Here’s what city staff is telling us they are predicting the budget effect of COVID-19 will be:
The are expecting a revenue shortfall of over $26 million.
These are preliminary numbers. Many of us would expect that number to get worse.
Employee expense is far and away the largest portion of the city budget.
It is time for layoffs.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Most Businesses ALSO pay Property Tax on their equipment, inventory and fixtures and . . 10-20% or more businesses will go Out-of-Business this year.
Real Estate Property values will also go DOWN this year when 10-20-30% are unemployed.
NONE of that was taken into account on this chart above.
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Sales of homes might drop and sale prices might drop, but the appraised values will not drop. The city, county and CAD will make sure of that.
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The REAL shortfall will be 50-100 million.
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Hotel occupancy is about 10% in El Paso right now.
(Normally 75-80%)
(Hot Tax collected will be about Zero)
Who’s traveling ?
Who is gonna travel in the next 6 months ?
(Almost no one.)
What used to be “Summer travel” is almost over.
Sales taxes from Hotels are down state-wide.
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Yes, time to CUT all the “Friends and Family”. The Special Assistants, the Assistant to the Assistant to the Assistant…………Cut the fat. Lay off the Mayor, Clown Council, Commissioners. They have no function anyways until THEY vote on the NEXT tax INCREASE.. ALL of the MILLION$$$$ School Superintendents in El Paso County. No school, no Teachers, but bet the Superintendents, all the “Assistants” are still being paid. The CEO at UMC and all his “Assistants”. If HE, THEY are not functional DOCTORS, Nurses, out the door. Cut all the hangers-on at the TAXPAYER owned Ball Park. Pay POLICE, Firemen, EMS, MORE and overtime. Cut the FAT and pay these people, who ARE ESSENTIAL to the PEOPLE of El Taxo. Politicians, Public Officials are non-essential to the HEALTH, safety, welfare of the PEOPLE.
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Try to keep up. The post references the budget of the City. That does not include the County, any school districts, the county hospital (UMC), or any other entity or group funded by other sources!
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You complain about demeaning comments. You didn’t need the first sentence.
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Try to THINK ! ! It all comes out of TAXES, the pockets of TAXPAYERS, working people. City TAXES, County TAXES, it’s ALL TAXES on the PEOPLE. Too much WASTE, greed by Public Officials, Politicians, without any regard for the PEOPLE..
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Time for hard choices. Watch carefully whom they protect.
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I’m enjoying that Margo now has a Council revolt on the arena brewing. That should tell everyone how bad the numbers and projections that aren’t being shared are.
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I read the article in the El Paso times about how the city is trying to reduce expenses like a 5% pay cut for top earners and $7,300,000 reduction in the Budget cuts. I figured and if you take the $1,046,842,912 billion dollars that was the original budget and reduce it by the $7,300,000 then that is a reduction of less than 1%. Is the city really being honest?
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You can double the variance that they are projecting.
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Are the people that work for the taxpayers ever being honest? No never. This is one of the main reasons we are in this situation. The government is supposed to work to ensure public safety not work to ensure a bunch of greedy people unlimited access to taxpayer money.
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The city is going to permanently close Butterfield Trail Golf Course, which was supposed to be a big tourism draw. If you add the annual operating deficit to the original construction cost, the city has flushed another $20 mil plus down the drain.
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THAT, plus the streetcars and baseball downtown really brought in the tourists, didnt it.
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aaa baseball park, public golf course, streetcars, an overbuilt bus system, a fancy digital wall, millions on public art, tens of millions of dollars to subsidize developers, water parks, an overpaid hotshot city manager. where all the new businesses and great jobs that were supposed to flock to el paso?
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Got it exactly right. And “the “Hot shot, over paid City “Manager” was also the driving force behind the Grand Wolf Lodge and his plans, with Developers, the id
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watch the video titled tommy gonzalez talks about the 2020 budget at bottom of cbs4 page below. it’s a 14 minute ‘i, me, my’ rant filled with arrogance and smugness and bragging about all he has done for el paso. he says that if we don’t want to ‘play’ his contract he will go somewhere else, his way of saying that we have to pay him even if gets terminated.
https://cbs4local.com/news/local/tommy-gonzalez-discusses-2020-el-paso-city-budget
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Too bad but golf is a dying sport. Literally with Boomers and numerically with Millennials who have neither the money or inclination for their parents’ indulgence. Now, do the same to AAA.
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