7:06 We've got six of them up there.
7:09 Although the public safety, mental health will be broken up into two different reports.
7:13 So this is our proposed draft, and we'd be, uh, we're open to any questions, comments, any discussion
7:19 you wanna have about any of these ideas, and ultimately looking for recommendation to the full counsel for
7:24 consideration. Thank you. Uh, members, any?
7:27 Yes. Council Member, walter?
7:28 Uh, first I just wanna thank your office for putting this together.
7:32 It was a really, uh, interesting kind of menu of, of consideration.
7:37 I think we've got some good ones here.
7:39 I just want to hone in on number six, the civilian staffing.
7:44 Um, for the objective, you talk about what efforts the city has taken, uh, to assign tasks to
7:54 civilians. Uh, but I also just wanted to, uh, ask or suggest that you include any recommendations that
8:03 you find. So not only the efforts that we've taken to get here, but if in your analysis
8:08 you think there is a duty that other cities are doing, or that just seem to be something
8:15 that would be beneficial, you know, you call those out and say, these are opportunities for the city
8:20 to engage in. Absolutely.
8:23 Council Member, um, it's not mentioned in the objective, but that project would certainly include a pure city
8:28 comparison. See what other cities have done, are there any trends with industry practices?
8:34 And we would include that in our findings and recommendations.
8:37 Alright, thank you. Great.
8:38 Um, along those lines, um, I point out since you picked out item number six, um, for the
8:43 public that looks at this, and I'll ask you as our deputy, uh, auditor, uh, how you would
8:49 characterize, but a number of these new audits for 2026 are geared at, uh, and I'm not sure
8:58 I'm gonna say this the right way, but geared at the utilization of money, how that money, uh,
9:03 is expended along the lines of what the questions that were just asked by the vice chair.
9:08 Um, and I think that part of that, so the public will know, arises and not, I think,
9:13 I know it arises out of the council and this committee's efforts to look at ways we make
9:21 sure, uh, we're efficiently spending money, we make sure we're spending it in the right way, things of
9:27 that nature. How would you characterize that?
9:29 I would agree with that, uh, wholeheartedly.
9:31 We've definitely included some more financial oriented audits on this plan.
9:35 Financially oriented audits, that's, that's what the word I was looking for, we're, it's not, uh, typical for
9:40 audit plan to have that many of those types of projects on them.
9:43 But recognizing the current budget climate, and the situation that, that we're in, we understand the need to
9:48 be, uh, as efficient as possible and economical responsible with taxpayer dollars.
9:53 So we've included more of those types of projects on there.
9:55 And I would say there's some, like the civilian staffing project that don't appear directed at that, but
10:01 would have those, those impacts as well.
10:03 Very good. Any other questions or comments?
10:05 Yes. Council Member vala.
10:07 Um, just wanted to ask about number, uh, five, the Austin fire ems alternate response options.
10:14 Um, I know that ems has recently started using those, uh, what they call the basic life support,
10:20 uh, response ambulances, which, you know, instead of the two person full ambulance, they're sending a one, uh,
10:27 suv with a, uh, emt, I believe, uh, to respond to lower level, you know, minor, uh, emergency
10:35 type calls. Uh, is that in that vein?
10:39 And, and the other question also along with that would be that I understand that, you know, the
10:44 majority of the fire department's calls are essentially medical, uh, in nature.
10:47 And so it, would the idea here be to see how we can shift them away from the,
10:52 you know, the, the four person firetruck that's responding and toward maybe a two person ambulance or a
10:57 one person bls? Or is it even kind of beyond that?
11:00 Uh, I, I think you've characterized it perfectly.
11:02 So the, the shift in ems is certainly something that we would be looking at.
11:06 Uh, this would give us an opportunity to see early results from any change in their practices and
11:12 also give us an opportunity to identify further improvements that could be made and identifying practices from other
11:18 cities that have had similar success with their fire and ems response.
11:22 Great. Great. Well, I, that's an important one.
11:25 Uh, uh, I mean, between fire and ems, that's, uh, a lot of the city's, uh, budget, probably
11:30 close to a third or so of the, of the city's budget.
11:32 So if we can rightsize that response, I think there's a lot of, uh, potential, uh, savings on
11:37 the table. I also wanted to just, I know you, we had batted around some other ideas about
11:43 other potential, uh, audits that, that didn't make the list.
11:46 Um, and I, I just wanted to highlight one in particular.
11:50 Uh, and this was on the aviation department.
11:53 Uh, basically, uh, is the department prepared to respond, uh, to emergency situations and maintain operations?
12:01 And, and that just, I mean, especially with recent events, there was a, a, a, a ground stoppage
12:05 recently because of lack of air traffic controllers.
12:07 Again, we've seen kind of the airports getting busier and busier.
12:10 There's a lot of construction.
12:12 I just wanted to highlight that one.
12:13 'Cause, uh, uh, again, and god, god forbid anything happened, but I, I do think we have to
12:19 be really, uh, prepared.
12:21 Uh, so, uh, again, I just wanted to highlight it and, and I know this May be on