Some are more equal than others

May 13, 2014

Reality Checker brought up a good point about EPISD offering a $2,000 incentive to teachers who announce their retirement early.  He/she compared the incentive to the $1,500 car allowance that our not qualified superintendent gets paid every month.

Are we that ugly? was an earlier post that explained what the superintendent is getting paid while he shows up late to meetings.  I don’t think he is late because of his studying to get his superintendent’s certificate.  The word I get is that he has fallen behind on those milestones too.

Comparing the allowances that he gets to the $2,000 incentive per teacher we can see:

  • $1,500 per month for a car allowance
  • $1,200 per month for home office costs
  • $2,500 per month for incidental benefits, whatever those are.
  • $35,000 for moving expenses
  • $3,500 per month for housing while he is trying to find a suitable house
  • $1,666 per month that the district pays into a special annuity for his retirement–it looks like this is in addition to his normal retirement.
  • Costs associated with getting certified as a superintendent if he ever gets around to it.
  • Priceless–the district will pay for his spouse to travel with him when he is out of town on district business.

Seventy eight retirees

The fixed allowances add up to over $13,000 dollars per month which works out annually to what they are willing to pay seventy eight souls to announce their retirement.  These figures do not include anything for his sorely needed education or for his wife to travel with him.

His contract also requires the district to pay for his personal protection.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

5 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

New tax rate comparison

May 11, 2014

If having high property taxes are our goal then maybe we should hire a city manager from one of the 6 large cities in the US that have higher property taxes than us. That’s right, according to the Minnesota Center for Fiscal Excellence we had the 7th highest property taxes of the 50 largest cities in the US in 2013.

No income tax

Some would say that we rank so high because we have no income tax in Texas.  The numbers show that our effective tax rate on a $150,000 home was 2.446%.  Houston is in Texas and had a 1.896% rate.  Seattle has no state income tax and had a 0.941% rate. The average rate of the 50 largest cities was 1.507%.  That puts our tax rate at 162% of the 50 city average.

No income

U. S. News and World Report ranked metropolitan areas with the highest poverty rate in 2011.  El Paso ranked 6th highest with 24.3 percent of our population living below the poverty line.

Temporary improvement

The 2009 Minnesota report put us in 6th place.  The 2011 report showed us at 5th place and the 2012 numbers had us at 4th place.  We went down to number 7 this year because we paid off some debt, not because we had lower taxes for maintenance and operations. Without voter approval our representatives  in local governments have seen to it that the debt numbers will increase soon.  Several of the recent tax and spend initiatives have not hit our tax bills yet.  The county has approved $150 million for new medical clinics that the hospital chief executive  thinks we need to “repurpose”, in other words spend some other way than what he sold the county on originally.  We have the city hall destruction and the remodeling of the buildings they moved into.  Street reconstruction bonds are being issued. The voters themselves approved over $500 million in quality of life bonds that have not been issued yet and thus are not part of our tax bills yet.

Operating income declining

EPISD is forecasting a $17 million dollar shortfall next year.  It looks like they will go to the voters to get permission to have a tax increase. The various boards are trying to deal with the debts of the children’s hospital.  Some say that the number is above $59 million.  Every dollar that they do not pay is a dollar that the county hospital must absorb and that means higher property taxes for us.

The city just dealt with $7.35 million of required budget cuts because forecast revenue is short of what they wanted us to expect.  Our chief financial officer is a finalist for the job of city manager.  It looks like she may well be qualified to help us raise our tax rates.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Political gamesmanship

May 9, 2014

At Tuesday’s virtually behind the doors closed meeting of the board of managers of the El Paso Independent School District we saw something of the character of our city’s chief financial officer.

The board wanted to take some steps that would dramatically affect teachers and their employment with the district.  The board chose to have a special meeting at 2 P.M.   Obviously teachers and members of the public would have difficulty attending the meeting at that hour.  Many of the items were on the consent agenda.  Their placement there limited public discussion and facilitated a quick vote without board discussion.

The president of the board did move two of the most significant items off of the agenda and postponed their consideration until the next meeting which I believe is scheduled for May 24.

Ducking the controversy

Our chief financial officer did not attend the meeting.  Maybe she will claim that she was busy with city business.  That of course brings up the conflict of interest that she has when representing both organizations.  This was an important vote but she evidently chose to duck it.

By not voting she really voted yes.  If she had objections to the way the board was going to change the rules with the teachers she should have made the time to be at the meeting and vote no.

Did her behavior assist her efforts to become city manager?  To me the answer is no.  What she showed is that she acts in her own political best interest even though she has a responsibility to the district.  Would she behave the same way as city manager?

You decide.  The teachers probably have already.

We deserve better

Brutus

9 Comments | City government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Dirty trick

May 6, 2014

Our non-elected board of managers of the El Paso Independent School District is playing a dirty trick.

They have scheduled a special meeting of the board for today (May 6, 2014) at 2 PM.

On the agenda are numerous changes to personnel policies that will, among other things,  give our not qualified superintendent the right to pick which teachers to fire.

Having the meeting at 2 PM will make it hard for teachers and members of the public to show up and voice their thoughts.

Cowardly

Yes some difficult decisions will need to be taken at the district in order to get the budget in balance.  Leaving the teachers out of the dialogue is not fair.  On this same agenda they are proposing millions of dollars worth of unnecessary construction.

Scheduling the meeting when the teachers are working is a dirty trick.

Normally I would not advocate people shirking their jobs.  In this case I hope that the teachers get the blue flu and attend the board meeting.

The chief financial officer of the city is on the district’s board of managers.  She wants to be the city manager.  Is this how she plans to conduct business at the city?

Shame on them

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

EPISD shift

May 3, 2014

Studying the 1968-1969 El Paso Independent School District personnel directory, I am beginning to understand judge Session’s ruling in Alvarado v. El Paso Independent School District.

The judge’s order is remembered by most of us as the one that caused school busing here in the 1980’s.  Now I see that it also affected personnel, facilities, and curriculum.

The directory lists the employees of the district, including educators and support staff.  Looking at some of the hispanic surnames explains some of the judge’s concern.

The web site genealogy.about.com lists Garcia as the most common hispanic last name.  The district directory lists 35 Garcias with 14 of them being educators (40%)  and 21 being support personnel (60%).

Eight out of the 27 employees with the last name Martinez were educators (30%).

Of the 37 people with the last name Smith, 25 were educators (68%).  Jones came in with 14 listings and 7 educators (50%).

Something got better

Brutus

3 Comments | El Paso Independent School District, Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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