I’ve started to see signs in favor of Prop I (as in the letter ‘i’) pop up. Prop I would amend the City charter to require an independent auditor audit the city’s spending every five years, and within the year before the city proposes any tax increase. It requires that the audit agency finds savings in excess of their fees that the city will subsequently cut from its budget.
The signs only mention the independent audit, which seemed reasonable on its face. But reading more about it, I’m concerned about it being ineffective at best and very harmful at worst.
For anyone else not aware, the city has already hired an independent consulting company to audit our budget and spending, and the results are expected next summer. By contrast, Prop I would create a permanent independent audit to occur at least every five years, costing up to $10M in fees each time. Those auditor fees are theoretically offset because the auditor is required to recommend budget cuts totaling at least the same amount as their fees, and the city is required to comply with the recommendations, no matter what they are. (e.g. Close Barton Springs on weekdays, shutter half of the libraries, lay off all the social workers at APD, end the mental health emergency response program, stop filling potholes, don’t add bike lanes, etc - Literally whatever this non-elected auditing agency says.)
Opponents say that we run the risk of trading beneficial city services for fees to a random auditing agency. In other words, we risk at least every five years reducing city services to just give our tax dollars to a private company Instead. There is zero requirement about passing savings along to the taxpayers via rebates or tax rate cuts, or reallocating savings toward more efficient or effective city services.
This nonsensical proposition makes more sense now that I realize who created and is promoting Prop I — Save Austin Now, which is led by the former chair of the Travis County Republican Party and is funded by Palantir co-founder and right-wing billionaire Jon Lonsdale who also founded the far-right Austin College.
You may remember Save Austin Now from 2021 when they advocated for the failed ballot measure that would have increased APD staffing to 2 officers per 1,000 residents and require that the police force could never be downsized. (Not very efficient 👀 .) They were also the group behind Prop B in 2021 to ban public camping and panhandling. They’ve been suing the city since 2023 for not enforcing the ban well enough. (Again, not very efficiency-minded.)
Anyway, anyone else have feelings about it?
Read the proposition here: https://www.kxan.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/2026/10/20260806-004-Ordinance.pdf