Another election year means another batch of propositions for Austin citizens to vote on. Most are the usual mix of bonds and bad ideas, but Save Austin Now has managed to get Proposition I, a proposal to perform regular audits of the city budget, on the ballot.
One year after defeating a massive tax hike proposal, Austin voters will decide this November whether to lock in regular audits of city finances through a charter initiative that is facing opposition from a government employees’ union.
Proposition I resulted from a citizen petition organized by the Save Austin Now PAC, a group that successfully worked to defeat a proposed 20 percent tax rate hike in 2025. This year, the PAC’s petition effort collected more than 20,000 signatures to place the proposed “Independent Affordability & Efficiency Initiative” (IAEI) on the ballot to mandate hiring an independent and experienced audit firm through a competitive bid process.
Under the measure, the selected auditing agency would analyze the spending, performance, and outcomes of all city departments and contractors to identify opportunities to streamline and optimize staffing and management structure and identify fraud, waste, abuse, and conflicts of interest.
The IAEI analysis would also include an examination of how city policy, such as tax rates, affects resident affordability.
Attorney and former Travis County Judge Bill Aleshire, who drafted the charter amendment, told The Texan that voters sent a message to the city council last year in rejecting the property tax increase, but that Proposition I “would make the message permanent.”
“That message is ‘enough,’ and that their taxes are too high,” he said.
Aleshire noted that the ballot initiative differs from an ordinance approved by the city council in February 2026.
“The ordinance can be repealed the day after the election by the Austin City Council,” he said. “But the charter amendment is basically the people telling the city council that they must have this new audit process, and therefore it’s also enforceable by the voters, and it cannot be changed without another vote of the public.”
Under the charter amendment, the auditor must benchmark the cost of city government to measures of resident affordability, and audits must be completed every five years and within one year of any future tax rate increase elections.
While the city is not required to publish documentation supporting audits under its new ordinance, Aleshire also pointed out that the charter amendment would make all drafts and supporting materials available to the public.
The selected contractor would also have to identify annual and multi-year savings that exceed the cost of its own work.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson has called the charter amendment a “political move” and argued that the mandate to identify the savings presents a conflict of interest for the auditing firm.
The charter amendment has also drawn opposition from the local chapter of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). The union’s president, Brydan Summers, said in a statement that the proposition is “just the latest attempt from Save Austin Now to force its right-wing agenda on our city.”
Of course Democrats and unions hate the idea of audits, because that would show just how deep they’ve shoved their hands into the cookie jar:
No wonder they don’t want audits. For every situation where leftwing activists are sticking their snouts into that giant trough of taxpayer money we’ve caught, there are probably dozens of instances we haven’t. So expect every social justice Democrat at every level of Austin government, and every left-leaning NGO in the city, to come out full bore to defeat Proposition I at all costs.