Worse than credit card debt

August 12, 2017

If you think that the local property tax rates are high, think about the penalties that will be assessed if you are late paying them.

This graphic came from the city’s web page:

Let’s say that the taxes due on your home are $5,000 for the year.

If you are one week late paying the bill you will owe $5,350.

If you cannot pay until December you will owe over $6,200.

In addition the law firm that has been hired to collect past due accounts can charge you up to 20% after four months.

You could end up paying over 43% for being 11 months late.

Yet the city still complains about the high rates the payday loan companies charge.

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | City government, County Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Sold into slavery

August 11, 2017

Both the city and county are considering raising your taxes 8% this year.

State law allows the voters to trigger a tax rollback election if they go over 8%.

The rollback process requires that 7% of the registered voters sign a properly formatted petition asking for the rollback election.  The signatures cannot be older than 120 days.

Getting to the 7% number would be difficult.

Even with the difficulty, the cowards that are our local elected officials are afraid to go over the 8% and thus give us a chance.  Their fear confirms the belief that they know the voters are unhappy and might rise up and strike them down.

Our state legislature is currently changing the law.  Some think that they may go as low as 4%.

Word on the street is that city council and commissioner’s court want to get their money while they can–before the 8% threshold is lowered.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government, County Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

County bullies

August 2, 2017

We recently learned that our county commissioners will begin charging $15 per hour for open records requests if the requester has submitted previous requests in the same year that resulted in more than 36 hours of work for the county people.

Thats nice

Once again state law kinda gets in their way.  The law reads:

Sec. 552.261. CHARGE FOR PROVIDING COPIES OF PUBLIC INFORMATION. (a) The charge for providing a copy of public information shall be an amount that reasonably includes all costs related to reproducing the public information, including costs of materials, labor, and overhead. If a request is for 50 or fewer pages of paper records, the charge for providing the copy of the public information may not include costs of materials, labor, or overhead, but shall be limited to the charge for each page of the paper record that is photocopied, unless the pages to be photocopied are located in:

(1) two or more separate buildings that are not physically connected with each other; or

(2) a remote storage facility.

The county is trying to punish an individual who is submitting multiple small requests, evidently on a daily basis.

State law makes no provision for combining previous requests when considering charges.

As long as each request results in 50 pages of results or less and the county does not have to leave their main building the most the county can charge is 10 cents per page.

If the request ends up eligible for a labor charge (50 pages or more, or having to look in a separate facility) the requester has the right to ask for a written statement and may then presumably change the request to ask for the right to review the documents in person.

The county attorney probably knows this but as we know governments like to try to bluff the citizens.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | County Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Independence day 2017

July 4, 2017

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.  Benjamin Franklin

Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.   John Stuart Mill

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

EPISD–in the spotlight

June 21, 2017

The battle between two of our potential congressional candidates (the county judge and the president of the EPISD school board) is heating up.

We are beginning to see articles in the Times that shine light on problems relating to the EPISD superintendent and the board president.  It would be nice if these articles were the result of the Times doing good investigative reporting about our local governments.  Instead, it looks to us that the Times is trying to influence the upcoming election.  Without regard to their motivation, we are thankful for their coverage.

The latest article dealt with travel expenses racked up by the superintendent and the board president.  Evidently the superintendent and board president have been living it up while traveling on district business.

The Times informed us that the superintendent said he wasn’t familiar with state laws regarding government employee’s travel expenses.  What a shame.  They also told us that the superintendent has “severe health issues” and must travel in first-class on longer trips.  Try applying for a job at the district with “severe health issues”.

We can expect to hear more about this as teachers are being asked bear the brunt of the district’s financial problems.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

16 Comments | County Government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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