Audit shows former Austin Water employee directed search of boss’ inbox

The former chief information officer for Austin Water misused the city’s resources in an effort to find out the identity of the person who lodged a complaint against him, according to an audit report released this week by the Office of the City Auditor. The employee, David Johnson, resigned during the investigation in January 2025.

In late 2023, Johnson, who was in charge of managing the utility’s IT framework, was investigated as the result of a human resources complaint. In May 2024, the investigation concluded without any findings.

Afterward, Johnson submitted a public information request to obtain a copy of the complaint. Upon receiving it, he discovered that the email address of the person who had filed the complaint was redacted, and he was told that the complaint was “anonymous.”

The auditor’s report explains that Johnson then asked an employee under his supervision to find out the email address of the person who had filed the HR complaint against him by searching the email inbox of Austin Water Director Shay Ralls Roalson.

After finding the email for Johnson, the employee reported his concerns to his supervisor, who relayed his own concerns, which reached the city auditor’s office. The auditor’s investigative unit looked into the matter and interviewed Johnson and the employee who had retrieved the email from Roalson’s inbox.

Auditors reported that Johnson initially denied that the employee had gotten the unredacted email for him.

“He claimed that he received the unredacted email through the city’s PIR process,” the report said.

However, when an investigator showed Johnson the email he had actually gotten from the public information request process – which did not include the email address of the complainant – he said he had wanted the email address “to see if it was truly anonymous” as he had been told.

During their interview, auditors said Johnson agreed that it was not appropriate to look into the director’s inbox. Roalson also confirmed that she did not give permission for other employees to search her inbox.

Auditors wrote, “Ultimately, Johnson admitted that obtaining this unredacted email did not serve a work-related purpose. Johnson told us he wanted to know if the complaint email was submitted by a City employee and indicated that he was seeking proof of their identity in case there was potential retaliation against him.”

Although Johnson’s in-person comments to auditors indicated that he knew he did not have permission to search the director’s inbox, his written response to the audit is defensive and accusatory. It concludes, “Since this audit report has misconstrued the context of several responses, it is clear that the auditor’s office as well as the city place more value on protecting fraudulent and slanderous actions of employee(s) who work harder at not working, than it does at protecting those productive employees who take their fiduciary responsibility to the rate and tax payers seriously.”

The response from the city auditor’s office points to differences between Johnson’s initial account of what happened and his current story. Regardless, the investigators wrote, “the action Johnson admitted to taking to obtain (either the email or the email address) violate both the special privilege and misuse prohibitions in City Code.”

In her response, Roalson thanked Brian Molloy, chief of investigations for the auditor’s office, as well as the Austin Water staff who reported the matter and the HR team for escalating it.

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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