Campaign News and Updates

As the city continues to discuss how to move forward with consolidating its IT department, three of Austin’s highest-ranking IT executives – chief information security officer Brian Gardner and senior IT enterprise architects Hawre Sulaiman and William Snead – were fired in late March. Now, the Statesman has reported that the city’s reason for terminating them stems from having jobs outside of their roles with the city. Sulaiman and Snead were conducting work for Dallas in similar roles, while Gardner operated an undisclosed business. All three previously worked in Dallas’ IT department at the same time that current Austin City Manager T.C. Broadnax served as Dallas’ city manager.

Eliminating IT positions at Austin Energy or the airport does not save you a dime in the general fund and therefore does not free up any money to prevent cuts to parks, social services, public safety etc. However, it does raise the risk of causing operational or security problems at the agencies where you least want operational or security problems! You don't have to have an especially long memory of Austin government to appreciate the danger of screwing up the utilities.

High risk, low reward. What are they thinking?

“Dr. Brian Gardner has been one of the main architects behind One ATS, the dangerous IT consolidation widely opposed by the workforce. To learn that Dr. Gardner and others failed to disclose a personal business, and that members of his team were earning salaries from both Dallas and Austin, is shocking."

“The City Manager is asking the public to trust that he knows what’s best for Austin, but trust is earned,” she said. “This raises even more questions about Manager Broadnax’s plan for IT consolidation and ATS’s readiness to manage citywide technology services.”

Dr. Gardner had worked for the City of Dallas for over seven years, according to his LinkedIn profile. His last role was as Dallas' Chief Information Officer before moving to Austin in February 2025.