Soon after she lost the June mayoral runoff, Ivy Taylor filed a claim for unemployment benefits from the city of San Antonio through the Texas Workforce Commission, sources said.

The city contacted Taylor after she filed the claim, the sources said, and recommended she withdraw it because it otherwise would be rejected.

They said Taylor attempted to, but the Texas Workforce Commission wouldn’t allow the claim to be withdrawn.

According to the Unemployment Compensation Act in the state’s Labor Code, elected officials do not qualify for unemployment benefits.

Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said Thursday that he’d heard Taylor had filed a claim for unemployment benefits — a first for him. He called Taylor’s actions “really strange.”

“I lost two races. I should have thought of that when I lost,” Wolff joked.

Mayor Ron Nirenberg, who defeated Taylor, declined to comment.

Calls to Taylor’s cellphone went directly to voicemail, though her mailbox has not been set up and will not receive messages. She also did not respond to a text message inquiring about the matter.

Under the Texas Public Information Act, the San Antonio Express-News sought city records that would confirm that the municipality had been contacted by the Texas Workforce Commission to accept or reject the claim for benefits.

The city has not released any documents and sent the request to the Texas attorney general to make a determination on whether the documents are confidential or must be released.

An assistant city attorney wrote to the AG, citing state law indicating that such records are exempt from disclosure.

But the request to the AG suggests documents responsive to the requests do, indeed, exist.

“To the extent any information responsive to the request exists, it is enclosed as Attachment B,” the letter states. “The nature of the requested information is considered to be confidential by law. Specifically, the information requested concerns confidential unemployment compensation information. The city believes, then, that the requested information, to the extent any exists, is excepted from required disclosure.”

Had there not been documents responsive to the request, the city likely would have said as much.

Sources with knowledge of the issue also have confirmed Taylor had sought unemployment benefits.

Taylor served as mayor from summer 2014 until June. The mayor and council members began earning annual salaries of $61,725 and $45,722, respectively. When Taylor was the District 2 councilwoman, she taught classes at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She was a nonprofit housing executive before that.

As mayor, she found herself in an ethical dilemma — she and her husband, Rodney, received income from Section-8 vouchers paid by the San Antonio Housing Authority. The mayor is solely responsible for appointing trustees to the SAHA board.

The housing agency moved the administration of those vouchers to the Bexar County Housing Authority after the Express-News exposed the conflict of interest.

According to the Texas Workforce Commission’s unemployment benefits calculator, Taylor likely was seeking $493 a month and would have received up to $12,818, had she qualified for the benefit. Texas employers — both in the private and public sectors — contribute to a fund that pays for those benefits. The funds contributed by the city of San Antonio are taxpayer dollars.

Colin Strother, who managed Taylor’s runoff campaign, said he hadn’t heard about Taylor seeking unemployment benefits.

“We didn’t discuss losing,” he said. “That never came up, and I’m surprised to hear that. Normally, people think that these elected offices are paths to riches. If you do it the right way, they’re actually not.”

Most people who go into public office take a pay cut to do so, he said. Still, he was surprised to learn that Taylor had sought unemployment benefits.

“I’ve never heard of someone doing that,” he said. “But it’s not an unusual situation for someone to leave office worse than they came in.”

jbaugh@express-news.net