Audit and Finance Committee (AFC) Meeting Transcript – 10/15/2025 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 10/15/2025 6:00:00AM Original Air Date: 10/15/2025 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== Please note that the following transcript is for reference purposes and does not constitute the official record of actions taken during the meeting. For the official record of actions of the meeting, please refer to the Approved Minutes. [9:30:43 AM] it's 930 on Wednesday, October 15th, 2025. I will call to order the audit and finance committee of the Austin city council. We are meeting at 301 west second street in Austin, Texas, in the city council chambers, which are located in city hall. And we have a quorum of the audit and finance committee present. We have a very full agenda, so I'm just going to jump in right into it. What I'm going to do is ask Mr. Johnson, Mr. Johnson, you're the only person that signed up to speak, so I can either let you speak now or we can wait till we get to item number four, which is what you signed up to speak on. But I if you want, you can go ahead and speak to us now. You'll have three minutes. Yes. Welcome. And thank you. >> Good morning, mayor and city council members. My name is Scott Johnson. I value the city's board and commission system. I was on a board in the 1990s and realized the [9:31:45 AM] 1990s and realized the opportunity for people to get involved and to share their insight and recommendations to the Austin city council. I liked it so much. In the year 2000, I developed an idea that was to have a board and commission appreciation event during mayor Watson's first term, and this is the booklet that was made by the city clerk's office. I chaired the planning committee on this and it went off well, other than there was a lot of no shows who miss some good food. This particular page is the page where we start with the most tenured people at that time. There's actually someone who had another year beyond. He had the late father and the others on there for 25 years or more, and you can read yourself that. Next, next slide please. This is a letter sent to me by the late Jackie Goodman, former mayor pro tem Beverly Griffith and Danny Thomas to thank me for my work, to generate the idea and to lead the planning team. Next slide please. And this is the letter from the [9:32:46 AM] this is the letter from the younger version of mayor Kirk Watson. And you can read some of the relevant information up on top. Thank you letter. The next one are for other. This is the council members writing. Thank you to the board and commissions members who are in attendance. There are about 460 at that time. Next slide please. And then this is the proclamation that mayor Watson did give to sherry and Mary, who is a very tenured person at that time, prior to the event. Unfortunately, mayor Watson had a conflict and couldn't be there at that event. Next slide. Is there one more? After the recession in the early 2000, I reached out for former city manager Toby Futrell and asked if we could have another one we did here in 2005, and then there was 1 in 2007, and I don't have a booklet for that one. I've given you all booklets except for council [9:33:48 AM] booklets except for council member vela, and if any of you want to keep it, please do. It has more relevance to mayor Watson than to you all, but you might find it interesting. And then I'll get a booklet for. If all of you keep the booklets, I only have four. I'll make another one. And it's under the limit for donating gifts to council members. And I did want to say that I value the system a lot, and I would. I go to several board of commission meetings regularly myself, and I would always like the board and commission members to be thinking about questions that they can ask. I believe in this era, there aren't as many questions asked as before, and I would ask the council members, when they're appointing them, to set some structure and request for them to check in with them regularly, send them updates, which I know some do, but but not all do, and just try to make the system as great as possible. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. And I particularly appreciate you pointing out that I wasn't at the event, because I've been sitting up here trying to remember the event and I was thinking, oh, I've forgotten it, [9:34:49 AM] thinking, oh, I've forgotten it, but good. And by the way, everybody I haven't aged hardly at all. But he hadn't aged at all. So appreciate you bringing this to our attention. We appreciate you being here this morning. Thank you very much. >> You're welcome. >> Very thoughtful. Okay. With that, we'll go to item number one, which is approval of the minutes of the audit and finance committee meetings of September 17th, 2025 and October 14th, 2025. I'll entertain a motion. Councilmember vela moves approval, seconded by councilmember duchen. Is there discussion? Without objection, the minutes of those two. Those two meetings are approved with the mayor pro tem off the I want to say off the dais. I'm assuming she'll be here at some point, but she's not. We'll show her absent for our record. Item number two is discussion of possible action regarding setting the audit and finance committee meeting dates for calendar year 2026. And I'll ask our deputy auditor to deputy city auditor to make a brief presentation. Members, [9:35:49 AM] brief presentation. Members, you have dates in your packet. One of the things that I will point out, and I'll let you point it out, and then I'll see if I need to point anything out. You go ahead. Sorry, Jason. >> Deputy city auditor, we've got ten dates that are posted in the backup. The original list had a separate February and March meeting. >> That's what I. >> Was going to point out. >> And in recognition of a small event called south by southwest, we usually move that March committee meeting. So we've combined them into one in early March to avoid that. And and aisd spring break. The rest of the meetings follow our typical protocols for for the audit committee meetings. >> Any questions? All right. Vice chair, alter moves. Approval of the meeting dates for calendar year 2026. The second by councilmember vela discussion. Without objection, the motion is adopted. Thank you very much. That will take us to item number three, which is discussing a discussion of possible action on the calendar [9:36:51 AM] possible action on the calendar year 2026 audit plan. And again, I'll turn to our deputy city auditor. >> Good morning Jason. Deputy city auditor. So we will pull up the plan here in just a second. This is our proposed audit plan for calendar year 2026. It is broken up into three sections across two pages. The first section with the blue headers, the new audits. We have ten new audits that cover a wide variety of topics that we've that we've been looking at for a little bit. Below that, we have four alternate projects. As a reminder, in calendar year 25 we had two alternates, and we've initiated both of those projects. So I'm confident that we'll at least get to initiate some of that work in the next year. But that will all depend on the timing of the work above. And then the last page has our carryover projects from this year. We've got six of them up there. Although the public safety mental health will be broken up into two different reports. So this is our [9:37:52 AM] reports. So this is our proposed draft and we'd be we're open to any questions, comments, any discussion you want to have about any of these ideas. And ultimately looking for recommendation to the full council for consideration. >> Thank you. Members. Any. Yes. Councilmember alter. >> First, I just want to thank. >> Your office for putting this together. It was a really interesting kind of menu of of consideration. I think we've got some good ones here. I just want to hone in on number six, the civilian staffing for the objective. You talk about what efforts the city has taken to assign tasks to civilians. But I also just wanted to ask or suggest that you include any recommendations that you find. So not only the efforts that we've taken to get here, but if in your analysis you think there is a duty that other cities are doing, or that just seem to be something that would [9:38:54 AM] seem to be something that would be beneficial, you know, you call those out and say, these are opportunities for the city to engage in. >> Absolutely. Councilmember. It's not mentioned in the objective, but that project would certainly include a peer city comparison. See what other cities have done. Are there any trends with industry practices? And we would include that in our findings and recommendations. >> Perfect. >> Thank you. >> Great. Along those lines, I might point out, since you picked out item number six for the public that looks at this, and I'll ask you, as our deputy auditor how you would characterize but a number of these new audits for 2026 are geared at. And I'm not sure I'm going to say this the right way, but geared at the utilization of money, how that money is expended along the lines of what the questions that were just asked by the vice chair. And I think that part of that so the public will know arises. And I think I know it arises out of the council and this [9:39:54 AM] out of the council and this committee's efforts to look at ways we make sure we're efficiently spending money, we make sure we're spending it in the right way, things of that nature. How would you characterize that? >> I would agree with that wholeheartedly. We've definitely included some more financial oriented audits on this. >> Oriented audits. That's the word I was looking. >> For where that's not typical for audit plan to have that many of those types of projects on them. But recognizing the current budget climate and the situation that that we're in, we understand the need to be as efficient as possible and economically responsible with taxpayer dollars. So we've included more of those types of projects on there. And I would say there's some, like the civilian staffing project that don't appear directed at that, but would have those those impacts as well. >> Very good. Any other questions or comments? Yes. Councilmember vela. >> Just wanted to ask about number five, the Austin fire ems alternate response options. I know that ems has recently started using those, what they [9:40:56 AM] started using those, what they call the basic life support response ambulances, which you know, instead of a two person full ambulance, they're sending a one SUV with a emt, I believe, to respond to lower level minor emergency type calls. Is that in that vein? And the other question also along with that would be that I understand that, you know, the majority of the fire department's calls are essentially medical in nature, and so would the idea here be to see how we can shift them away from the, you know, the the four person fire truck that's responding and toward maybe a two person ambulance or a one person bls, or is it even kind of beyond that? >> I think you've characterized it perfectly. So the the shift in ems is certainly something that we would be looking at. This would give us an opportunity to see early results from any change in their practices, and also give us an opportunity to identify further improvements that could be made, and identifying practices from other cities [9:41:56 AM] practices from other cities that have had similar success with their fire ems response. >> Great, great. Well, that's an important one. I mean, between fire and ems, that's a lot of the city's budget, probably close to a third or so of the of the city's budget. So if we can rightsize that response, I think there's a lot of potential savings on the table. I also wanted to just add we had batted around some other ideas about other potential audits that that didn't make the list, and I just wanted to highlight one in particular. And this was on the aviation department, basically. Is the department prepared to respond to emergency situations and maintain operations? And that just I mean, especially with recent events, there was a ground stoppage recently because of lack of air traffic controllers. Again, we've seen kind of the airports getting busier and busier. There's a lot of construction. I just wanted to highlight that one because again, I mean, god, god forbid anything happened. But I do think we have to be really [9:42:57 AM] do think we have to be really prepared. So again, I just wanted to highlight it. And I know this may be on coming up as the next round of audits, but I do think it's a very important area. >> So absolutely, all the project topics that didn't make the list become first on the list for consideration next year. So we'll already start our audit planning process going into going to the beginning of calendar year 26 for calendar year 27, and that will be one of those at the top. If there are additional events or issues, hopefully there aren't. But if there are other issues that occur and we want to make a mid-year amendment and say, hey, this is something we really need to audit right now, we can discuss that and we will be able to pivot away from this. This will not be set in stone. >> Great. And and I understand and I've worked with you all before and you've always been very flexible about the, you know, audits and the prioritization and whatnot. Like I said, I just wanted to highlight it to the extent that there is staff capacity [9:43:58 AM] there is staff capacity available. I just I think this would be a priority for speaking for myself. >> Thank you. >> I appreciate that not many people think of auditors as flexible, but thank you. >> Thank goodness we went off to vote on that. Thank you. Councilmember. Councilmember duchen. >> Thank you, mayor. And thank you, Jason, for the work you've done and preparing this list. I'm excited about what's coming next year. My questions were just around the technology items on here eight, nine and ten. Can you just help clarify for me? It seems to me when I read them, Ada is a much broader than nine and ten. And can you help me understand one whether that's accurate or not, and two, whether what the logic was behind picking nine and ten as subsets, if that's accurate for eight, or how you arrived at those three specific items for for investigation. >> Sure. You know, those it projects are are a little bit vague on purpose. These are really important risks. We have [9:44:59 AM] really important risks. We have an it audit manager, neha Sharma, who is constantly assessing technology related risks in the city critical infrastructure it controls. That's a continuation of some work that we're doing this year that we plan to deliver in in December. And so it looks broad at the objective, but we would most likely zero in on 1 or 2 very specific systems. So the the report that comes out of that project will be narrower than the objective appears. The other two I wouldn't characterize as subsets. I would characterize those as two separate related risks that have popped up in in the it risk assessment. So we'll know more when when we get in there and start start digging around about how wide our scope needs to be. But with every with every audit it or unrelated to it, we start broader and then we we work through our planning phase to narrow in on something more specific so that we can have a greater impact. And that will be true for these two as [9:45:59 AM] will be true for these two as well. >> Okay. I guess the last question then is is there what was the was there a particular incident or report? How did you come to arrive at those particular security items for further investigation? >> I don't know that I can cite a specific incident. What I would say is that we're looking at what other cities are dealing with. We're looking at the state of our technology, the way that we we run certain things. And so all that gets factored into the it risk assessment and, and highlights areas where we want to we want to dig a little bit deeper and make sure that that all our I's are dotted and T's are crossed. >> Okay. Thanks for clarifying that. >> Councilmember duchen moves that the committee act to approve the 2026 audit plan. It's seconded by councilmember alter. Is there discussion? Without objection, the item is adopted with the mayor pro tem temporarily off the dais. Thank you. Sir. Item number four is the draft of the sunset review process and update on actions [9:47:01 AM] process and update on actions taken to a specific council resolution. And I see movement. It's all yours. >> Good morning. I'm Stephanie hall, assistant city clerk. And here with me is Jess, assistant to the city manager. And we're here to present our updates on the sunset bessy review process. I think it has kind of a rather long title. So that's what we're calling it. >> Yeah, yeah, I did you notice I didn't read. That's the first time I hadn't read the whole thing out. So go for it. >> Thank you. First of all, we just wanted to touch back to the original resolution that has brought us here. We referenced this last time, but we just wanted to quickly go through where we stand on each of the items that were outlined in the resolution, just to show where we are, what we've done. The first task that we were assigned in the resolution was [9:48:02 AM] assigned in the resolution was to notify and solicit feedback of the bodies that were specifically identified at the time in appendix a that was done earlier this year. The second bullet is what we're working on right now, developing a sunset review process of the bodies that would allow for a regular and staggered consideration of those body scopes and duties. So that's what we're here to present on again, and that we're still working on. The third was to draft an ordinance to establish clearly designated responsibilities for council appointments to other bodies. I can't remember the exact word we ended up using, but we did pass that ordinance in September, on September 11th, 2025. So that has now been codified. So we now have a standard process for all those other bodies. The next piece was to develop a single website to archive board and commission recommendations. That was something that we completed earlier this year, and there actually have been some enhancements made to that to make those searches a little bit easier and and more robust. And then finally there was a request to review the translation service needs, specifically identifying one commission, the commission of Indian affairs as well, and then to offer recommendations [9:49:02 AM] then to offer recommendations to support overall for the upcoming budget that has been completed as well. And updated guidance has been sent out regarding language access process and boards and commissions. It was sent out to mayor and council, as well as all board members and staff liaisons. Sometime in mid-august. Next, we'd like to go over the pilot review that we did after our last update with the in August. First, a quick recap. The purpose of the framework was to test out our proposed framework that we had. We wanted to run it through a couple of bodies, make sure things were working well. We were getting the information that we wanted, so we conducted that over a two month period of time since our last meeting in August with four bodies that were identified. I'll show you on the next slide. And then we went through the proposed seven step framework that's outlined here. We first identified the bodies we had. The second step was to view the legal and regulatory considerations. We had the boards and commissions complete, a self-evaluation that also included a [9:50:02 AM] that also included a self-evaluation from the liaisons. We had some public and stakeholder input. We did an overall evaluation and included our initial recommendation. The last step is to bring it forward to audit and finance. And then again, as a reminder, these are the four bodies that we we tested in the pilot program the airport advisory commission, the technology commission, the economic prosperity commission, and the M.B.A and small business enterprise procurement, procurement. That's a really hard word procurement program. I keep saying it and messing it up. Activity advisory committee, excuse me. We also ran through all of the bodies that were noted as inactive on that appendix a. Then we wanted to quickly just dive into what each individual report looks like. Just for illustration purposes. We have screenshots of the technology commission report. We also printed a copy out for you, but there are all the reports are uploaded in the backup. So you can view all of those reports, the four bodies as well as the inactive report. [9:51:02 AM] as well as the inactive report. So we have here on the cover page. And if this format looks familiar to you, that is because we did borrow the template from the auditor's office, with their permission of course, but that is why the template might look a little bit familiar. So I just did want to note that we have on the cover sheet, of course, the name of the commission and then the, the, the bottom just indicates what the resolution is that directed us to do this. What what this report is for and what it's about. The next page of the report is the executive summary, where we detail the objective of the report, which is to conduct an evaluation of that named body. We also summarize here in the what we found, just the overall findings, things that we noted about their meetings, things that were said by the in the evaluation, any other things of note. And then in the lower green box down there, we included our initial recommendation based on those findings. The next section jumps into the start of the framework. So this is the first step in the framework where [9:52:04 AM] step in the framework where we're identifying the body. So we have here first they're outlined mandate as it's listed in city code. Then we included the current membership roster as of the time of the report. And then we also listed their current meeting dates and notated if there were cancellations or special called. The next step of the framework is any legal and regulatory considerations. This is analysis collected with the assistance of the law department, just outlining if there are any things that need to be considered. If there were, if we were to continue the body, if we needed to make modifications to the body or sunsetting the body, potentially. Following the legal review is when we get into the actual self- evaluations. The first part is the self-evaluation from the actual border commission as a whole. They were asked to hold a public. I mean, they were asked to have an item. I'm sorry to discuss these questions on the survey. Vote on them together. And then they submitted one single response for that. So we have summarized their report first here, their responses to those things here. The next [9:53:06 AM] things here. The next evaluation was the staff and executive liaisons responses to a survey. So they worked on those together and then responded to a couple survey questions to provide their evaluation of the border commission. The next step was to collect public and stakeholder feedback. So here we are, including any of the feedback that was provided during that, those public hearings at the boards or commissions held. So here we highlight what the boards and what the members presented to that board or commission during that public hearing. And then finally, there's an appendix that includes the raw data from those surveys. So we have both of the survey from the board and commission itself on their evaluation. And we have the survey from the liaisons, the executive and staff and how they responded. And then also, if there was any public input feedback in this instance, the technology commission, this is why we use them as an example. They had quite a bit of public feedback, and some of those members of the public provided presentations. So we included in the appendix any [9:54:06 AM] in the appendix any presentations they provided as part of that public hearing. Well, thank you for letting me walk you through that little report. And I'm now I'm going to turn this over to Jess to share what we learned. >> Thanks, Stephanie. So Stephanie just walked through what our pilot process looked like, what the reports look like. And so I want to talk a little bit about what we learned during this process, because the point of the pilot was to stress test our framework. And we learned a few things, and we have some opportunities for improvement. So the first thing is that the two and a half months that we had to conduct this pilot made it pretty challenging for the boards and commissions to complete their self-assessments, and also for us to conduct public input. And you'll know, if you look in the backup, one of the boards and commissions actually wasn't able to meet during this time, which meant that we couldn't complete the evaluation and the review. And then we also learned that gathering the data and compiling the reports that we shared with you took considerable staff support to complete. And then across the [9:55:08 AM] complete. And then across the four bodies that were evaluated in the pilot, like Stephanie mentioned, it was just the technology commission that had pretty significant public input. And part of the reason for that is that probably the two and a half month time frame, but also the way in which we were asking for public input. And so I'll talk a little bit about what we suggest moving forward. And then the last thing is, in general, we learned that I think in order to effectively evaluate these bodies and determine if their purpose or mandate one, if they're meeting them, and two, if they're still relevant to what the climate is today, that we need subject matter experts at the table with us to help us during the evaluative process. And so but like Stephanie mentioned, I think the pilot did work as intended. It helped us, helped us stress test our framework. And now we have some changes that we'd like to make to it, to make sure that it's getting us the information that we want and the result that we want. So [9:56:08 AM] and the result that we want. So one, the first thing is that we need to create review teams with subject matter experts that can help us evaluate these reports and evaluate these bodies properly. Aside from the staff and executive liaisons that are already part of this process. And we're thinking those review teams might be a small group of city staff and council staff that have subject matter expertise in those specific policy areas. And then I think the second thing is that we need to provide more ways for the public to engage in this process beyond what we did during the pilot. And we plan on working with Austin communications and engagement to see what they recommend and how we can improve that process moving forward. And then the last thing is that the process just needs to be longer, which we were always planning for an annual review cycle. But I think we definitely learned that, you know, 2 or 3 months isn't long enough to collect this data during a review [9:57:09 AM] this data during a review process. But if we were doing an annual review schedule, we'd start in January, and then we'd give the boards and commissions that were being reviewed that year until the end of July to conduct their self-evaluations, to collect public input for us to do all of our legal considerations, collect all the quantitative and qualitative data, and actually, for the boards and commissions that are in city code already, they have an existing deadline at the end of July to submit their annual report. So this aligns with the time frame that they're used to being reviewed on. And then compilation of these reports would happen in August, maybe into September, depending on what the year looks like and how many are being reviewed that year. The review teams that we would create would evaluate those reports and come up with their initial recommendations after that, and that would align very nicely for the audit and finance committee to have these reports [9:58:10 AM] committee to have these reports annually in q4. So that's kind of what the cycle would look like based on what we learned in this framework. So our next steps are one to incorporate what we learned. And of course, any feedback that you have today into the framework and into our process. And then we need to create a schedule for regular annual review. And we're thinking that we might establish a five year cycle. So any boards or commissions that are reviewed on year one won't be reviewed again until year five, year six. And that gives enough time for the board and commission to complete meaningful work during that time, and also for us to collect enough data to evaluate them and if there are any vacancies or issues meeting quorum that can be addressed throughout those five years. And but I think before we create that schedule, we need to first compile a list of the boards and commissions that are going to be part of this process moving forward. And [9:59:11 AM] process moving forward. And that would mainly include the bodies listed in city code chapter 21 that are in our code. But it could also extend to other bodies that aren't in city code, but are listed are approved by resolution. And a good example of that is the bicycle advisory council and the pedestrian advisory council that were listed in appendix a of this resolution. They're not in code, but they were listed in appendix a, so we are pretty sure you want those reviewed. So we just need to agree on what that list is going to be. So that when we group the boards and commissions by policy area and we create this schedule, we're including all the ones that you'd like as part of this process. And then to do this right and consistently every year, you know, we need to outline the staff resources needed to manage this process efficiently. And finally, we're going to need to come back to you to get your approval, not only on the list that we create the groupings by policy, area or subject matter, but also which groupings you'd like to [10:00:13 AM] groupings you'd like to prioritize review of first. So which boards or commissions do we want to review in year one, year two, year three, four and five, etc. If we want to launch this process in January of 2026. So thanks for having us and letting us come back to give you an update. And Stephanie and I are happy to answer any questions. >> Thank you all. Thanks for the thoroughness and the report. Any any comments or questions? Yes. Councilmember duchen. >> Thank you. Mayor. You alluded to a couple of times, both in the next steps, I think, and earlier, the amount of staff time that it took to compile everything. I know as a, you know, a smaller window that sounds like you would have preferred, preferred extend it out to a year. But the one thing I, I don't have any sense of is, I think part of the reason we undertook this process was to figure out how to sort of optimize people's time. Right? How to not have people serve on boards and [10:01:15 AM] people serve on boards and commissions that aren't are duplicative or not creating a lot of value. But I also worry that if we're spending a ton of staff time on an evaluation process, that would be counter to the original objective. So do you have any sense of what's really involved in executing this? Because we're also asking not just of you all, but of commissioners themselves to add more responsibility to their work as part of their own self-evaluation. Can you expand on that? >> I think what we saw during the pilot program is for the city clerk's staff. We had four full time employees working on this report for about three and a half weeks. So that was just a group of four, and it was a condensed period of time. So I'm imagining if we continue the annual process, how we outlined it would be kind of a seasonal situation where during the summer, we would need someone probably focused on this full time for a couple of months. So that's as far as like the office of the city clerk staff. We also have to work with the law department, and I know it took them a couple of weeks to compile. And [10:02:15 AM] couple of weeks to compile. And then we also coordinate with the city manager's office. So that's on the staff side. We we had an initial meeting with the four pilot, the chairs and the staff liaisons to go over this, and they were so wonderful to work with. So I just need to get that out of the way. They were so willing and so eager, and they offered a lot of support and help, and I think that was a concern that they had. But it was mostly due, I think, to the condensed time. They all seemed fairly eager to be a part of this. They were willing to do this. So I don't see it as a strain on the boards and commissions at this point, especially since the ones that are outlined, as just mentioned in chapter 2.1, are already required to kind of do a very similar annual evaluation. We're just kind of trying to make it more helpful and universal. So on that side, I don't see as much. They were. We're still kind of curious about the public input piece. I know that there was a little bit not necessarily frustration, but they weren't they weren't exactly sure. The commissions weren't exactly sure how to engage the public in that process. Again, hoping over an extended period of time we could identify better ways to do that. That would maybe [10:03:17 AM] do that. That would maybe relieve some of the stress. Hopefully that answers some of your questions. >> Yeah, I have a much better sense of kind of what was committed to this during that process. And do you expect that that's going to sort of you mentioned translating out to a year rather than having four full time people for three and a half weeks, for instance, on your end, that would just be a single person working one season during the summer. >> That's what I'm imagining right now. And I think that's why in our report, we said we want to put together what we think we need for resources. Also, I think we do need to kind of see what that might look like, because right now the clerk's office is definitely at capacity. So I couldn't identify a specific individual that could do that. But I think that we could take we could find someone or maybe, you know, we're merging a position or something to allow for an opportunity that during those summer months. Some one individual could complete that. >> Okay. Thank you so much. >> Good. All right. Yes, councilmember alter. >> Just one kind of comment request as this process goes forward, when we ever when when that report comes to us a clear recommendation of either [10:04:19 AM] recommendation of either continue as is, you know, change the scope, merge with another or eliminate but some a a true recommendation instead of you know here I understand is limited but like potentially merging or potentially changing that doesn't really help us. We need to know what the recommendation is. >> Yeah. Totally understood. And I think one of the limitations was subject matter expertise in whatever policy area the board or commission was addressing. And so because of the period of the pilot, we weren't able to we had the idea after we learned, oh, we're not subject matter experts, we can evaluate if they're meeting their mandate or if there are any gaps. So that's why the recommendation to have the these groups review teams that would being made of city council staff and and city of Austin staff help us make that evaluation so totally [10:05:20 AM] evaluation so totally understood. And that will be part of the yearly review process. >> Good. Thank you all. Well, yeah. Councilmember vela. >> A quick question on the on the pilot framework review, with the all bodies noted as inactive, those bodies, have those bodies been you ended or I don't know. Again, I'm not sure what the framework was, but I know that in the resolution, in the conversations, we've identified a bunch of commissions that have either accomplished their purpose or kind of fizzled out or whatever the case may be. Are those still officially on the books right now? >> So all of the ones that we listed as inactive and are on the report, we did another check. We did another run through, we confirmed with the law department. And all of those are considered completely inactive. So we did the recommendations on that inactive sheet is that we go ahead and we move all of those websites to inactive situation, so that it's clearly identified on the website that they're inactive, but we're maintaining all of their records for archival purposes. But we didn't find a single one that is still meeting, and they [10:06:20 AM] is still meeting, and they haven't met for at least two years. And that was another thing that we pointed out. We realized when we were doing this, we didn't have an official what does it mean to be inactive? Because very few of them have formal. There's only two that had some kind of a formal action to say they're dissolved. The rest just haven't been meeting. So we were recommending, after two years of inactivity or not meeting that we consider that inactive. >> Okay. I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me. But so for most of these and there is no council action necessary, these were, you know, formed not by order of council, but through some other source. >> Correct. None of them require any official council action. >> Except you mentioned two that do or. >> Two that did. There was the the Travis austin-travis county ems advisory board. There was an actual I believe it was a resolution that that dissolved them. And then I'm blanking on the other one, but had some kind of formal notice. I don't even know if the council did it, but there was some kind of, because most of them are kind of intergovernmental or associated bodies. [10:07:20 AM] associated bodies. >> Got it. But those have already been taken care of in terms of any legal action that we needed to do. >> Correct. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thanks, council members. And thank you all. Really appreciate what you've done. So thanks, members. Before we go to items five, six and seven, what I would recommend we do right now is we go to item number nine which is an executive session. It'll be a brief executive session. But to get us a moment to discuss in a closed session these appointments. And so unless there's objection, we will go into an executive session for a discussion regarding candidates for appointments to retirement system boards. And those may include the Austin police retirement system board, the Austin firefighters retirement fund board of trustees, and the city of Austin employees retirement system board. We will be doing this pursuant to section 551074 of the Texas government code, which relates to personnel matters. Is there [10:08:21 AM] to personnel matters. Is there any objection? Without objection, we will go into executive session at 10:08 A.M. Folks, I anticipate this is about a 15 minute and then we'll be back out. Thanks. All [10:20:21 AM] All right. We are out of executive session. In the executive session, we we visited regarding appointments to various employee retirement, various appointments to retirement system boards, including the police retirement system board, the Austin firefighters retirement fund board, and the city of Austin employees retirement system board. Pursuant to section 551074 of the Texas government code. It is 1020, and I will call back to order the audit and finance committee of the Austin city council in city council chambers members. What we'll do is we'll go in order here. These are recommendations that we would make to the full city council on item number five. It is a recommendation of the reappointment of doctor Michael granoff to the Austin police retirement system board. The vice chair alter moves that we make that recommendation to the entire city council. It is [10:21:21 AM] the entire city council. It is second by councilmember vela. Is there discussion? Hearing none. Without objection, that item is approved and will be. That recommendation will be made with the mayor pro tem off the dais. Item number six is a recommendation to the Austin firefighters retirement fund. Board of trustees. Councilmember duchen moves that jia LI be recommended to the full council by the the audit and finance committee. It is seconded by councilmember alter. Is there a discussion or objection? Without objection. Jia LI will be recommended to the entire city council and with the mayor pro tem off the dais. Item number seven relates to the reappointment of dick Levine to the city of Austin employees retirement system board. Councilmember alter moves that that recommendation be made to the entire city council. It is seconded by councilmember duchen. Is there any discussion or objection? Hearing none. Without objection, that recommendation will be [10:22:22 AM] that recommendation will be made to the entire Austin city council. Thank you all very much. That will now take us to item number eight, which are briefings, and we will turn to Brian Malloy, the chief of investigations for the office of the city auditor, to give us the annual report. >> Thank you, council members. Again, I'm Brian Malloy, I'm the chief investigations at the Austin city auditor's office. And I'm here to talk about the integrity unit and our investigative activities over fiscal year 2025. Could you. There we go. All right. Just quick agenda about what I'm going to talk about today. The allegation trends as we saw them come through for fiscal year 25. And the investigations we completed followed with what investigations we have ongoing. So fiscal year 25 was a very busy year for my team. We had 404 allegations come in. This was a steady stream over the course of the year. If you all [10:23:23 AM] course of the year. If you all remember, in April I got to present before this committee. We are just over 200 allegations at the time and we projected if it stayed on pace, it would hit 400. Lo and behold, it hit 400. Now that's a 6% increase over the previous year, where we were at 380 and a significant increase over that prior three year average, which was 332 allegations per year. Now, what happens with those 404 is they come in, we do a triaging exercise where we we log them and then we determine whose jurisdiction they belong in based on what's alleged. And this number has been really consistent since I've been the chief of investigations, starting about seven years ago, where one third of the allegations that come in are within my team's jurisdiction. So they're the typical fraud, waste and abuse city code violations that my team can look at. The remaining two thirds are outside our jurisdiction, with the bulk of those being hr related issues or operational issues. Those end up getting referred to the human resources department or city management, and the other city departments. All right. How do people report to us? Key to having a good ethical structure in the city is [10:24:24 AM] structure in the city is letting people report, teaching them how to report, and making it very easy for them to report their concerns. So one way we try to make it easy is to give people a lot of different ways to report to our office the most common way, with 58% of the choosing it, is the online reporting form. That's a really great way to report to our office, because it actually has a lot of question prompts. Someone might have a concern but not realize they're not telling us all the most useful information. If they fill out everything in the online reporting form, they'll give us a lot of useful information to kick off our investigation. That said, we'll take a report in any of our other reporting channels. The next most common is actually direct investigator contact. So that means someone either emails or calls one of the investigators on my team or myself to report their concerns. We also have a dedicated email address where people can report to us, and then we have a whistleblower hotline, a phone number people can call as well. Those are the next two most common ways people reported to our office. And except for direct investigator contact, where, you know, we obviously know who the individual was, you could use any of the other three methods and report [10:25:25 AM] three methods and report anonymously. And that's something most people reporting concerns really value. And again, for seven years in a row now, we've had majority of the people reporting to our office choosing to do so anonymously. All right. Where are the allegations coming in across the city. One way we like to look at this is allegations per 1000 employees to get a better apples to apples comparison. And these are the large departments in the city for that. When we do that, per 1000 employees comparison, we see who has the most allegations coming in. Right now. It's facilities management followed by animal services and then fleet mobility, city attorney's office, human resources and public library. And just for comparison, the citywide average, if you looked at allegations per 1000 employees across the whole city, that's about 15. That's very consistent with what we saw last year. And last year was the first fiscal year where we started doing this allegations per 1000 employees. And what we can do with this, with this number is sort of take this relative relative score and share it with department [10:26:26 AM] share it with department leadership so that they can take next steps on how they want to address the concerns of their department. I've actually had one of the directors from one of these departments reach out yesterday wanting to talk about the April numbers, and I got to tell them, well, we're going to have full year numbers and we can have a conversation based on what I've seen for the full fiscal year now. All right. Moving from allegations to investigations we completed, this is the subset of what's come into our office that my team got to investigate. And where we ended up finding evidence of a material violation of city code. We completed 11 investigations this year. Eight of them resulted in a substantiated finding of a material violation. The remaining three we had one that was inconclusive, one that was unsubstantiated, and one where we found some misuse of city resources. But the level was so limited, or it was so minor in scope that it wasn't a material violation of city code. And city code actually defines this sort of de minimis misuse of city resources. That was the case here. And all three of those cases, while there's not a public report, we document it in a memo that gets shared with the relevant city department so [10:27:27 AM] the relevant city department so that they know what we did in the investigation and what we found, and then they can take whatever steps they they deem necessary after that, focusing on the ones that did turn into a public report in each case that that public report was documented and it's put on our website, and we also include on the sheet the accountability action that was taken. We asked department directors or city management who respond to our report to tell us what sort of accountability action they can take, and then we document it for our records for the majority of our case or for all of our cases that went city management. They agreed with our findings, and they took accountability action. And the most common accountability action is employee separation. Sometimes that's actually city management doesn't have to do that. The relevant employee just decides to resign their employment at some point during the investigation, rather than making city management make that decision. All right. What are we still looking into right now? Right now we have nine open investigations that are across five different city departments, and they're focusing on the core issues that my team has expertise in [10:28:28 AM] that my team has expertise in investigating, which are fraud, abuse, misuse and theft. We also have one open detection project which has been inspired by one of our investigations that's about to complete. We've had someone misusing their pro card and we thought how this person got away with it. You know, we have a bunch of we have several hundred other pro card holders in the city. What if someone else is doing that? So we looked at how this person was misusing their pro card and came up with some tests to see if we can find anybody else doing that in the city. That detection project is moving along, and that will wrap up in the next fiscal year. With that said, I'm happy to take any questions you might have. And then for anyone watching today, here's our hotline number. Here's the email address. And that's where you can find our online reporting form. If you have any concerns in mind that you want to share with my team, great. >> Thank you. Members, do you have any questions comments? Well done. Appreciate your report very much. Members. That leaves just one item, which is to identify items to be discussed at future meetings. Let me ask if anybody has anything specific you want to [10:29:29 AM] anything specific you want to talk about right now. The only thing I'll mention is that beginning in, we're putting together kind of some items, and one of the thoughts would be that starting probably at the January meeting, the one we just the date we just approved, we would begin involving the audit and finance committee in what's going on on a routine basis related to any potential bond election in 2026. And so if there's special things that you have in your minds about what we ought to be talking about with regard to a potential bond election in 2026, let me know that, and we'll make sure that we make that part of the agenda. But like we did with TRE, I could see where this committee spends time talking about all that next year. Does that make sense? Okay. Anything else? Well, there's nothing else on the agenda. So I want to thank everybody that was here and all the reports. Thank you very much. And would there be nothing else on the left on the agenda? Without objection, the [10:30:31 AM] agenda? Without objection, the audit and finance committee of the Austin city council, for this regular meeting of the audit and finance committee is adjourned at 10:30 A.M. Thank you all.