With a broad coalition of city leaders with them, nonpartisan Save Austin Now PAC today announced it is launching a petition effort to put a Charter amendment on the May 2026 ballot that will require an external and performance-based affordability and efficiency initiative, which must be completed within one year of the contract engagement (with the independent contractor selected within 120 days) and which must be conducted every five years or no less than one year before any future tax rate election. The Charter amendment explicitly requires that the Independent Contractor commit to identify annual or multi-year cost savings that exceed the cost of the initiative.
This effort is modeled after a successful external audit conducted by the City of Houston this year which identified more than $120M in suggested savings and helped Houston avoid a tax rate election, unlike Austin.
We can find no example of an external performance audit of the entire city budget ever being conducted in city history. Internal audits, overseen by city officials, have been conducted for individual city departments at times in recent years. However, they have not adequately measured performance or outcomes, tracked spending and contract performance by contractors and subcontractors, or included our utilities.
This Charter amendment is being launched 17 days after Prop Q, supported by Mayor Kirk Watson and nine of ten council members (Council Member Marc Duchen was the only exception), for a 20.2% city property tax hike to produce $110M in revenue annually to close a $33M budget deficit for the 2025-2026 budget year. Prop Q failed 63%-37%, with more than 109,000 Austin voters opposing the tax increase.
“It is not enough that the Mayor and Council just try to restore trust they’ve lost from voters; the City government must be affordable, effective, and efficient,” said Bill Aleshire, a local attorney and former Travis County Judge who drafted the Charter amendment language. “This Charter amendment will help achieve that.”
“Prop Q was the people’s referendum—a clear, common-sense call from Austinites who are tired of rising costs and unclear spending,” said Save Austin Now co-chair Steven Brown, a lifelong East Austin resident and local Democrat. “This isn’t about politics; it’s about accountability. We simply want the City of Austin and our City Council to embrace an independent audit so we can finally see where we can be more efficient and make our city more affordable for the hard-working taxpayers who keep it running.”
“The lesson of the Prop Q defeat is that taxpayers do not currently trust our city leaders when it comes to the city budget and city spending,” said Save Austin Now co-chair Matt Mackowiak. “For trust to be restored, now and in the future, we need an external performance audit to improve affordability and efficiency, before the next budget year and then regularly afterwards. We are confident a majority of Austinites will support this common-sense approach and we hope the City Council chooses to enact this Charter amendment, but if they do not, we will pass it in May 2026.”
“It is long past time the citizens of Austin are allowed to look under the hood at City Hall and see where all this money is going,” said local attorney and prominent Prop Q opponent Adam Leowy. It is the only way to make sure our taxpayers dollars are being stewarded correctly.”
“This external and performance-based affordability and efficiency initiative is an opportunity to analyze performance standards, legal compliance, systems, internal controls, and transparency that can result in taxpayers getting improved services at the least possible costs,” said former Travis County Auditor Susan Spataro. “This initiative not only can provide assurances to Austin taxpayers, but also can be an asset for City Council and City Management to get new and improved insight and guidance in the performance of their duties in serving the people of Austin.”
“I support Save Austin Now’s plan to require an independent, external audit of the City’s spending, with the results available to the public,” said local Democrat, East Austin resident and former two-term City Council Member Ora Houston. “I am keenly aware of the need to have periodic external audits to ensure that the taxes citizens pay to the City are used efficiently and effectively. My council experience and my family history – my father had a degree in Business Administration – convince me that periodic, independent, public audits will also assure basic City services are the highest priority, the City’s other priorities are clear, and the public can see that expenses match those priorities.”
“Surely the Austin City Councilmember’s realize that with Prop Q going down 63% to 37% that it truly was a vote of NO confidence from the City of Austin taxpayers in how the City Council understands its ability to produce a budget that the citizens are willing to accept,” said former Travis County Commissioner (Precinct 3) Gerald Daugherty. “Therefore, this City Council must support an outside audit to simply show that they are serious about trying to gain back any confidence of legitimate fiscal management for this city and if they are really serious, they’ll adopt a 5 year “Sunset Provision” from this point forward!”
“This is a common-sense Charter Amendment,” said former Austin City Council Member Brewster McCracken. “It will ensure that city leaders have the best information to be good stewards of taxpayer funds. It will also ensure that the people of Austin have access to independent information on how their money is being spent. I was pretty surprised when the Council put Proposition Q on the ballot. I was even more surprised by the revelations that a majority of the council was extensively using one-time funds to pay for ongoing expenses and masking that from the public. These all represented big departures from how Austin city government had handled funding gaps in the past. That’s why I voted no on Proposition Q. I want the Austin City Council to be successful. This Charter amendment is a necessary corrective to restore fiscal best practices and accountability. That’s why I’m supporting it.”
The petition can be found here. Only City of Austin residents can sign the petition and be counted.
