Not cool, Jesus
An audit exposes the former city manager's corner-cutting.
You might recall that a little over a year ago the Austin Chronicle broke the story that then-City Manager Jesus Garza had figured out a creative way to get a couple of old pals into jobs for which they were manifestly unqualified –– without approval from City Council.
Garza saw that there were millions of unspent dollars in an existing contract between the city and a financial advising firm and simply hired his two pals, Laura Huffman and Joe Canales, as "consultants" under the contract. The contract with PFM Financial Advisors, approved by Council way back in 2016, was for advice on bond sales, a subject on which neither Huffman or Canales had expertise. It's not clear how Garza got PFM to agree to this, but the audit shows that the firm went along with a scheme that diverted 36% of the money that Council had agreed to pay the firm to two people outside of the firm. My guess is the firm felt it was a good move to stay in the good graces of city government long-term.
Now KUT breaks the news of an audit affirming what was obvious a year ago: this was an abuse of power and a clear violation of not just city ethics rules, but basic trust in city government.
