The week of April 21, 2013

April 22, 2013

Monday Brutus wrote Proposition 6, civil.  He did not express an opinion, hoping that someone would give us some information.

Tuesday  in No one will notice I criticized a Times article.  It failed to point out several things about the ball park bond debt.  Instead it acted more as a spokesman for the city, in my opinion.  Proposition 7, waiting for input by Brutus got a nice response from a civil service commission member.

Cato wrote about the hospital district bonds in Heal thyself pointing out that their financial situation is not good and that the bonds will increase our costs.  Then also on Wednesday Brutus wrote about Proposition 8 and once again pointed out that the ballot language was inconsistent with what the city web site says it means.  The civil service commissioner provided some more input in her comment.

Thursday saw Demolishing trust and Proposition 9 by Brutus.  Demolishing trust was an update about the real financial situation relative to the ball park and the moving of city hall.  Proposition 9 was the last of Brutus’ introductory posts about the proposed city charter amendments.

Cato wrote about one of the city manager’s emails in Stacking the votes.  She was attacking a citizen member of the civil service commission because he would not the way she wanted.  That was the only article Friday.

Then on Saturday Cato asked why members of our state legislative group are trying to take away our right to vote.  Another issue might be taken away from the voters was about how the voters of El Paso must currently approve any bailout contributions that would be made to the Fire and Policemen’s Pension Fund.  This legislation would give that power to city council.  Why would some of our state legislators want to do that to us?  Could it be the campaign support that Police and Fire give to them?  Then M. T. Cicero posted El Diario  an article about institutions not consulted by city council when they agreed to close the rail crossings and how El Diario was doing a better job covering what is happening than The El Paso Times is.

Lastly on Sunday Brutus wroteBall park clarification, explaining that he was not against the ball park but was against how it is being done.

Muckraker

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Opening government

April 21, 2013

El Diario de El Paso has done it again.  In an article the other day they wrote about item 27 on the commissioner’s court agenda for April 22, 2013.

The backup material for the item reads:

Discuss and take appropriate action on prohibiting the use of private/personal cellular phones for texting, instant messaging and the use of private electronic communication devices during open meeting by a Court member.

Hallelujah!

An elected official wants to respect the Texas open meetings act.  I thank him.

In the past other elected officials have contended that they have a personal right to receive private communications from family and other people during public meetings.  Maybe they do.  If it becomes necessary for them to communicate with their family during a meeting, they should excuse themselves from the meeting and do it in private.

We have seen through what we commonly call open records requests that elected officials communicate between themselves and staff during public meetings.  How can that be public?  The public is supposed to be able to see and hear all communications relating to the business of the meeting.

I look forward to how the court will handle this matter.

More progress

Also item 14 on the April 23, 2013 city council agenda  would direct the city attorney (hopefully without Scrivener’s help) to draft an ordinance similar to the one in Austin Texas that would make electronic communications with elected city officials and city staff through city owned facilities public property.  I think they already are, but this would be a nice step in the right direction.  I don’t see a proposed ban on the practice council members texting about city business during council meetings.

I note that I did not see a mention of these issues in The El Paso Times, I hope that I just missed it.

We deserve better

Brutus

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Heal thyself

April 17, 2013

The El Paso County Hospital District, newly known as University Medical Center of El Paso, recently asked the county commissioner’s court to approve the sale of $162 million dollars of certificates of obligation without voter approval.

The court approved $152 million.  The hospital district CEO made a video presentation that you can view here if you have the time.

Toward the end of the presentation the CEO projects future operating results starting with 2013 and going out to 2016.  His presentation predicts an average $5 million dollar per year net earnings, leading some of us to believe that the hospital will be operating profitably.  The district predicts income rising from 2012 to 2013 from $376.4 million (actual) to $476 million (predicted).  Ignoring the nice round $100 million increase (I suppose from the coming online of the children’s hospital), managing growing income by a number this large will be very hard to do.  Look for problems to occur that will drive up expenses.

The last financial statements that the district has published on it’s web  site are for 2012.  These show a $17.8 million operating loss for 2012.  That is after the taxpayers give them $71.6 million.  Part of the purpose of the district is for the taxpayers to fund medical care for those in the county that cannot afford it.  That seems reasonable to me.  The fact is however that without the taxpayer money the hospital district would have operated at a $89.4 million loss.

The district came to the commissioner’s court and wanted $162 million dollars for outpatient clinics according to the initial impression one would get reading the county web site.  Actually $29.3 million of the $162 was for renovation of the third, fifth, sixth, and seventh floors of the existing hospital.

Slow down

The district took a 28.2 million dollar charge for depreciation of it’s current facilities in 2012.  Why do they need bond money? The answer is that they are running so deeply in the red that they cannot afford to update their facilities.  If I am not mistaken the old building only had 7 floors.  Now it looks like we will be renovating four of them.  If the district has failed to keep its facilities up to date, then they have been losing even more money than they have told us about.

As part of the CEO’s presentation he tells us that they will save $17 million a year in emergency room costs by opening the clinics.  Muckraker asked in Our two cents why with that kind of savings they needed bond money at all.

I think that the CEO is doing a very good job.  Aside from the political questions regarding using taxpayer money to compete with private physicians, my main concern here is how fast we are moving.  The $120 million children’s hospital is just starting up.  They have a lot of expense to manage here.

Many in the community think that the children’s hospital will cost us a lot of money.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty

Cato

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Congratulations El Paso Times

April 10, 2013

I see in this article that the El Paso Times and its reporters got some much deserved recognition recently.

They recently received awards from no less than the Associated Press Managing Editors.

A former Times reporter who is now with the Denver Post was commended for her articles about the problems over at the El Paso Independent School District:

“Bravo to reporting that seems to have used a combination of digging for records and good-old-fashioned source work to unearth a scandal that had real, quantifiable harm. Investigative journalism at its finest,” the judge wrote.

The Times itself was awarded first place in the community service category for stories and editorials about the cheating.  The judge wrote:

“Exceptional use of reporting and public records laws reveal the depth of corruption and malfeasance in a public school system,” the judge wrote. “Outstanding, tough editorials call for action. The El Paso Times staff performed an immense public service by calling attention to the problem and demanding a solution that would benefit the community’s children, parents and taxpayers. This is exciting, satisfying work.”

I have noticed a marked improvement in the Times since the return of the executive editor.

The Times also “won second place in Texas APME’s best newspaper category for mid-size papers.”  Now I don’t mean to be funny or cruel here, but second place?  I can only wonder about the quality of other newspapers.  Maybe the economic situation that the newspapers find themselves in has changed the standards.

I applaud the Times and its staff and will try to be a bit more gentle with my comments in the future.

In the meantime could we get some coverage of the other problems we have with local governments now that the parade is over?  I’d like to see them win some more awards.

Muckraker

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Our two cents

April 8, 2013

The April 7, 2013 front page of The El Paso Times was occupied by stories about the $800 thousand school district audit and the pending destruction of city hall. To me a more pressing matter was relegated to a sidebar in the Borderland section.  The county is getting ready to issue $162 million in certificates of obligation (CO’s) to build some outpatient clinics.

Not an emergency

I think the Texas Municipal League does a nice job discussion certificates of obligation:

“But the law also gives cities and counties the flexibility to issue debt through certificates of obligation on a shorter timeline.  This enables them to take advantage of favorable interest rates or an opportunity to acquire a property, to make emergency repairs after a disaster, or to address a critical public need without having to wait for the next uniform election date on the calendar.  Of all the debt issued by Texas cities in 2011, less than fourteen percent was through certificates of obligation.”

These clinics are not an emergency.  The decision to issue debt to finance them should be made through a bond election where the voters get to decide.  That is not to say that issuing the certificates is against the law.

Let the people choose

Actually we do have a choice.  By Texas law we have the right to petition for an election when we find out that the court intends to issue CO’s.  It would take the signatures of 5% of the eligible voters and the petition would have to be presented before the county issues the certificates.  The Times failed to mention that in it’s article.

By the way, this petition issue seems to be a big  reason behind proposition one of the proposed city charter amendments.  The current city charter allows a petition signed by 5% of the voters in the last city election to cause a ballot initiative.  Moving the city elections to November would greatly increase the number of voters and thus raise the bar for citizen initiatives.  Sneaky isn’t it?

Another blank check

The proposed order before commissioner’s court would allow the issuance of the CO’s for some period of time for some rate of interest.  Details like that evidently need to be worked out later.  You may want details, but the county just wants permission.  Actually section 3.02 of the order caps the interest rate at 4.75% and sets the maturity date at no later than August 15, 2044.

Bonds work differently than mortgages, but servicing the $162 million at 4.75% for 30 years would cost about $10 million dollars a year.  Hopefully the county will get a lower interest rate and the costs will be lower.

The newspaper article tells us that the tax will be about 2 cents per hundred dollar valuation, or about $20 dollars a year for a $100,000 home.  With a county property tax base of about $34 billion, two cents per hundred will raise about $6.8 million dollars in extra tax revenue per year.

That $6.8 million of tax means that the interest rate will have to be at about 1.5%.  My numbers may be off, but this does not look good.

This saves money — why increase taxes?

According to the article the hospital district says that the clinics will save us $17 million a year in emergency room costs.  Great!  The $10 million (on the high end) we would have to pay out needs to be subtracted from the $17 million that we are saving.  This gives us a $7 million savings.  That would actually allow them to drop our property tax rate by 2 cents instead of raising it.

Or does it save money?  What about the cost of operating the clinics?  The county judge evidently told the reporter that 450 new health care jobs will be created.  Will these be county employees?

Private vs. government

What I have heard from private practitioners about this is that they are not happy.  Roughly 1/3 of the physicians practicing in El Paso are affiliated with Texas Tech and the county hospital (now called UMC).  The private physicians  note that the proposed clinics are not in the really poor areas of El Paso but instead will cut into the business of private physicians.  I gather that the physicians in these clinics will be part of the Texas Tech combine.

What’s the hurry?

This is not an emergency.  Why won’t the commissioner’s court allow us to vote?  Are they afraid that once we look at this we will see things that we don’t like?

I don’t know how I would vote.  What I would like is a chance to look at this issue.

Muckraker

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