Our city manager’s office included this slide in a budget update for city council:
They are now talking publicly about our lack of revenue growth and the costs of operating the quality of life projects.
If the proposed public safety bond passes this November what will be the effect on operating and maintenance costs?
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Read the back of the flyer that comes with your tax bill. They are complaining about the maintenance costs of the blingy medians the state put in, drops in revenue due to the migrant surge (yet, our local politicians did everything they could to worsen that problem) and four or five other things I can’t remember. The bottom line is that our tax and spenders always assumed that when they started spending money companies would flock here and cover all the costs we didn’t have existing tax revenue to cover. That isn’t happening. At least this year they weren’t blaming the senior and disabled property tax exemptions that City Council plugged in to get the QofL passed. But, sadly even though my property value dropped $30k this year, my property taxes dropped less than $1. That is how much we added in new taxes this year.
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How exactly did the migrant surge affect revenues? Expenses, I could understand, but revenues?
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CBP had to move resources from bridges to support illegal alien interdiction. That created delays in both car and commercial truck traffic. People going to EP for shopping cut back their trips which hurts toll revenue and if they are filing for manifesto refunds, sales tax. The delays in commercial truck traffic got so bad that some factories in Juarez were trucking product to Chihuahua to air ship to other US ports of entry. Some companies moved production east to lesser impacted ports of entry. I’m not sure what revenues EP gets via commercial truck processing but the drop in business as truck traffic was rerouted would have had an impact.
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Meant to say if they aren’t filing manifesto refunds it hurts sales tax revenue
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Mexicans not filing manifestos for refunds is a good thing. If they file a manifesto, we refund the sales tax paid. If they don’t file, we keep the tax dollars. That’s another example of the problems with El Paso’s economic system. A large portion of the people shopping in El Paso pay no sales tax, so our sales tax income is not proportionate to all the infrastructure and services required to support those visitors and the businesses serving them.
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Questioner, I totally agree with you. My comment was just correcting an error in the wording of my earlier post.
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Margo was saying that slow downs at the bridges were causing a loss of sales tax revenue. I call BS.
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The more the City pushes this bond, the more I know my NO vote will make some difference.
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The question you should be asking Brutus, is what will the Safety bond do to your taxes? Since we all just got tax bills this week, it’s a good time to do math. If that bond passes and you have a $200k house, next year it will raise your taxes $48, the year after that $96 and in year six $288. The city is out of money and most of the other taxing entities are out of control so you can assume they’ll all be raising tax rates. Plus the city wants to come back next year for another $400 million bond (which will like be labeled parks and streets—keep in mind the Q ofL was also supposed to cover streets). So, the safety bond increase in taxes will be the tip of the iceberg. The only defense property owners have is voting down bond issues and voting against donor owned politicians. The track record hasn’t been too good on that lately but this is a low turnout election where a strong no vote could win. So if you don’t want to add to your property taxes get out and vote no. City Council has covered its butt in the fine print. They can tell you it will be used for police and fire, but spend it on other stuff.
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The revenue problem is easily explained. They are giving away tens of millions of tax dollars to the same businesses that they claim will increase our tax revenue. On the expense side of the ledger, they keep spending money for things we can’t afford claiming that those things will attract new businesses, knowing full well that those businesses will not contribute their fair share in taxes.
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Didn’t Hunt get $20MM in breaks and incentives for his new DTEP building? The city is making Swiss cheese out of the tax base for businesses and investors.
Trickle up economics.
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Yes. The tax subsidies for Woody’s and Rick’s corporate palace amount to about 25% of the total construction cost.
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Margo was saying that slow downs at the bridges were causing a loss of sales tax revenue. I call BS.
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🤬🤬🤬
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I just read about the agreement that the city made with Great Wolf Lodge. It seems if the State doesn’t approve the agreement that the city has to pay Great Wolf Lodge $4 million a year for 10 years. Also that the city has to maintain the land for 10 years which it says they will own for the 10 year period. Don’t you think enough of our money has already been wasted?
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And you realize that after paying $1000 a year for ten years, Great Wolf can buy the 44 acres for $5000. This would be funny if…
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Tens of millions of dollars worth of real estate we the taxpayers are being forced to give to a private business.
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I am voting NO on the public safety bond and I’m a renter with wonderful landlords who don’t raise my rent. Voting NO because they had cost overruns on the 2012 bond and incomplete projects so why would this one be different? However I think the need is there. I just don’t trust the City.
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