Austin City Council Member Documents

The Austin City Council hires and directly supervises five employees: the city manager, city auditor, city clerk, presiding judge of the municpal court, and the municipal court clerk. Pay for these employees is established by city ordinances.

In an effort to educate Austin voters about their elected officials in the months leading to the May 2012 election, The Austin Bulldog dug into the backgrounds of the city’s mayor and council members. We searched public databases, filed open records requests, and scanned news archives to uncover business, real estate, court documents, voting records, and criminal history. The results will be published individually for each officeholder with the goal of making these documents easily accessible to the public.

Calendars for the Austin mayor, city council members, and city manager were obtained from the city website for Council Members Laura Morrison and Bill Spelman and through an open records request for all others. The Austin Bulldog permitted the redaction, or blacking out, of entries that involve purely personal events, but did not agree to redaction of entries for social events, as they may involve interacting with people who do business with the City of Austin.

This form is used to file a sworn complaint in the City of Austin’s Municipal Court. The form could be used to file a complaint in accordinance with Austin City Code Section 2-7-41 against a member of the Austin City Council for not filing a Statement of Financial Information or not filing a complete and accurate report. Complaints may also be filed with the city’s Ethics Review Commission per City Code Section 2-7-41(A).

These documents pertain to how the Austin City Council members are compensated.

The Austin Bulldog on June 2, 2011, published an investigative report about problems with financial statements that the Austin mayor and council members periodically file. On June 3, the City Clerk’s office notified The Austin Bulldog that erroneous dates concerning the periods covered in mid-year updates electronically filed was a result of programming errors.

The clerk’s office provided corrected mid-year reports for Council Members: Mike Martinez (1), Laura Morrison (2), Chris Riley (2), and Randi Shade (2). These corrected reports change only the periods covered by these mid-year reports.

Chapter 145 of the Local Government Code and Austin City Code Section 2-7-72 require the mayor and city council members (and other city officials) to periodically complete, swear to, and file financial information with the City Clerk. Although both state law and the City Code require these reports, the forms used, the information to be included, and the reporting deadlines differ.

City Code—Statements of Financial Information are to be filed by the last Friday in April for the preceding calendar year. Updates are to be filed by the last Friday in July for any changes in disclosed information that occurred since the last annual statement was filed. These statements are supposed to include the same information for the spouses or domestic partners of the mayor and council member as for the elected officials themselves.

Chapter 145—Personal Financial Statements are to be reported on Form PFS published by the Texas Ethics Commission. Financial activity of the individual’s spouse and dependent children is to be reported if the individual had actual control over that activity for the preceding calendar year. State law is silent in the matter of domestic partnerships.