During the District 55 state representative runoff Texans for Fiscal Responsibility denounced Tyroch for “lavish spending” while serving on the council.
At the workshop Thursday, council members reviewed the policy regarding justification of expenses incurred by council members and the mayor. They then asked City Attorney Jonathan Graham to prepare a resolution that would require two council members to sign off on use of the city’s procurement card, training trips and business expenses. The resolution would also require quarterly checks of expenses during public workshop sessions.
Temple Mayor Bill Jones III confirmed after the workshop that the policy is being looked at in part because of Ms. Tyroch’s experiences during her runoff, which she lost to Ralph Sheffield.
“Certainly,” he said as a one-word answer when asked if the proposed change was related to Ms. Tyroch’s election campaign.
Under city policy, paid staff managers are responsible for keeping tabs on paid city employees when it come to expenses.
Elected officials are responsible for knowing and following regulations on their own, Jones said.
Under current city regulations, he said, the paid city staff’s role is to ascertain that paperwork is filled out properly. Each council member is responsible to adhere to city regulations on his own regarding expenses.
“Currently I would say they (paid staff members) are responsible for facilitating (the expense process.)” he said. “Only the council members themselves, at this point, are responsible for determining the legitimacy of the expense.”
“They are also responsible for knowing the policy and making certain that what they are doing is in accordance with that policy,” he added, of council members and the mayor.
He said that city council members should continue policing themselves, but with the dual check system in place.
“We don’t want to put staff in the position of approving the council expenditures,” he said. “All we want staff responsible for is that we’ve complied with policy in submission for reimbursement for legitimate city business.”
Tony Jeter, District 1 council member, said the existing system does not work well for elected officials.
“I think that the system works very well for (paid) staff. But I think … it’s set up to fail for council people…” he said, saying staff members should not be put in the position of determining what is a legitimate business expense.
The city policy on business expenses, according to Traci Barnard, director of finance, is based on IRS guidelines, and says expenses must be reasonable and necessary.
“As long as we are depending on staff to call us into account, or to hold us accountable, or to question things, I think the system will fail,” Jeter said. He said quarterly checks on expenses during workshops would help the process.
“I think that the transparency thing has to be a big part of this,” he said.
