Our county judge was quoted the other day in a Times article about the bonuses the county hospital gave some employees.
Note that some employees evidently got bonuses. The regular rank and file workers probably did not. It must have been the special people that did. I’ll bet the 56 people who got fired did not.
The Times article told us that the county hospital has not disclosed a list of who received a bonus and how much money they received even though the Times has filed a request for the information. The hospital says that it takes time to compile such complicated data but that they will provide the information in a few days.
Our county judge commented about the lack of transparency over at the county hospital. She pointed out that her bunch has absolute transparency. In fact mere members of the public can have access to the financial dealings of the county simply by accessing the county web site. From the article:
Every check the county writes, salary information and other data are available on the county’s website, she said.
University Medical Center should follow that lead, she said.
“UMC is a public entity and it’s funded by the taxpayers,” Escobar said. “There is no way to build public trust except through transparency.”
I did not remember seeing anything like that on the county web site from my previous visits. Sure enough there is now a section on their home page captioned “Transparency in Government” that has these links:
– Adopted Budget
– Financial Reports
– Deposits and Disbursements Register
– Raw Format Budget
– Fraud, Waste and Abuse Policy
– Capital Improvement Plan
I decided to look into the paychecks of county employees. The deposits and disbursements register does not seem to have individual paychecks on it. Instead, we can see an entry like this one every few months:
10/03/13 EPCO-PAYROLL FUND CFS 100413 4,690,015.52 101
Really clear, huh?
Help yourself, try the links above. The first one ultimately takes you to four different budget books that each have ten to twenty links–all of which you would need to review to see the whole budget.
As far as salary and bonuses go, I have no idea where to find that information.
Our county judge either has never taken the time to review her transparency efforts or she is not telling the truth.
I suppose it is too much to expect the Times reporters to do some fact checking instead of just printing what their benefactors tell them to.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Once a UMC board member is appointed it is near impossible to remove them except for illegal conduct. Incompetence is not illegal. There are a few board members who understand their roles at UMC and hopefully they will lead the ones who do not.
I don’t know how you could manage the UMC situation at the Court level as the board is independent once in office. I believe Judge Escobar is doing what she can within this constraint.
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Didn’t the Hudge vote herself a raise not that long ago? Self-serving much?
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The people of El Paso are sending a very strong message to the El Paso Times by not buying or reading their newspaper. As far as I am concerned the story published by this reporter is misleading. We need transparency, Ms. Escobar needs to itemize wages by position or department.
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