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Council reviews new financial-transparency page; agrees to post three years of archived check registers and modernized reporting going forward
Summary
Finance staff demonstrated a new financial transparency webpage and current check-register posting. Council discussed prior records, redaction limits and HUD-related controls, and agreed to keep 36 months of archived check registers online while providing general-ledger details from March 2025 forward.
The City of Amarillo on July 22 unveiled a redesigned financial-transparency webpage that posts current fiscal-year check registers and a rolling 36 months of archived check-register spreadsheets from prior systems. Laura Storrs, the city’s finance director, said the new page is being built to meet the Texas Comptroller’s Transparency Star program and will include reconciled check-register exports in Excel format.
Why it matters: residents and open-records requesters have pressed for more timely financial access. At the meeting a public commenter raised concerns about past HUD-related theft and requested better public accounting for federal funds; staff and the council spent substantial time addressing controls and how the new site will be used.
What staff said: Storrs said the city can post current check-register data and that general-ledger detail dating back to March 2025 will be available in the modern system. She explained that older systems lack report-customization features needed to produce identical general-ledger exports and that producing full, customized GL data from older systems would require staff hours and possible redaction because of confidential bank-account information.
Public-comment and controls: a resident cited previous criminal convictions of two former employees for stealing HUD funds and asked what safeguards were now in place. City staff said the department completed an internal audit, added a CPA-level accountant to the team, tightened multi-step checks and balances, presented reforms to HUD and federal investigators and will continue to refine controls. Community Development Advisory Committee (CDAC) members who spoke supported the improvements.
Council direction: councilors generally supported posting three years of archived check registers from prior systems and continuing the enhanced publication of current-year check registers and quarterly GL reporting from March 2025 forward. Staff said older records remain available via public-information request when deeper, customized searches are needed.
What’s next: finance staff will continue improving the transparency page, consider publishing quarterly investment reports and respond to follow-up requests for community-specific datasets.
