Home > City Beat > Archives > 2009 > October > 22 > Entry
City hires new auditor
The Austin City Council has named Kenneth Mory — currently Chief of Audits for the County of San Diego — as the city’s new auditor.
The auditor serves as the city’s watchdog, a crucial and sometimes politically dicey role at City Hall. The auditor and his staff reviews city programs to see if taxpayer money is spent wisely and the city is run well. Then the auditor reports the findings to the public and the City Council, even if those findings make city leaders look bad.
A ballot measure passed by voters last year created a five-year term for the city auditor and required that six out of seven council members would be needed to fire the auditor. That granted the auditor more job protection — and more freedom to scrutinize and criticize city management without fear of political reprisal — because previously, the auditor could be fired if only four council members agreed to oust him or her.
Mory will start Dec. 1 and earn a salary of $135,018. He will replace Steve Morgan, who retired earlier this year after more than 20 years at the department.
The work of Morgan’s office led to the criminal conviction of a former Austin Convention Center director last year. His office also found flaws in such services as the SMART Housing program, the public-access TV station, police operations and the collection of a hotel tax that pays for arts programs.
Comments
Austinites love to be heard, and we're giving you a bullhorn. We just ask that you keep things civil. Leave out the personal attacks. Do not use profanity, ethnic or racial slurs, or take shots at anyone's sexual orientation or religion. If you can't be nice, we reserve the right to remove your material and ban users who violate our Visitor's agreement. Click here to report comment abuse.
By river
October 22, 2009 12:32 PM | Link to this
Perhaps the new auditor could look at the scandal of wasted resources at TLAC? Last night the Animal Advisory Commission held that TLAC was in violation of state law reguarding humanely separating healthy homeless pets from sick ones. Larry Tucker, chairperson, “With a $5.5 million annual budget, you would think that shelter Director Dorinda Pulliam could at least treat the animals humanely before they are killed. But we discovered that the shelter is routinely and inhumanely confining sick and healthy animals together, in direct violation of State law.”
By Rudy
October 24, 2009 10:36 AM | Link to this
Why does the City of Austin continue to import new employees from California? Is Texas not capable of producing top rated public talent? I have seen recent highly paid new hires such as Ed VanEnoo, New Budget Officer, Susan Cox, Financial Manager being introduced to the City of Austin and now Kenneth Mory. Collectively, we the Austin Texas TAXPAYER are paying salaries and benefits in the sum total of $500,000 just to these three imports. This is ludicrious Marc Ott! You are responsible for managing in the best interest of the our City and I believe you HAVE failed and will CONTINUE to fail as long as you’re employed by our Great City!
By animal lover
October 27, 2009 11:55 AM | Link to this
I was in the stray cat building about 2 weeks ago when a TLAC employee was giving the cats nasal medicine of some sort. An Austin Pets Alive volunteer and I noticed that she was using the same dropper on every cat she went to. That spreads sickness!!! The employee said that’s just how they do it. Mixing sick animals with healthy ones is only part of the problem. Using the same eye and nose droppers on all of the animals compounds the problem x10 and only ensures the spread of illness. TLAC euthanizes pets that are sick very swiftly. What the hell!!!???!!! The APA volunteer started flipping out and said she was going to talk to managers about it or something. I had faith in the passion she had about it that the issue would fly up the ranks, so to speak. I’m not shocked at all that this is the result. They wonder why the have so many sick animals, but they do stupid crap like this that a 5 year old would know is bad!