The Tuesday, June 16, 2014 city council agenda goes on with this under the title “RECOGNITIONS”:
El Paso Municipal Courts–Government Collectors Association of Texas Award for Collections Program of the Year 2014
Congratulations! And thank you.
That is an important achievement in this city where we do not have enough money.
Somehow more important?
Then down in the consent agenda we have this “NOTICE FOR NOTATION”:
City of El Paso earns The Platinum Leadership Circle Award for financial transparency online from Texas Comptroller Susan Combs.
That evidently is so important that requires a vote from city council. After all it was put on the agenda by our chief financial officer.
This is yet another example of self promotion at the expense of others.
Evidently your numbers do not have to be accurate in her job. What she seems to think is important is that she be very open when she misleads us.
If El Paso really is more transparent in it’s online presentations than other Texas cities, then I feel badly for them.
We will look at some of our city’s online content in later posts.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
For the record, they can’t even get the name of the collections organization correct. It’s Governmental — not Government.
Most people in El Paso don’t expect an award or honor for simply doing the job they are being paid to do. But then, most people don’t work in El Paso city government.
Let’s also be clear that this award is focused on collections related to judicial collections, which the association defines as traffic tickets, probation fees, juvenile, misdemeanor, and felony court cost and fines as well as all other COURT MANDATED fees.
Given the many pages and millions of dollars worth of outstanding tickets which are regularly published in the local newspaper, I would be interested in knowing how the performance for this award was measured.
With regard to the “award” for financial transparency, the “Platinum Leadership CIrcle” is something a governmental entity may “join”. It’s not an award per se and the application process involves “self-scoring”.
The underlying purpose of this award program is to encourage local government entities to link to the State Comptroller’s website to make it easier for the state to “collect all available information on local government finances in our state, including the existing and proposed debt of cities, counties, school and hospital districts and hundreds of special-purpose districts throughout Texas.”
Members of this elite group also pledge to post details about the entity’s bond and debt information on the entity’s website no later than one business day after the public notice of any bond election. I wonder if that criteria was met in conjunction with QOL bonds.
The bottom line is that these “awards” are misrepresentation and total BS, sort of like the “Who’s Who in America” awards. It’s simply more ego-driven waste.
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Really, it is resume’ enhancement from someone whose numbers are not to be trusted. All of us, be sure to write the new CM and tell him to always get a 2nd opinion on the numbers reported. If he is skeptical, just look at the stadium business case.
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