KYLE — The Kyle Charter Review Commission held its fourth meeting March 24 to nominate a new vice president, as well as conclude the discussion of article seven and review article eight.

According to city secretary Jennifer Kirkland, at the previous meeting, the vice chair resigned, so the commission was required to elect another in the event that chairwoman Diane Hervol was not in attendance.

Hervol nominated commissioner Lila Knight “because she’s not here.” The commissioner approved this vote 5-0. Knight was not in attendance.

Following this nomination, the commissioners approved all changes recommended at the March 10  meeting, including a change in the processes associated with filing a petition. The process was originally as follows: the petition is filed; 90 days were given to circulate the petition; the city’s secretary was given 14 days to validate the signatures; and then, legal opinion was requested to determine if the ordinance was valid. Now, Section 60.06 Commencement of Proceedings reads as follows:

“The city secretary shall place the time and date on the petition and documents when filed and examine the filing for sufficiency as to form. Within 30 days after the form of the proposed petition is filed with the City Secretary and determined to be sufficient as to form, the City Attorney will issue a formal legal opinion as to whether the initiative ordinance is legal and in compliance with this Charter or whether the referred ordinance is subject to referendum under this Charter. The City Attorney’s opinion will be public and will be provided to the petitioner and the City Council. If an initiative ordinance can be adjusted to a form that the City Attorney agrees is legal, the City Attorney will provide an ordinance, in legal form, that can be circulated with the petition. If the City Attorney issues an opinion stating that the initiative or referendum does not comply with this Charter, then the City Secretary will return the proposed petition to the petitioner, and no further action will be taken on such petition by the City. After the City Attorney issues an opinion on the initiative or referendum, unless the opinion determines that the initiative or referendum is not in compliance with the City Charter, the City Secretary shall promptly certify the petition for circulation and place the time and date of the certification for circulation on such petition and documents. The city secretary shall provide a certified copy of such filing as certified for circulation to the person presenting same, the city manager and the city attorney, and file a copy of such certified documents and petition in the archives of the city.”

At the March 10 meeting, the commissioners initially recommended that city attorney Aimee Alcorn-Reed bring back information on peer cities for Section 7.03 Administrative Departments and 7.05 Departmental Organization, as it “gives council power that I don’t necessarily see in other cities.” Though, upon reflection, commissioners opted to keep the language as is, which states that council shall approve personnel policies and guidelines and have the power to establish administrative offices or departments.

The commission then continued with its discussion of Article 7 Administrative Services, which consisted of sections 7.06-7.11: police department, fire department, city secretary, public works department, city attorney and municipal court, of which no recommendations were voted on.

Article 8 Finance includes the finance department, powers and duties, fiscal year, annual budget, budget process and adoption, administration of budget, amendment and supplemental budgets, borrowing to meet funding requirements, depository, purchase procedure, bonds and financial obligations, reserve fund, independent audit and debt management policy.

“My comments on 8.04 [Annual Budget] are pretty similar to some comments I’ve made on other provisions throughout the process: it’s very long; a whole lot of what goes into the annual budget is regulated by state law. I don’t have specific recommendations of things we want to change, but it’s just something to think about,” said Alcorn-Reed.

After Hervol discussed a potential addition to this section, titled “a fiscal note,” which she explained is where citizens would be informed of the line item in the budget that would be affected when money is used within the city. Alcorn-Reed suggested that she come back at the next meeting with information about what neighboring cities do before a decision is voted on whether to include this in the charter or not.

Next, the budget process and adoption, specifically point “c) The budget shall be finally adopted by ordinance not later than the third Thursday of September; provided that if the council takes no final action on or prior to such day, the budget as submitted by the city manager shall be deemed to have been finally adopted by council.”

Because the budget is an important aspect of the city, the commission elected to remove the latter portion of the point, as it felt that the budget should not be automatically adopted.

Regarding purchase procedure, Alcorn-Reed is going to offer several wording options to the commission at the next meeting, in an effort to remove language that “may be too detailed and problematic from the perspective of efficiency,” according to the presentation.

“Independent audit is the next one I pointed out and, again, it’s because it’s a little wordy,” Alcorn-Reed said. “I think all these requirements are good and they all serve a good purpose. I just didn’t know if the commission might want to do something that might be somewhat less wordy.”

“If all the information is necessary, short of grammatical preference, I don’t know that I would touch it,” said commissioner Hannah Foarde.

In relation to the independent audit section, Hervol stated that she would like the city to consider adding a position or a division of an internal auditor — separate from the city manager and the finance director, reporting directly to city council — due to the city growing and ongoing “issues” with transparency and accountability.

While researching on this potential recommendation, Alcorn-Reed noted that the only cities around Kyle that have an internal auditor are Austin and San Antonio. Additionally, she sent out emails to other cities in the state and found 13 more cities with the position, though all of them, with the exception of Galveston, have a population of more than 100,000. Based off of the numbers of the other city, she would assume that Kyle would need two auditors.

The attorney also discussed with the Human Resources Department and staff for an estimated cost, which was listed at more than $200,000, not including additional staff for a department for approximately $100,000. Alcorn-Reed also noted that this would be in addition to the current independent auditor.

Foarde questioned what the difference between an independent and a city auditor would be, to which Hervol replied that a city auditor would look into subjects, such as indications of fraud, abuse and illegal acts, internal controls to safeguard assets, that city resources and funds are used appropriately and more.

Commissioner David Glicker supported language to be added to the charter that would allow, but not require, the city manager or council to hire a city auditor: “I think that’s a tremendous amount of money that basically no other city, besides Galveston, utilizes, but it’s not a bad idea to have a permissive city auditor in the event that something develops in the future.”

“I hear it over and over again: ‘We’re trying to reach this gold standard, capability or gold standard benchmark’ or whatever. I just feel like an internal auditor is one more feather in our cap to be gold standard,” said Hervol.

Because of the cost, a compromise was made to consider creating a finance commission of independent residents, with a finance background. According to Hervol, the city once had one, but it was removed. The vote to include the language regarding the city auditor option, as well as adding a Finance Commission was passed unanimously.

The Kyle City Charter Review Commission will meet next April 14 to review articles nine, 10 and 11.