RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- Richmond City Council members have scheduled to approve FY 2027's budget at a formal meeting Monday night, coinciding with introduced legislation to investigate why the city has not published monthly, line-by-line lists of how officials spent taxpayer money for years. That i nformation is outlined in the payment register, which the city -- by code -- is supposed to have easily accessible online each month, but has reportedly not done so since 2019. Richmond Councilwoman Kenya Gibson introduced this investigation resolution, and said it would have helped prepare for budget season for the upcoming budget and give residents transparency over city spending. "We host district meetings, transparency comes up again and again," Gibson explained to 8News, after formally asking for past payment registries in February. "People are spending more and more to be able to live here in Richmond, and I think it's reasonable for them to be able to expect to have an understanding about where the money is going." If passed by a formal council vote, Gibson told 8News the investigation into why the mayor's office has not consistently published the payment registries could lead to the subpoena of information. Before council vote, it must be voted on in the body's organizational development standing committee, made up of every member of council. Richmond Mayor Danny Avula has released registries from FY 2025 as well as re-released registries from 2015 to 2019, which former Mayor Levar Stoney reportedly took down for privacy concerns. Gibson previously told 8News that she was appreciative of this effort. but it did not include payees' information. She argues this makes the registry incomplete. Avula told 8News in a statement that his office feels similarly with privacy concerns, proposing his own legislation to cut back on "labor-intensive manual processes" and protecting personal information as outlined by law as well. "I believe that before we allow the city to share less, we need to do our homework as a body and make sure that there is real reason to provide less public access to information," Gibson told 8News. 8News received Richmond's side of the story where Avula's press secretary, Mira Signer, said: "Mayor Avula has been clear that he’s deeply committed to the value and goal of transparency, but that it only works when the policy and systems behind it are reliable and actually implementable in the day-to-day work of local government. The current ordinance on the books, while well-intentioned, has not functioned as designed for years. The Mayor believes publishing key financial information is essential, which is why his ordinance proposes to publish information such as who the City has paid, how much was paid, and which City department made the payment, while removing categories restricted by privacy laws. Mayor Avula introduced ORD. 2026‑081 to update the code to require publication of payment‑registry data while still protecting confidential and personal information as required by law. He believes that it is absolutely possible to promote transparency and accountability while also minimizing the risk of releasing protected data." The Mayor does not have a position on Councilwoman Gibson’s proposed ordinance at this time, and looks forward to further discussions that council will soon have at their upcoming meeting."  Richmond City Council meets at 6 p.m. on Monday, May 11, after the organizational committee meeting at 4 p.m. ...read more read less