Quality of life
I think that parks and recreation would fall in that category for most people.
The 2013 El Paso city budget allocates $12.2 million dollars for this. With our population being just at 666,000 that works out to about $18.32 being spent for each person or almost 3.6% of the city general fund expenditures.
Tucson allocates $54.1 million dollars. That includes about $3 million for the zoo. In El Paso the Zoo is a separate budget item so we need to subtract that out. With a population of about 526,000 they end up spending $97.15 per person or 11.4% of their general fund.
Is it because El Paso is poorer? According to the census bureau Tucson’s per capita income is about 8% higher than El Paso’s. Property taxes? State income tax? Those may be different, but it comes down to this:
No matter how you measure it Tucson spends a much larger percentage of their general fund on parks and recreation than El Paso does.
Why? Think of what must be more than $70 million at this point that they are spending to move city hall. Our city officials are spending the money on themselves.
Heck, they have even kicked people out of a recreation facility to make room for some of their offices while the construction orgy is proceeding.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Brutus,
Speaking of feathered nests, I am looking forward to your thoughts regarding the shortfall in the police and firefighters pension fund. The $210 million bailout a few years ago was equivalent to nearly half of the amount of the recent quality of life bonds.
Mayor Cook is already showing weakness, stating that he wants to avoid an adversarial negotiation with the union.
It’s a bit odd that the TIMES says there is confusion over who is responsible for paying these pensions. I would suspect that means there is also going to be a lot of finger pointing regarding who is responsible for the second big shortfall in five years and who has possibly mismanaged the fund.
Perhaps the same people who did the calculations on the pension fund are the same people who provided the ballpark and city hall relocation cost estimates that now don’t add up. Have our city leaders and management set us up for a future debt coverage shortfall that will make the police and firefighter pension fund shortfall look like a relatively minor problem as compared to the bigger picture?
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Your comparison to Tucson is a good one, but you might want to look at other communities in Texas. I think you will find that Austin, a city of about 820,000, spends about $75 per resident.
Your post made me think how wrong-headed it is that parks and recreation are so severely underfunded, given El Paso’s great year-round weather, which means year-round demand for recreational alternatives is even higher than in many other cities. The opportunities to provide people with lots of diverse recreation options are also greater.
If we’re interested in quality of life, which includes the health and fitness of our citizens, we should be spending more on active recreation facilities and programs.
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