Losing a way to punish us

March 14, 2015

City staff made a presentation to city council about their budget status at the end of the first quarter of fiscal year 2015.

There was an interesting slide that revealed their thinking about public safety and revenue.

The Texas legislature passed a new law that combines the safety inspection issue with the license plate process.  We will still have to have our vehicles inspected.  Instead of getting a new windshield sticker we should receive a Vehicle Inspection Report from the inspection station and our successful test should be automatically registered with the state.

When we then renew our license plates the computer will be checked to make certain that the vehicle has been inspected.  If the computer has no record of the inspection we may present our Vehicle Inspection Report.

In theory this will make it more difficult to drive a vehicle that has not been inspected.

Our city finance people evidently have a somewhat different view of the results.  City revenues will be lower.  Take a look at this chart from the budget presentation:

q12015citybudget

Note that instead of saying that our policemen will no longer have to spend time checking vehicles to see if they are inspected.  Instead staff wrote “Police Department will not be able to cite for expired inspection sticker”.

One would think that our city budget folks would keep track of what the state is doing.

We deserve better

Brutus

6 Comments | City government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

How do the charter schools get by without bond money?

March 9, 2015

I’ve  been thinking about the bond issues that the El Paso and Ysleta school districts have been talking about.

Much of the money in question is to handle “deferred” maintenance.  By not performing regular maintenance to our school buildings the school boards can adopt budgets that appear to be balanced but are not.

Of the $451  million that Ysleta is asking for, $303 million will be for maintenance.  The El Paso district has not decided to propose a bond issue yet but their recently finished facilities master plan indicates that there is $504 million of deferred maintenance to be done  as well as the need for $348 million in capital upgrades.

Charter schools

On the other hand we have some charter schools in El Paso.  These schools do not participate in local property tax levees but do get extra assistance from the state.  While the exact numbers differ I am told that the charter schools end up receiving about 10% less funding than our public schools and that’s before the regular districts raise money through bond issues.

Yet somehow these schools manage to acquire their own buildings and operate their schools.

Maybe someone can help us to understand this.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

14 Comments | El Paso Independent School District, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Not locally reported

February 26, 2015

Haiduc mentioned this in a comment the other day.

This article in the Dallas Morning News tells us that officials with the Texas state government are considering limiting property taxes that cities like El Paso can collect.

Our Lt. Governor is Dan Patrick.  The article told us this:  “Patrick’s push to effectively reduce growth in the amount of property tax revenue cities can collect has local budget-writers concerned. Supporters say that effort will provide Texans with long overdue property tax relief.”

With El Paso’s property tax rates seventh highest among the top 50 cities in the nation many of us would welcome the relief.

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | City government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

They just lie to us

February 20, 2015

The recent discussions about how some of our officials use words to deliberately mislead us have caused me to think about some past examples.

Feel free to add to this list:

“Read my lips–no new taxes”

“It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is”

“I did not have sexual relations with that woman”

“Minimal due to condition of the building”

“the fact still remains that no property taxes will go toward ballpark construction”  

“They are treated the same as any other citizen. “

“If you like the plan you have, you can keep it”.

This quote has been attributed to Richard Nixon: “Sure, there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.”

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Job openings for CEO’s and owners

January 27, 2015

The publicly funded workforce commission that serves El Paso recently changed it’s name to Workforce Solutions Borderplex.

This is the agency that is now run by our former city manager.

I guess that I need to eat some crow publicly here.  Some of my friends have held that the whole ball park/city hall issue was tied to the Borderplex group.  I have preferred to think that the former city manager was acting as a monocrat and that while the Borderplex benefitted from the situation  they were not driving the issue.

I guess that I was wrong.

I’ve often thought that the former city manager played fast and loose with the rules.  I decided to look up the state enabling legislation that allowed the commission to be formed.  This part caught my attention:

Sec. 2308.256. BOARD MEMBERSHIP. (a) A board is composed as follows:

(1) representatives of the private sector, who:

(A) constitute a majority of the membership of the board; and

(B) are owners of business concerns, chief executives or chief operating officers of nongovernmental employers, or other private sector executives who have substantial management or policy responsibilities;

Maybe they are qualified, but

If the majority of the board members must be owners or chief executives or chief operating officers of nongovernmental employers, or failing in that at least be other private sector executives who have substantial management or policy responsibilities, then maybe our local board is made up of a bunch of heavy hitters that know how to run an organization.

The commission’s web page lists 23 board members.  Twelve would make a majority.

Looking them each up through google, of the ones that work in the private sector I found:

A public affairs officer at a local hospital

A restaurant owner

A web services manager for a local company

An investment manager

Two practicing  attorneys

A Certified Public Accountant

A property manager

A disbursements manager

A (sales?) director of a local medical supply company

and the former CEO of our electric utility

There were two people I could not identify.

By my reckoning the former CEO and the restaurant owner fit the state requirements.

Stacking the board this way is a common technique.  Hired management that is supposed to be guided by the board ends up running the show.

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | City government, County Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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