BREAKING: Save Austin Now Launches Charter Amendment to Require Regular External Audit of Entire City Budget to Improve Affordability and Efficiency

Good Friday morning --

We have ONE MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT this morning.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Friday, November 21, 2025

Save Austin Now Organizes Coalition to Require an External Affordability and Efficiency Initiative Charter Amendment

Aims to Collect 25,000 Signed Petitions by Feb. 1 to Require First External Performance Audit of Entire City Budget in Austin History

AUSTIN, TX — 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,”