Its not my job

October 12, 2013

The El Paso Independent School District (EPISD) teachers that I have spoken with in the last few years have been universally critical of what they call the central office.  The words “top heavy”, “incompetent”, “ineffective”, and “clueless” are frequently heard.

These teachers generally seem to think that many of the people in the central office are good and are thankful for their support.  The problem seems to be that the teachers perceive that there are far too many people at the central office that are not effective.

I thought I would look into the “top heavy” claims so I went to the EPISD web site.  The district posts its job descriptions online.  What I found was that there were:

474 different professional job descriptions.  These include both teaching and support staff positions. In the 474 there were job descriptions for 44 directors, 9 executive directors, and 15 assistant directors.  There were also 13 different associate and assistant superintendent jobs.  That’s 81 different kinds of bosses at the assistant director level and above.

In the separate clerical area there were 241 job descriptions including 68 different types of secretaries.

There are another 138 “support personnel” job descriptions.

I have no idea how many of these different categories actually have people working in them.  What the numbers suggest to me is that we have a situation where jobs are highly differentiated.

Is that because the employees are out of control and we must have a highly specific job description in order to get them to do the right thing for the students?  Could it be that we have all of these different job descriptions so that salary levels can be gamed?  I don’t know.

What I do know is that it looks like this should be simplified if for no other reason than for operational flexibility.

According to a highly critical 2012 report EPISD had about 9,000 employees in 2012.  Of the 9,000 employees only 50% were evidently teachers.  The report claimed that only 54% of the budget was spent in the classroom.

I don’t know if the report was either accurate or fair.  On the other hand I have not seen any rebuttal from the EPISD.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

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

Tough sell even when It’s all good

October 3, 2013

The new mayor is working hard.  Thankfully he has taken a strong hand in trying to fix our mess at the city.

His highest priority is to help create more and higher paying jobs in El Paso.  I don’t know anyone who does not support him on this.

Let’s say you are thinking of moving some jobs to El Paso

Unfortunately we are not as attractive as we could be.  Consider these issues:

  • We have the fourth highest tax rate of America’s 50 biggest cities
  • We have the highest hotel occupancy tax in Texas
  • The FBI has indicted 34 local public officials over public corruption issues in the last few years
  • Our largest school district has had it’s elected board neutered and replaced by a state appointed one
  • Our airport is about to lose the protection of the Wright amendment, thus losing flights
  • We are not attractive enough as a city for our local refining success to keep El Paso as his company headquarters
  • Our new city budget spends less across the board on quality of life issues and more on internal city departments
  • We tore down a children’s museum, passed bond money to build a new one, but have no plans to build it
  • We have mismanaged a downtown plan to the extent of spending more than twice what we were told it would cost
  • Our city is suing the attorney general of Texas to deny the citizens the right to see communications relating to city business
  • 26% of our citizens over the age of 25 had not completed high school in 2010
  • Our economic development team is an abject failure

On the other hand

  • We have great weather
  • Our labor is cheap
  • We are the safest major city in the country
  • Our geographic position is advantageous to some businesses
  • We have two good universities that have the potential to help our economy

The mayor cannot fix our problems in even a four year term.  What he can do is take action to restore trust, clean up the mess, and set us in a positive direction.

We deserve better

Brutus

11 Comments | Ball park, City government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Designer schools

September 12, 2013

The August 20, 2013 board meeting of the El Paso Independent School District (EPISD) contemplated hiring an archetict for a new elementary school.  The minutes have not been published yet but I assume the contract was approved.

The  school is to have 36 classrooms, will be about  85,000 square feet and is planned to cost about $12.4 million dollars.  The school is being called E-17 pending the naming process.

The architect is to design the school and (I presume) oversee the construction.  The fee will be  $835,974.

Why?

The school district has over 50 elementary schools in operation now.  Why does this new school have to have a unique design?

We have built new elementary schools recently.  Why can’t we come up with a design every 10 years or so (depending on how often requirements and standards change) and use that design for each new school?

We would probably not save the full fee.  The construction management portion typically costs about 25% from what I have been able to find out.

Funding

If you are curious about where the money is going to come from, the documents indicate that the money will come out of the 2007 bond election.

Unfortunately we will probably finance the architectural fees thus doubling or tripling the cost to us.

We have trouble enough getting money to the classrooms where it belongs as it is.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Top of the list

September 3, 2013

If paying high property taxes is your goal, El Paso is the place to be.

Getting Better

In For whom the bill tolls we saw that El Paso was the 6th most expensive city for property taxes on a $150,000 home among the largest 50 cities in the country for the year 2009.

We saw us getting closer to first place with a 2011 rating of 5th place.

These numbers come from the Minnesota Center for Fiscal Excellence.  The issues of state income tax, average home values, and commercial taxation were covered in For whom the bill tolls.

And better

The 2012 numbers are out.  El Paso now ranks as the 4th most expensive city  using that same ranking study.

If our goal is to get to the top of that list we are well on our way.  We’ve steadily gotten higher on the list, going from 6th place to 5th and then to 4th.

More to come

The 2012 numbers are before demolishing city hall, remodeling new buildings for city staff, building the ballpark, building new hospital clinics, and the quality of life bonds we passed last year.

Wait until next year

We are seeing the local governments come forward with public and hidden tax increases.  If the cities above us on the list don’t get to work and raise more taxes it looks like we can get to the number 3 spot for 2013.

This 2011 US News and World Report article puts the 2009 median household income for El Paso as next to last among US metropolitan areas of 500,000 people or more.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Editorial earthquake

September 2, 2013

The El Paso Times editorial of September 1, 2013  “Property tax path not sustainable” is remarkable.

The editorial points out “That increasing tax burden on homeowners is simply not sustainable.  That $600 increase over the past decade was money that homeowners couldn’t spend on major purchases or for their children’s education.  The tax increases have increased hardships on tens of thousands of families.”

Has something changed?

Does the Times suddenly really care about education?

I’m trying to figure out what the Times’ position is.  They  have supported the public spending spree we are witnessing, yet now they are saying that we cannot afford it.  These explanations come to mind:

  • They think that we need to stop the capital spending for a while.  After all we have already bailed them out of the building they could not afford as part of the city hall destruction, ball park construction, temporary city facilities binge that has cost us well over 120 million dollars so far.  Yes we tore down our children’s science museum and have no plans on the drawing board to replace it in the next three years, but all in all it is time to curtail the spending.
  • Somehow they did not know that the public works spending would increase taxes.  The editors recently learned that in order for governments to spend money they must collect taxes and fees.  Now they have learned and realize that their rent is going to increase.
  • They have decided to take their own advice.  They wrote “First, the public should not stand for grandstanding on tax and spending issues…If an elected official is going to oppose tax increases, he or she also must identify specific spending reductions.  El Paso cannot afford politicians who pander to various constituencies by supporting spending increases on the one hand while opposing taxes on the other.”  The same goes for newspapers.
  • September 1 in the newspaper world is like April 1 for the rest of us.

The editorial goes on to advise “Additionally, the governments should join together for taxpayer town halls, where the community can help identify spending priorities — and identify areas where local governments might cut back.”

Town halls?

Really?  In a community where city council denied the citizens the right to have an election that they called for by petition?  In a community where both city council and the El Paso Independent School District board of managers rearranged their agendas to make it more difficult for members of the public to be heard?  In a community where city council has been spending tax payer money to deny public information requests that the attorney general of Texas wrote must be released?  When we have a city manager who praises a city representative for being thoughtful and deliberate even though she considers her constituents?

Crazy ideas

In the spirit of the Times’ suggestion let me offer just a few ideas  that the average “crazy” in town might offer:

  • Don’t finish the Luther building.  The city IT department is located somewhere else and we have not heard that it is not capable of functioning.  There is already talk of building a new “municipal complex” in the next few years, thus wasting the money we are spending moving into temporary quarters.
  • Build one new health clinic.  The CEO of our county hospital told us that we would save 17 million dollars each year in emergency room costs if we built 150 million dollars worth of clinics.  Why not build one clinic, see if the apportionate savings materialize and then use the savings to build the next clinic?
  • Don’t let the city make the school district move their administration building, thus costing us at least 40 million dollars.
  • Stop supporting athletics programs at the community college
  • Stop the financing.  Start using the savings from one project to fund the next one.
  • Stop transferring the administration of public spending to non-elected groups like the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority.
  • Get administrators in our local governments that care about the taxpayers.

Feel free to contribute your ideas through the comments mechanism of this blog.  We may not be a town hall but at least your ideas will be shared with the public.

I read the post that Brutus will publish tomorrow.  Don’t miss it.  Our situation is not improving.

Eternal vigilance is the cost of liberty.

Cato

1 Comment | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Cato

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