Double your pleasure

January 18, 2014

These slides from the city web site show us the cost of selling bonds instead of saving up our money and paying cash:

2013bTaxableBonds

2013aTaxExemptBonds

So far we have sold two types of bonds to finance the ball park.  We sold 30 year taxable bonds totaling $15,660,000 and 25 year tax exempt bonds totaling $45,125,000.

That comes to $60,785,000.

What will it cost us by the time we have paid them off?  The number comes to $137,286,965.10.

That means that we will actually pay more than 2.25 times what we financed.

Why can’t our governments develop a pay as we go strategy? We would get at least twice as much for our money.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Learned something

January 16, 2014

The article the other day about how El Paso ranks as the safest major city in the United States ended with a comment about quality of life in our city.

Safety, housing, pet friendliness, and our ranking as the best city in Texas to raise a family were discussed.

What we did not talk about however was education.  How does public school education in El Paso compare to the other major Texas cities?

I went to www.schooldigger.com.  The site provides rankings of cities and school districts nationwide.  They base their rankings on scores that students receive on standardized tests.

Surprised

What I found surprised me.  The site lists results for 853 cities in Texas.  Their results for the eight largest cities in Texas are:

CITY                     RANKING            SCORE

AUSTIN                       343                   .595
EL PASO                      442                   .523
ARLINGTON                 516                   .476
HOUSTON                    579                   .418
SAN ANTONIO              613                   .394
DALLAS                        652                   .361
FORT WORTH               676                   .338
CORPUS CHRISTI         682                   .333

The best ranking would be one and the best score would be .999.

While many of us feel that our children are not receiving as good an education as we did in the old days, El Paso ranks second only to Austin when looking at the major Texas cities.

Yet our local paper continues to flog the school districts.

We deserve better

Brutus

10 Comments | El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

We’re number one

January 15, 2014

The fact that El Paso was once again ranked the safest large city in the nation was significant enough that the El Paso Times wrote about it on page one of section B.  I suppose the front page needs to be reserved for whatever issues the Times decides to promote.

We were also ranked as the best city in Texas in which to raise a family.

As for per animal lovers we were ranked number two.

In the “best cities for home buyers” we were ranked number four.

So if we are the safest major city in the nation and the best place in Texas to raise a family, what is our quality of life problem?

Is the quality of life drum being beaten to promote spending?

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Schooling

January 10, 2014

Some people at the Ysleta Independent School District (YISD) are evidently considering trying to float a $155 million bond issue this year.  From what I can tell this money would be for maintenance and repair of existing facilities.

My thoughts here apply to the other school districts too.

Operating expenses

Repairs and maintenance should be paid out of the annual operating budget as far as I am concerned.  State law requires the school district to balance their budget every year.  Failure to keep up with maintenance means that they are not paying their bills as they go.

Fancy buildings

We spend too much money on our school buildings — not that we have too many schools, but we spend too much on the ones we build.

Why does each elementary school need to have a unique  design?  Why do the buildings have to be so fancy?  Does that contribute to the quality of education as much as instructional material and teachers?

Pay as we go

Word on the street is that the bond issue would not result in an increase in taxes.  That must mean that some old bills are expiring.  Why not continue at the old tax rate and save some money, or if necessary spend that money on pay as you go maintenance?  Twenty and thirty year bonds end up costing us a multiple of what we issue the bonds for.

Will Ysleta bow to the wishes of the architectural and construction businesses in El Paso or will they think about what is important to our children and teachers?

Ysleta is in an unusual position.  I hope that they take the lead and learn to manage the money.

While they are at it, it would be nice if all of the school districts spent less money on their central office staffing and worried more about helping the classroom teacher do her/his job.  Teachers having to spend their own money for classroom materials is ridiculous.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

End the privileges

January 5, 2014

I would like to see to it that our federal employees (including elected officials) have to live with the same laws that the citizens do.

There should be no special  privileges for them.  If we have to follow OSHA rules (or those of any other law) so should they.

They should have the same health care coverage we do and should belong to the same retirement system that we do.  Their facilities like government restaurants, barber shops, and banks should be fully paid for by the people that use them, not the taxpayers.

For that matter I don’t think that congressmen, senators, or the president and vice president  should have government funded retirement accounts.

It seems to me that this would need to be a constitutional amendment since any law that one session of congress passes could be overturned in some later session.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

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