Minding the store

July 31, 2014

Back  when the children’s hospital was being promoted to the public for the bond issue vote the chief executive officer (CEO) of the hospital, the county judge, and various county hospital board members assured us that the children’s hospital would be self-sustaining and would not require taxpayer money in order to operate once it was built.

The check is in the mail and other various lies

Now three or four years later the county hospital CEO tells us that the children’s hospital owes the county hospital 70 million dollars.

Who was watching the store?

Our county judge and the CEO are responsible for watching the operations of the county hospital.  Where have they been?  The 70 million dollar debt had to start a mere few millions at a time.  Why didn’t these people ring the alarm bells at that time?

A CEO in the private world who allowed this to happen on his watch would be looking for employment.

Is it fair to say that both our CEO and our county judge have failed us?

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Try this one at work

July 30, 2014

Let’s say that you went to your employer and asked to borrow 3 1/2 months salary as an advance.

What would he/she say?

If you are working for a government agency the answer would have to be no.  In Texas governments cannot pay for work in advance.

If you are working for a private employer they would probably ask you some questions before they said no.  Those questions might include:

How are you going to pay us back?

Are you going to somehow increase your income?

Are you going to get a second job?

Are you expecting a pay raise?

Are you expecting to inherit money?

Have you been playing the lottery?

Does someone owe you that can actually pay you back?

Will this money fix the problem or will you continue to go deeper in debt?

Are you going to cut expenses?

How long will it take you to pay us back?

What interest rate are you expecting to pay?

Hospitals are no different

Our county hospital wants to borrow $20 million from next year’s tax receipts.  How are they going to pay us back?

They can’t get another job.  They should not be playing the lottery.  The children’s hospital owes them some money but cannot pay it back.  They might be able to increase taxes but that won’t fix their ongoing deficit.

Cutting expenses is an option.  Can they?  Will it mean denying care to needy patients?  Will it mean cutting corners and giving medical care of a lower quality?

Could they hire someone that knows how to run a hospital on a financially sound basis?

We deserve better

Brutus

6 Comments | County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Take it from the kids again

July 29, 2014

The Texas comptroller of public accounts published a report titled “Your Money and the Taxing Facts”.  The report discusses taxes in Texas.

One subject her report addresses is local property taxes in 2010.  The breakdown was provided with four categories:

Entity                             % of local total statewide

Cities                                        16.78

Counties                                   16.31

Special districts*                       13.38

School districts                          53.52

 *these include hospital and community college districts

Not us

I was surprised to see that:

Our city takes 25.26% of our local property taxes compared with the 16.78% cities take on the average statewide.

Our county is right in line at 16.13% compared with 16.31% for counties statewide.

Our special districts are at 12.61%, thus under the statewide average of 13.38%

And for those of us in the El Paso Independent School District we are paying 45.99% in school taxes compared with 53.52% in the remainder of the state.

Vote for change

Some at the city have called us “crazies” for being concerned about their spending habits.

These numbers need to be justified or they need to be changed.

The simple facts are that we spend almost 8% less of our local tax money on education and almost 9% more on our city government than the rest of the state.

If no other numbers call us to action, these should.  The fact that we have the 7th highest tax burden of people in the largest 50 cities in the United States should have been enough to call us to action.  The fact that we are short changing our children and feathering the city’s nest is just wrong.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

3 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

El Paso’s elementary schools given grades

July 28, 2014

The childrenatrisk.org 2014 rankings for Texas elementary schools have been published.  Their methodology has changed from last year and can certainly be argued.

Weighting was evidently applied to scores this year based upon the economic condition of the students.  It appears that if a school had good test scores and the families were relatively prosperous then the school might have been graded down because the students should have done better.  I may have misunderstood the web site’s explanation and would welcome any clarification that the readers can offer.

Without regard to the methodology we do have a consistent perspective on the state’s schools.  There were 4,359 elementary schools ranked this year so a school with a ranking above 2,179 is in the bottom half of the state.

Congratulations to our elementary schools that ranked well!

You can see the chart by clicking on the link below.

2014-ElPaso-Texas-Elementary-School-Rankings-short

Brutus

Leave a Comment » | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Will you walk into my parlour? said the spider to the fly

July 27, 2014

The Times reported recently that motorists are not using toll tags on our first toll lane as officials had expected.

Of the 153 thousand or so usages of the toll lane, the vast majority of drivers have chosen to pay via mail.  That option costs them twice as much as using the pre-paid toll tag.

The toll lane has two price points.  Yarbrough Drive costs 40 cents per trip with a toll tag and 80 cents by mail.  Fonseca Drive price points are 90 cents and $1.80.

Get your toll tag here

Toll tags can be purchased online, somewhere in cyber space.  The Times did not tell us where.

The other option is to go to the city’s One-Stop Shop at 811 Texas.  The location is one of several that citizens have to go to in order to conduct city business now that our old multi-story city hall has been demolished and city departments have been moved to several different places.   Making the trip even harder is that getting to and from 811 Texas requires real effort — it is not like driving to a location on I-10.

One shop stop

People in the development and construction businesses tell us that you go there to see your project grow old — slowly.

The red tape, obstructionism, arbitrariness, bureaucratic bungling and general lack of help that those in the business encounter with the city are an unfortunate part of building in El Paso.

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

« Previous Entries