The expense account fracas is a perfect example of how Austin voters get distracted by nickels and dimes while dollars fly right by. The two biggest expense categories are police and fire, at about 37% and 18% respectively.
We have among the most well paid police in the state, and yet we struggle to recruit, most of our police don’t even live in the city and the quality of our policing is extremely mediocre. We have bigger fire trucks and more firefighters than we need, and yet we struggle to find funds for parks, underinvest in infrastructure, underinvest in EMS (which is why fire gets to EMS calls before EMS so often), our animal shelters are ghastly and rely on volunteerism to function, and we treat the enterprise departments like piggy banks.
And it’s funny, you know, because the people who bitch about salads? They’re the reason why. They’d rather live in a penny wise, pound foolish city that gives a blank check to the cops but can’t stomach the idea that a senior exec has an expense account. And then you whine about why we don’t have top talent even though we pay top dollar? My man, it’s the same reason nobody good runs for city council: the pay isn’t nearly enough to take such a bad job.