Austin ISD Halts Its Cooperation With the State Comptroller's Spending Investigation
In a four-page letter, Austin ISD's general counsel questioned the comptroller's authority to interview 30 to 40 employees and to seek library and student-ID records. Comptroller Don Huffines says the review, with findings due December 31, goes on without the district.
The Austin school district has halted its cooperation with the state comptroller's investigation into its spending, challenging the comptroller's authority to question district employees and demanding answers about why investigators are seeking information about library books, sex education and student identification. State investigators did not arrive for a scheduled visit on Monday after Austin ISD notified the comptroller's office on Friday that it would suspend its participation, a district spokesperson confirmed to Austin Current, which reported the letter in full.
In the four-page letter, Austin ISD General Counsel Kenneth Walker wrote that the district 'respectfully discontinue[s] our participation and will not be available next week, November 9-13 for any site visits or interviews.' The district said it had already provided hundreds of pages of documents and expected investigators to interview 30 to 40 employees, some for hours — a list that grew from about 12 senior administrators to more than 32 employees identified on November 5. Walker argued that the Texas Tax Code provision the comptroller relies on requires officials to provide books, records and accounts, but does not clearly establish the same obligation for interviews, and that the compressed timeline, with no guaranteed chance to respond to findings before publication, cast 'significant doubt on the accuracy of any final product.'
The comptroller's office selected Austin ISD in October as one of four districts — with Barbers Hill, El Paso and Prosper — for reviews of whether taxpayer money reaches students, classrooms and teachers rather than administrative expansion, with findings due December 31, ahead of the next legislative session. The district's sharpest objection was scope: its letter says document requests extended to the library catalogue, policies on human sexuality curriculum and instructional materials, and counts of students enrolled and attending by identification type — requests it says do not align with the stated spending purpose. Comptroller Don Huffines, who lost his office to Austin-area Sen. Sarah Eckhardt in the November 3 election, answered Monday that the review continues regardless: 'I have news for the leadership of AISD. You can run, but you can't hide,' Huffines said. 'Our review will continue and a full report will be published with or without your cooperation.' Eckhardt has said she would limit the reviews to school finances rather than library books and hiring policies, and the district left open resuming cooperation if its concerns are addressed.
