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
The Audit and Finance Committee approved minutes from September 17 and October 14, 2025, set its calendar year 2026 meeting dates (combining February and March to avoid South by Southwest and AISD spring break), and recommended the calendar year 2026 audit plan to the full Council. Staff presented an update on the sunset review process for boards and commissions, reporting on a pilot review of four bodies and outlining improvements including subject-matter-expert review teams, more public engagement, and a longer annual review cycle. The committee also recommended three appointments to retirement system boards after an executive session, and received the annual Integrity Unit investigative report covering 404 allegations in fiscal year 2025. One member of the public spoke in appreciation of the boards and commissions system.
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