The revised truth

February 11, 2014

The city’s chief financial officer (some say chief fibbing officer) is scheduled to make a presentation at the February 11, 2014 city council meeting.

The topic?  “1st Quarter Budget Report”.

Not good news

According to her presentation that was posted with the agenda, sales taxes for the year will fall short of budget by 3.39%.  Fines collected will fall short by 5.38%.  Property taxes look as though they will come in almost one-half percent above budget.

Residential building permits look as though they will fall short of budget by 14.95%.

Property taxes are a reflection of what has already been built and taxed.  Building permits and sales taxes indicate current economic activity and they show that our local economy is not doing well when compared to what they budgeted.

Limited

She does indicate “Projections based on limited information”.

Limited particularly in truth.  Her presentation does not say anything about the shortfall in hotel occupancy taxes.  See More shortfalls for that dose of bad news.

The presentation indicates “Based on limited information, revenues will under perform by $3,635,006“.

Information may be limited but the six dollars is intended to convey accuracy I guess.

What to do

They plan to cut expenses.  Actually they will do that right after adding one million dollars to the city attorney’s budget.  Evidently suing the Texas attorney general and whoever else they don’t like is getting more expensive.

Fire and police will take the biggest hits at about half a million dollars each.

No growth

Her report tells us that total employment in our area was 300,176 in 2012 and is down to 296,226 in 2013.  We evidently sold 466 new homes in 2012 and 386 in 2013.

Trust me

I suppose her presentation might end with “Trust me–this time I know what I am talking about”.

You can see the whole report here.

We deserve better

Brutus

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Going down under

February 10, 2014

The February 11, 2014 city council agenda shows that council will consider hiring a firm to help us with the “digital wall” that voters approved as part of the quality of life bonds.

This will be the second such wall on the planet with the other one at the Museum of Copenhagen.

The city has evidently decided to use the product marketed under the TouchCity brand.  The agenda proposes a “sole source” procurement since there is only one company in the world that makes the TouchCity brand.  That is obvious but it does not mean that other companies could not bid on the work.

The agenda backup material contains more of the city spin when it says “TouchCity Wall (Digital Wall) was overwhelmingly supported by the voters in November 2012 bond election [sic].”

Bunk

None of us voted for a TouchCity Wall.  We voted for a digital wall and now staff wants to buy a particular brand so they tell us that we voted for that brand.

The company that makes TouchCity is headquartered in New Zealand.

Train wreck

The proposed contract (read it here) is a train wreck waiting to happen.  Among other problems:

  • It contemplates that the wall will be “integrated into a “welcome pavilion” to be built by others onto the exterior of the museum”.  The pavilion has not been built and as far as we know has not been funded.  The city has been looking for someone to donate the one million dollars needed.
  • The contract contemplates completion in December 2014.  Remember that the “welcome pavilion” has not been built yet.
  • The specifications are almost non-existent.  “The first phase of the work will also see the parties agree and document a process path and schedule for the completion of the rest of the phases of work …”.
  • The normal “Applicable Law and Venue” portion of city contracts (where Texas law is said to govern the contract and El Paso is where any lawsuits will be tried) does not seem to be part of the contract.  In fact the parties agree to mediation where the party picking the mediator “will be instructed to take the international nature of this Agreement into account when appointing a mediator”.
  • Roughly $1.8 million will be paid to the firm for services, not product.
  • Part of the work will be done by the New Zealand firm, part by the city, and the equipment will be acquired from other firms.  The equipment to be acquired separately is projected to cost over half a million dollars.  This is a recipe for finger pointing.

We deserve better

Brutus

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Posted by Brutus

More shortfalls

February 9, 2014

KFOX TV ran this segment about local hotel occupancy the other day.

“I can tell you that hotel revenue in this city is down 3.1 percent from last year,” said Rick LaFleur, president of the El Paso Hotel Motel Association.

The city budgeted a 3% increase for this year.  That comes to a 6.1% shortfall.

Ball park funding

The hotel occupancy tax has been designated as the primary funding source for our new ball park.

The segment showed our city manager deliver this line:  “”All of our revenues are meeting our projections so I don’t know what they’re talking about”.  As though we should believe any financial numbers coming out of her office.

Not to worry

The city manager explained “Well, we have multiple sources of revenue that are going to pay for it. So it’s rent, it’s parking revenues, it’s sales tax”.

If they take money from sales tax revenues (which are not meeting the city’s budget either) then you can expect a property tax increase again next year.

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | Ball park, City government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Cover up

February 7, 2014

Take a look at the city’s agenda search page below.

search

City staff asked for new software to change the way we access city council agendas.

The result is that we can no longer search for things that occurred before 2014.

Neat, huh?

Opaque

Any embarrassing details about what was said or done in the past are now effectively hidden from us.

This has to be deliberate.  If the new software cannot handle the old agendas, then leaving the old system up would give us access to past events.

Shameful!

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | City government, Open Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Good point

February 5, 2014

This statement was part of a comment a reader of Refuse the Juice made the other day:

If I, a person with a regular 40+ hr a week job, can take the time to read through the agenda before council and have a feel for what’s coming up, I’m amazed and saddened by how often the council can’t (after many years in some cases) figure out the process which they can have explained to them any time they want.

Well said

It is gratifying to me that we can see rational, civil dialogue occurring in our local blogs.

We deserve better

Brutus

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