None of the below

March 18, 2015

The Times did it again.

Their Monday, March 16, 2015 on-line edition contained this survey:

timesculturalcenter

As we wrote in Bait and switch, incompetence, or fraud? the ballot called for the voters to fund a “Heritage” cultural center.  The Times is again trying to spin an issue.

Why?

I’m not against the idea of a museum that helps us remember our local history.  However I don’t understand how we can segregate our culture into a particular building.

Isn’t culture about our common beliefs and practices, our traditions, our facilities, our lifestyles?  Why do we need a building dedicated to our “culture” when we live it every day?

We deserve better

Brutus

11 Comments | City government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Note to the Times

March 7, 2015

A copy of this email was sent to us.  We redacted the email address and phone numbers.

From: Dan Wever [mailto:xxxxx@xxx.xxx]
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2015 2:01 PM
To: ‘Lindsey Anderson’; ‘Bob Moore — Editor EPT’
Subject: Figures you might be able to use from TEA website

Lindsey these are a quick look at what a school brings in and what it costs the district to run it for 1 year.

Questions call xxx-xxxx.

These figures are for 2012-2013 last year available.

Enrollment = 62.884

Total Revenue All Funds, Local tax, State help, Federal help = $590,862,929

Therefore each student is worth $590,862,929 divided by 62,844 which is $9,396 to the EPISD

Let’s look at one of the South side schools  that has been named to close, Beall elementary.

The enrollment in Oct of 2013 was 480 students so how much money did these students bring into the EPISD  $9,396 times 480 = $4,510,117

So how much did it cost the EPISD to keep this school open for this year 2012-2013

This data is for school year 2011-2012 and it is the last year available so the figures are not a 100% a valid comparison but I can assure you that they are very close to the 2012-2013.

Expenditures per Student

                                                                Beall                      EPISD AVG.

Total Operating Expenditures       $7,443                        $8,360

Instruction                                         $5,499                        $5,008

Instructional Leadership                      $63                             $88

School Leadership                               $459                            $501

So we have a cost to EPISD to keep this school open of $3,572,640 or they made a profit of $937,477

Of course we know that the ADMINISTRATIVE costs are not included in the School Report Card (Expenditures per Student) and I guess this profit is not enough, so we need to put these children on busses and send them to a school that makes more profit.

Dw

Xavier share as you like

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

Times: The voters are not competent

March 2, 2015

The Times wrote an editorial the other day about the negotiations between our city and the firefighters.

They ended with this:

We encourage the city and union negotiators to reach an agreement quickly and take the contract out of voters’ hands.

We deserve better

Brutus

6 Comments | City government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Quitting early

February 27, 2015

The other day the Times attempted to get the children’s hospital spokeswoman to do her job and explain the children’s hospital’s view on the recent offer from the county hospital.  According to the Times:

“Children’s hospital spokeswoman Susie Byrd said that her contract was set to expire Monday and that Castillo would handle comments regarding dealings with UMC.”

She was still on the payroll, still had a contract, still had a job to do.

What else would we expect?

We deserve better

Brutus

15 Comments | County Government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Nonsense in the Times

February 25, 2015

I actually went out and bought a copy of yesterday’s El Paso Times because I could not believe what I was hearing that they had reported.

Their article told us that our county hospital has given the children’s hospital an ultimatum–accept our new offer by Friday or we will stop providing administrative services.

The county hospital provides administrative support to the children’s hospital through 33 staff members.  Those staff members will evidently be reassigned to duties at the county hospital if the children’s hospital does not accept the current offer.

The paper goes on to tell us “The elimination of the services will not have a direct impact on patient care at Children’s Hospital, he said”.

That is simply not true.  According to the article, payroll and information technology are two of the services being performed by county hospital employees.  Not keeping the patient records systems running will affect patient care.  Not paying the children’s hospital employees will affect patient care as employees will have to quit and find a paycheck elsewhere.

The 33 employees do not need to worry about their jobs according to the paper.  Evidently the county hospital is committing to using them to perform other functions.

Either the 33 employees are needed at the children’s hospital or they are not.  If they are not then why are they being charged to the children’s hospital?

They certainly are not needed at the county hospital and we should not pay for them there.

Further, the article tells us “UMC officials have said the medical center loses about $33,000 a day on administrative contractual services that Children’s Hospital hasn’t paid.  Wow, 33 employees, $33,000 a day.

No one has ever explained why after the county voters agreed to spend $120 million to build the children’s hospital building the children’s hospital has to pay rent to the county hospital.

Talk about taking candy from a baby.

We deserve better

Brutus

15 Comments | County Government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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