This is unfortunately old news but a knowledgeable reader thought it was worth posting:
https://www.texastribune.org/2016/08/05/lawmakers-eye-monstrous-loophole-keeps-contract-de/
There has been talk of the state legislature changing the law to close the loophole.
Let your state representative know how you feel about this.
Brutus
4 Comments | 
State Government | 
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Posted by Brutus
Two of our community bloggers have been trading pot shots about various things including the apparent open meetings violations committed by a current and former members of city council. See Texas Rangers.
Now according to the Lionstar blog:
Well that allegedly fake investigation by the Texas Rangers was concluded and turned over to the District Attorneys Office.
Now it is up to our district attorney.
One can argue that the DA was right to stay out of the school prosecutions since they were being handled at the federal level.
This issue however is clearly a local one. The public deserves prompt action from the district attorney. He should either prosecute the case or let us know why he will not.
We deserve better
Brutus
3 Comments | City government, County Government, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
It seems that congress is considering eliminating the personal income tax deductions for state and local taxes.
That would cause citizen involvement to lower local taxes.
Maybe that is a good idea.
We deserve better
Brutus
4 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, Federal Government, State Government, Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
The earlier post about the kindergarten report card got us to look into what else our elected officials might learn at EPISD.
According to the pre-kindergarten report card the school district measures these things:
Maybe we should change the age limit on these elected positions. A pre-k child that gets a “P” for proficient on these things might be a better candidate than what we have.
We deserve better
Brutus
Leave a Comment » | City government, County Government, El Paso Inc., Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
Further to elrichboy’s post on elchuqueno.com which points out that the city lowered their income projections this year and thus tried to justify a property tax increase, the data from the Texas comptroller of public accounts confirms elrichboy’s suspicions.
The city projected sales tax revenue to fall.
If you look at the numbers from the state sales tax revenues from the third and fourth calendar quarters of 2016 as well as the first calendar quarter of 2017 compared to one year before, our sales tax numbers are up.
If city management really expected sales tax revenue to decrease wouldn’t a reasonable person expect the city to cut back on their drunken spending?
Elrichboy’s post also shows the city forecasting a decrease in “Charges for services”. Do they expect less demand from the citizens? Are they planning to do a worse job collecting what is owed? The other option would be that they expect to lower their fees. Fat chance!
We deserve better
Brutus
2 Comments | City government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
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