Mayor Ron Nirenberg called Wednesday for significant ethics reform and strengthened policies with the city’s nonprofit partners to ensure that tax dollars aren’t stolen or misused.

A day after officials from a local organization tied a former employee to the embezzlement of $175,000, Nirenberg laid out his vision for reform at a San Antonio Express-News Editorial Board meeting. Later, he made his comments public in a Facebook Live video.

Though he long has sought reform to local ethics laws, Nirenberg revitalized his push after Centro San Antonio President and CEO Pat DiGiovanni resigned amid revelations linking his organization’s accountant to the theft of funds.

DiGiovanni has not been implicated in any crimes.

The mayor said San Antonio’s municipal government has come a long way since major corruption scandals rocked City Hall in the early 2000s, but whenever there’s an incident, public trust is eroded.

“Every time there’s a drip of this, whether it’s Centro or it’s Tricentennial, it sets us back, at the very least,” he said. “And it casts us in the same cloud as people see D.C. and Austin.”

Centro San Antonio is a nonprofit birthed several years ago as a public-private partnership driven by a few business leaders, Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff and then-Mayor Julián Castro.

As a deputy city manager and City Manager Sheryl Sculley’s chief lieutenant, DiGiovanni was instrumental in the creation of Centro.

He was embroiled in an ethics scandal when the Express-News revealed that he’d been negotiating an employment contract with Centro board member David Zachry while he was overseeing a massive Convention Center expansion contract awarded to Zachry’s company.

In the aftermath of that incident, Castro pushed through his own set of ethics reforms.

Now, as the Centro embezzlement case unfolds, Nirenberg, too, finds himself advocating for ethics reforms.

His push comes in the same month Tricentennial CEO Edward Benavides — Sculley’s former chief of staff — resigned amid a cloud of self-diagnosed “negativity” surrounding his management of the city’s 300th anniversary.

Though there’s no indication the Centro employee, who was fired after admitting to a series of deceptions covering the trail of the alleged theft, stole any tax dollars, Nirenberg said he wants to ensure that can’t happen with any of the scores of nonprofits in San Antonio that receive city funds.

The mayor said Wednesday he still trusts Sculley and believes she’s the best city manager in the country, but acknowledged he’s been frustrated by events that have cast doubt on City Hall.

In his video, Nirenberg noted the city partners with about 275 local nonprofit organizations. Those groups, he said, will receive more than $115 million in taxpayer funds this year.

“Prior to receiving these funds, each organization must enter into a city funding agreement, which includes provisions that protect against the loss or misuse of taxpayer dollars,” his prepared remarks for the video say. “The city reserves the right to audit these organizations at any time to ensure that these protections are in place.

“Recent events have shaken the foundation of public trust that we have worked hard to build. To help ensure public confidence in these organizations is justified and that we prevent further erosion of trust, I have requested the city auditor and city attorney’s office to undertake the following actions and present their recommendations to the Governance Committee.”

Nirenberg is asking those city officials to review the standard contract provisions in the funding agreements to ensure the contracts include “all reasonable and adequate protections of the public dollars.”

Further, he’s directing them to prepare contractual requirements that ensure “significant” contracts and real estate transactions are pursued ethically and under policies that promote transparency and integrity.

The mayor also is calling for policies that pull city-created nonprofits, such as Centro San Antonio, under the purview of the city’s Ethics Code and Ethics Review Board.

And finally, he’s suggesting the city create an annual training program for nonprofit executives and board members. That program would emphasize proper oversight responsibilities, particularly with respect to city funds and transparency, his remarks show.

Nirenberg also plans to underscore the need to bring further independence to the city’s ethics process, including its Ethics Review Board and an ethics review officer. That includes “providing official sanction authority” to the board as it assesses violations.

“Much of this will require revisions to the City Charter,” he said in the video. “I will work with you to usher these improvements to completion.”

Meanwhile, Councilman Greg Brockhouse — a frequent critic of the mayor and Sculley — has sent a memo to his colleagues suggesting the council bring in outside investigators in the Centro theft case. He suggested there’s a potential conflict of interest with Sculley, who serves as an ex officio member on the Centro board.

Sculley hired DiGiovanni and Michael Bernard worked for her as city attorney when she became city manager. Bernard is now overseeing the internal Centro investigation.

“With the involvement of City Manager Sculley on the Centro San Antonio Board and her supervision of the San Antonio Police Department, a potential conflict of interest exists as this investigation proceeds. Additionally, media reports indicate attorney Michael Bernard is tasked with internal Centro investigations,” Brockhouse wrote. “Mr. Bernard’s relationship with the city manager and his prior city employment is well-documented and should also be a flag calling for independent investigations.”

Brockhouse wrote that the city should engage the Texas Rangers or some other disinterested law enforcement agency to investigate the matter. He’s also called for a review of Sculley’s performance with regard to several controversial matters.

Nirenberg questioned the motives of Brockhouse, who’s seen as a potential mayoral challenger.

“Brockhouse is more interested in pointing fingers than protecting the public,” Nirenberg said. “San Antonio is better served by finding out how this happened, bringing justice in response to any criminal behavior and preventing it in the future.”

jbaugh@express-news.net