The City Council rejects a proposal for a municipal inspector general.

Councilors variously said they weren’t certain an inspector general’s office should be considered before ongoing efforts to improve internal controls have been completed.

A proposal that someday might have led to an enhanced watchdog function at City Hall was voted down Wednesday by the City Council amid a debate about whether a municipal inspector general would be an appropriate remedy to the city’s lack of internal financial controls.

Councilor Joseph Maestas said a recent external review of Santa Fe’s financial and accounting systems that identified the lack of internal controls and an environment ripe for potential fraud necessitated an independent inspector general’s office.

Maestas, a candidate for mayor who unsuccessfully brought a similar proposal forward in 2015, said such a position would “change the function of our government” for the better — improving investigations of fraud, waste and abuse and enforcement of the city’s ethics code.

But his bid to ask voters via ballot question in March whether the city should add the position to the charter failed on a 6-3 vote.

Councilors variously said they weren’t certain an inspector general’s office should be considered before ongoing efforts to improve internal controls have been completed.

Some expressed concern about putting an incomplete concept onto a ballot already complicated by a possible new ranked-choice system.

“We’ve spent an awful lot of time dealing with a charter issue that didn’t have specifics,” said Councilor Signe Lindell, referring to the 2008 voterapproved shift to a ranked-choice system. “It’s very hard for me to support a charter amendment which future governing bodies will have to live with that we don’t have any definitions for, we don’t have any budgeting for.”

Maestas countered that his proposal only provided for asking voters whether an inspector general should exist and said the specifics of cost and role could have been determined later.

“There’s no need to go into any great detail because it’s a future provision,” he said.

Mayor Javier Gonzales, meanwhile, said he took exception to the initiative’s implication about the state of city finances. He issued a vigorous defense of “measurable progress toward ensuring we have a strong financial house” made over the past 3½ years, citing a recently approved bond to improve city roadways and the city’s hiring of a third-party accounting firm to help the finance division assess internal controls.

Maestas shot back that he thought a solid bond rating and “strong financial house” were separate issues; he said the council was “falling back into complacency and incrementalism.”

“I think we’re still kind of protecting the status quo,” Maestas said. “I don’t think that’s the way to go.”

Councilors Ron Trujillo and Renee Villarreal voted with Maestas in the minority.