elpasospeak

The Tuesday, July 22, 2014 city council agenda has three items placed on it by our chief financial officer.

Our former chief financial officer.    Her last day was to be Thursday, July 17.

Agenda items have a “Department Head’s Summary” form and other material attached to them as they are submitted to be placed on the agenda if the rules are followed.  These three items list the former chief financial officer as the contact person.

Why would she do this?  Many of us would leave this to the new person in charge if we knew that we would no longer be in charge when council considers the item.  Is she trying to tidy up some loose ends in her reign of financial misdirection?

The three items don’t make sense to me.

Item 7.1 on the regular agenda is the first.  It proposes authorizing $72 million in certificates of obligation for the city to “fund and reimburse itself for ongoing capital project”.  Once again she wants us to go into debt.  These proposed bonds will carry a maximum interest rate of 4.85% and will mature 26 years from now in December of 2040.  We would pay $130 million back with $56 million of it being interest.  Bond counsel and underwriter fees will cost extra.

As we have seen before, the backup material does not indicate which projects have already been paid for and which ones are yet to be done.  What we do know is that some of them have already been paid for.  Why spend almost twice as much to finance something that we already own?  Is it because the money that was used was really for other city commitments and now the council really has no choice?

Item 7.2 proposes $59 million in general obligation refunding bonds.  We already issued bonds in 2005 and 2006, with the 2005 bonds being for the Plaza Theatre.  Now they want to refinance the debt at 4.15%, presumably a lower rate of interest.  The catch?  The new bonds will mature December 31, 2031, at least 26 years from now.  Bond counsel and the underwriters will get paid again.

The third item is number 7.3 on the regular agenda.  On the face of it this looked like a good move.  She wants to take $5.3 million of our new Mesa street mess created by the new rapid transit system and move the obligation to Sun Metro.  This would remove the money from “tax-supported debt” and move it “to Sun Metro self-supporting debt”  Once again bond counsel and the underwriters will be paid extra.

Baloney!

Sun Metro is not self-supporting.  Millions of dollars of our local tax money are transferred to Sun Metro every year.  Every new dollar that they have to spend will have to be subsidized by our tax money.

These items are designed to free up operating money so that the city can spend more.

The net effect of her signatures?  The new people don’t have to have their names associated with this.

We deserve better

Brutus

The upcoming July 15, 2014 regular agenda for the El Paso City Council has an item on it that gives us some hope.

City representative Dr. Michiel R. Noe has placed item 12.1 on the agenda.  It reads:

Discussion of recent contract changes that were completed prior to the departure of former City Manager Joyce Wilson.

Discussion shall include the following:

The possibility of limiting / regulating the City Manager’s ability to alter or influence the alteration of contracts within a particular time window of the CM leaving.

A summary of the contract changes made and the financial impact that the changes caused.

A timeline of when it happened and who was involved including HR.

Are there any additional contracts that were changes, and what those changes were?

Thank you, Dr. Noe!

We have a chance to learn what has been going on.

Were the former city manager’s actions limited to the one deputy city manager or were other employment contracts altered?  Were contracts with vendors or suppliers changed at the last minute?

This is better

Brutus