The city of Austin dismissed an ethics complaint last week against former interim City Manager Jes煤s Garza.
The Austin city auditor filed the complaint in November, claiming Garza broke ethics rules when he hired two former City Hall staffers to serve as consultants after the 2023 winter storm 鈥� paying them a total of more than $554,000.
Austin鈥檚 ethics rules require a contract brokered by the city manager to go to the City Council for a vote.
At an Ethics Review Commission meeting Wednesday, board member Adam Materne argued Garza broke the rules because there was no competitive bidding or council approval process.
鈥淭he idea that you can just say, 'I know who I want to do this, I can avoid my cap in the rules for how much I can spend on it, I can pick the people I want and I can put them in place with no review and I can even give them jobs that don't sound the same on paper as the job that I claiming I am paying the subcontract for,'" he said. "It's enough to look at it and say this feels weird.鈥�
Ultimately, however, the commission dismissed the complaint because members felt there wasn't enough information that clearly pointed to a violation of the city's rules to proceed.
Garza, who left the position after T.C. Broadnax was hired last spring, has maintained it was essential to expedite the consultants' hiring during the crisis.
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 bring them on because they were my buddies,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 bought them on because they were highly competent individuals who understood the city organization and who knew what needed to happen. They could hit the ground running to make sure that we served the citizens of Austin and fulfill the expectations of the mayor and council.鈥�
