Sharing the City Council Office Expense Policy Draft

[Colleen Pate]

Council,

I promised that I’d get the first draft of a proposed City Council Office Expense Policy to the Council for review by Friday, December 19. Here it is http://assets.austintexas.gov/austincou ... 120426.pdf. How’s that for adding to your holiday happiness?

The goals of this policy are:
• To craft a single policy that compiles and incorporates information from the numerous administrative bulletins and governing policies that relate to office budgets and staff spending; and
• To provide more precise definitions and greater clarity on permissible and impermissible uses of funds.

The next step is for Council to review the draft policy and provide thoughts and feedback on this message board thread. This will be an agenda item at the January 14th Audit & Finance Committee meeting, and once again, I invite all Council Members who would like to be part of this conversation to join that committee meeting. After that, the goal would be to get this policy on the January 22nd Council meeting agenda, which would allow an opportunity to discuss feedback at the work session on January 20th.

I anticipate that we will adopt a resolution that incorporates and refers to the policy document we ultimately want to pass. I will provide a proposed resolution in advance of the January 14th Audit & Finance Committee meeting. I’ll post it on the Message Board.

I appreciate the help that Carrie Rogers, the City’s Government Relations Officer, and Diana Thomas, Deputy Chief Financial Officer, have provided. They’ve been great.

Thanks,

Kirk

On Behalf of Mayor Watson