City of Houston: Sweeping audit reveals waste, dysfunction
Houston: Audit reveals disfunction within city government
A third-party firm's audit of every municipal department suggests officials could save up to 15% of the city's multi-billion-dollar expenditures.
HOUSTON - Weeks of examining every aspect of how Houston Municipal government is spending your money has revealed a pathway to save millions of dollars.
Audit reveals City of Houston spending
"There's just been glaring inefficiencies, Duplications, and lack of accountability for years, but it's going to end now," said Houston Mayor John Whitmire.
Whitmire released the results of a comprehensive audit, including interviews with more than 12,000 City employees.
"They spend their time on things that don't matter. They spend their time on output, not outcome," said Whitmire.
Most critical, the revelation of lax procurement practices, with a handful of legacy vendors getting the lion's share of the city's business, year after year.
By the numbers:
"80% of the dollars that the City spent in 2024 were with 6% of our vendors," said Chris Newport, Whitmire's Chief-of-Staff.
The audit conducted by the reputable firm, Ernst & Young, found an array of dysfunctional relationships hindering productivity -a level of discord the Whitmire administration publicly pledged to eradicate.
"You must be able to sit down collaboratively, not throw bombs, not throw stones, not lob stuff over the fence. This is us. We are Houston, and we are going to serve Houstonians," said Steven, Deputy Chief-of-Staff for the Mayor.
Bottomline - a projected 5% to 15% savings on spending within a $5 billion per year City operation.
"If you do the math, five to ten percent of a couple of billion dollars - it could be we don't have a resource problem, we have a management problem," said Whitmire.
What they're saying:
Facing a $300 million deficit, reaction from Council was enthusiastic.
"Hopefully, we are on our way to having performance measures that are meaningful to the public. They can see where we are spending, where we are falling short and where we are doing well," said City Council Member Sally Alcorn.
"Thank you, Thank You, Thank you for looking at the City like a business, because it is," said City Council Member Letitia Plummer.
The mayor's team tells FOX 26 implementing the reforms will not require a drawdown of the municipal work force.
The Source: FOX 26 Political Reporter Greg Groogan spoke with several city officials about the audit released on Wednesday.