The city manager’s proposed 2014 budget for El Paso includes $10 million in new taxes. Property taxes will increase by 4.69% or $6.4 million. They hope that sales taxes will increase by $3.3 million, that’s 4.4% over last year. They also hope for about $710,000 more income from franchise taxes (which by the way the utilities add to your bill) another $724 thousand from international bridge profits and $1.9 million new money from Medicaid.
The budget is still tight though and departments are being cut back. Let’s take a look at those numbers.
Quality of life
- Library — decrease of 2.5% despite increase in generated fees of 51% (note that the fees they generate are small when compared to their total budget). They will lose 35 employees or 24% of their budgeted 2013 employees.
- Museums and cultural affairs — decrease of 5.48%
- Zoo — decrease of 7.88%
- Parks and recreation — decrease of 2.93%. Note that 31% of their budget is paid for by user fees.
- Public health — decrease of 3.3%. Public health is being given an additional $1.9 million by Medicaid this year. The city plans to make the payments on their new public safety radio system with this money.
- Community development — decrease of 9.32%
- Convention and performing arts — decrease of 1.2%
- Environmental services (trash, animal control, code compliance) — decrease of 4.0% after raising residential fee income by $2 million and paying $877,000 into the information technology department
- Transportation (streets) — increase of 4%.
Other departments
- City development (planning) — increase of 19.8%
- Engineering and construction management — increase of 41.2%
- General services — increase of 3.6%. Be comforted by their number one goal: “By 2017, City of El Paso customers will experience well-maintained buildings, fleet, parklands, and records.”
- Comptroller — increase of 3.3% This is after transferring the costs of the chief financial officer ($390,375) out of the department. The chief financial officer has been moved into the city manager’s department. After considering the transfer the actual budget change is an increase of 10%.
- Mayor and representatives — increase of 2.08%
- Non departmental — increase of 17.2%
- City attorney — decrease of 8.3%
- City manager — increase of 9.2%
- Police –increase of 4.9%
- Fire — increase of 4.4%
Cart pulling horse
It looks to me like the departments that provide direct services to the public have been cut across the board (with the exception of police and fire). The departments that are essentially internal got increases (with the exception of legal–maybe Scrivener will be doing more of their work for them).
With the immediate problem being an increase in population and a decrease in money being spent on city services, we have a longer term problem here. How do we explain this to those companies that we are trying to get to relocate to El Paso?
This budget will be discussed at the next city council meeting, this Tuesday August 6, 2013 if you want to make your voice heard.
The next regularly scheduled meeting of the voters will be in May, 2015.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
I wish I could say that I am surprised, but I’m not. A nice hefty increase in staff to support developers, to help them build more areas that the city will not be able to support with sufficient services.
I would like to see the rationale for the big increase in engineering and construction management. If the justification is the resources required to manage the construction of the new ballpark, I bet you’ll find that those costs are not included in the capital construction costs being reported, thus the cost of the ballpark is probably once again higher than anticipated even after the recent bump.
Why does the controller’s office need to spend 10% more to manage basically the same amount of revenue?
Any chance you could post the changes in dollar amounts? Thanks.
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Click to access 2014%20City%20Manager%20Introduction.pdf
see page 15
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El Paso’s elected officials and Management continue to spend with total disregard for what has happened in other cities around the country, the most recent being the total implosion of Detroit, whose fortunes spiraled downward with the decline and structural changes in the U.S. automotive industry. People shouldn’t say there’s no comparison. Why? Our leadership is totally disregarding the possible impact that structural changes in state and federal government spending could have on our local economy.
In recent years massive government spending has driven the El Paso economy. Because this spending came at a time that enabled us to dodge the more severe economic problems of the rest of the country, we have developed an arrogant belief that El Paso is immune to economic problems and that the growth in recent years is sustainable. A significant portion of the jobs in El Paso are local, state and federal government jobs, especially when you include military and civilians employed at Fort Bliss and military contractors supporting Fort Bliss.
Our recent success has been somewhat of an aberration and not totally of our own making. We’ve benefited from massive expansion at Fort Bliss and UTEP and other government-funded projects. Those of us who have spent most if not all of our lives here should not forget how quickly our local apparel industry vaporized just a generation ago or the painful effects of cyclical downturns in Mexico manufacturing even over the past two decades.
There was a lot of hand-wringing when federal sequestration talks first began. Many local leaders were quick to express great fear about the negative impact the sequestration and government furloughs would have on our local economy. They wanted to lobby for continue funding from the same federal government that we complain about. They wanted federal officials to cut elsewhere, but not in El Paso. Yet we continue to spend as though there will be no end to the state and federal money and jobs.
Our taxpayer base has expanded in recent years as Fort Bliss families purchased homes, which has been great. But when many of those families leave the Army due to reductions or early retirement, it is unlikely that they will remain in El Paso for one simple reason: there are not sufficient private sector job opportunities, especially jobs with pay and benefits comparable to the military. The pronouncement last week that most jobs being created nationally are simply low-paying part-time jobs should also be a wake-up call. The average person, especially those out of work, already knew that, but the impact and consequences are beyond the grasp of government employees.
Many retirees cannot afford to pay our property taxes, which on a pro rata monthly basis are almost equivalent to a second house payment, which people on a fixed income find unaffordable even if their mortgage has been paid off.
These insane spending decisions are being driven by two groups: (1) people who receive their paychecks from government and are simply feathering their own bed, and (2) individuals and special interest groups who benefit from this government spending. These special interest groups are the same ones who rail against taxes and big government and government spending, except when it benefits them personally.
Delusion and greed are driving us to a bad place and those driving the bus will not be the ones who suffer the consequences.
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The City staff under List Price Wilson is totally focused on making Woody World happen. The relocation of city hall, too, has resulted in internal budget transfers in 2013 that have adversely affected public-facing departments. It is as if the whole senior management structure is working for Mountain Star to make their agenda happen.
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I looked at the link, which Brutus so kindly provided. We have a high-speed train wreck in the works. Quite telling is City Management’s statement of their top 4 budgetary priorities, all of which are focused on spending:
1. Union and pension negotiations
2. Continue with implementation of Capital Improvement Plan – Quality of Life and Street Infrastructure projects
3. Complete AAA ballpark on time and within budget
4. Finalize relocation of city departments to permanent spaces
If the ballpark and continuing relocation of city departments are two of the top 4 priorities, we’re in real trouble. Not a single priority related to basic services, cost reduction, tax reduction or greater efficiency. The union employees will be happy to know that their wages and pensions are our #1 priority and that city management views them as being more important than the people who pay them.
We’re screwed. Check out the presentation for yourself.
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How do they count on over 700,000 from International bridge tolls when they’re planning to use that income stream for more CBP officers to lower crossing times supposedly…they have to borrow from peter to pay paul, don’t they….so that means there will be less available for our city operations…
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On another note: So much for so called “Quality of Life” improvements in El Paso. The ballpark is supposed to be the cornerstone, the crown jewel of this quality of life bull, yet, we see the decreases in libraries, museums, cultural, parks and rec,, zoo, public health, etc. that tell the real tale here! Those of us who have other interests besides baseball are getting it force-fed down our throats while decreasing funds for those other entities. Also, how do museums and parks and rec rate a decrease when the propositions (I and 2) for funding improvements to those passed? As for budget priority #3: funding the ballpark…within budget??? Talk about LOL!
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Exactly. Ms. Wilson herself said publicly that the original budget for the ballpark was just a guesstimate and that we won’t really know how much it will cost until it is finished. Yet, neither the mayor nor the council will probably question the wording of that priority #3 in her presentation.
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So much for the plan to improve quality of life. Quality of life is being improved for a select few, including the city staff. To improve our quality of life, we need to focus on the other QOL — quality of leadership. 74% of voters wanted change, but there’s no indication that the changes we need are in the works. Call us SOL.
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