Open enrollment finances

June 3, 2014

There has been some discussion in this blog’s comments lately about the financial aspects of the new open enrollment policy that the El Paso Independent School District has adopted.  The policy allows students residing in neighboring Texas school districts to attend EPISD schools if they complete the enrollment process.

Of the $483 million dollars in revenue that the 2013-2014 EPISD budget projected, 2.19% was to come from federal funding.  State funding was projected at 63.9% of the total and local funding was expected to account for 34.8%.

Texas law provides for the portion that they would pay the old district to be transferred to the new district along with the student.  Federal funds account for only about $10.6 million of the $483 million and are not primarily based upon attendance.  It appears that some federal money would be lost to the old district and the new district might gain some depending upon the student’s situation.

Local funds not transferred

I have not been able to find a provision in our laws that requires the local portion (in the case of EPISD 34.8%) of the revenue to be transferred to the new district.  In fact Texas law goes so far as to make a provision for the receiving school district to charge tuition if they want to.  From the Texas education code:

Sec. 25.038.  TUITION FEE FOR TRANSFER STUDENTS.  The receiving school district may charge a tuition fee to the extent that the district’s actual expenditure per student in average daily attendance, as determined by its board of trustees, exceeds the sum the district benefits from state aid sources as provided by Section 25.037.  However, unless a tuition fee is prescribed and set out in a transfer agreement before its execution by the parties, an increase in tuition charge may not be made for the year of that transfer that exceeds the tuition charge, if any, of the preceding school year.

I hope that one of our readers will let us know if I am wrong here.

Who benefits?

The transfer does not seem to make a financial difference to the parents of the student being transferred.  Since EPISD is operating with a budget deficit it would appear that the EPISD taxpayers will have to make up the missing money.

Are the developers and home builders the beneficiaries of this policy?

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Texas waking up to problems with buy boards

May 15, 2014

Our local governments (particularly the city) have unfortunately been buying from buy boards instead of using competitive bidding.

Many of the buy board evaluations are little more than “beauty contests”.  Competitive pricing is frequently a minor component in the evaluation criterion if at all.  Some contracts are awarded because a seller offers X% discount off a manufacturer’s list price.  The fact that another manufacturer may have a lower list price is not part of the consideration.

While buying through a buy board allows an institution to “pick their favorite vendor”, the purchase seldom produces the best economic result.

Market conditions change and issuing a real bid for a product or a request for proposals for a service often can provide better economic and performance results than buying from a buy board.

The problem with bidding is that local governments have to do their jobs and that is too often an inconvenience to them.

Here in El Paso much of the remodeling of the various city hall buildings was done through buy board purchases and was not bid.  Schools in Houston benefited to the tune of 4% of the money that we spent since that was the fee that the buy board charged the vendor for the privilege of being listed on the board.  This happened because the city did not want to take the time to develop specifications and take the projects out to bid.  They were in a hurry to get out of the old city hall.

Turning around?

Now it seems that the Texas legislature is becoming aware of some of the problems with buy boards.  This  article talks about some of them, including the fact that vendors were allowed to write their own bid specifications.

For those readers that are new to this blog you can enter “buy board” in the search window on the right side of this page to see some of the articles that have been written about in the past.

They tell a story of waste, mismanagement, favoritism, and just plain unfairness.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

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

Arguing against the citizens

May 14, 2014

According to the El Paso Times our city council has met and decided to offer the job of city manager to the fellow from Irving.

It seems like he will fit right in over there since, as the Times has written,  he may have had “ethical lapses”.

The Times does a great job of pointing out that city council met in executive session to discuss the candidates.  They then came back into regular session and  adjourned without action.

At a press conference later in the day the city announced that it had directed their search firm to negotiate with the candidate.

Council cannot vote in executive session.  Evidently they did.

Enabler

Our city attorney has once again abandoned her responsibility to the citizens and is condoning what council has done.  The Times wrote:

City Attorney Sylvia Borunda Firth argued that negotiations can begin behind closed doors as part of the deliberation process and are not considered a final action. If negotiations are successful in this case, she said, the proposed contract will be up for council vote. The public vote to accept or reject the agreement would be the final action, she said.

High road

Our city attorney seems to consider the citizens to be her opponent.  She watches council violate their own rules as well as state rules regularly without stepping in.  Her trivializing of mistakes as “Scrivener” errors seems to me to be intellectually dishonest.

As far as open records are concerned, we all know her record.

Our elected officials can get away with many types of legal violations as long as they believe that their attorney has said that what they are doing is legal even if it is not.

I hope that when we change city attorneys we will get one who helps council to do the right thing.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

 

7 Comments | City government, Open Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Wink and a nod

May 10, 2014

None of our elected city leaders seemed to be concerned about the ethics of the money swap that the city engaged in with the state of Texas last week.

The state had money that could only be used for pedestrian wayfinding and facility enhancements related to pedestrian access.

The city had money that it was going to spend for wayfinding and facility enhancements related to pedestrian access.

The two governments decided to swap money with the state funding the pedestrian things and the city giving the state money for aesthetic enhancements to bridges.

Both sides agreed to swap $10 million each.  I give you 10, you give me 10.

City staff wants us to believe that this is tied to another $6 million or so that the state was already going to spend.

Either way you look at it the money swap was designed to circumvent rules that control how money is to be spent.  The city manager once again presented a crisis situation to council–do it this week or lose the opportunity.

The intended result would have been that the city got both their pedestrian improvements and beautification money for the bridges over I-10 near downtown.  Council may have been able to divert those funds away from the bridges toward public safety lighting projects around town.  I guess that we will have to see if that can be done.

They seem to think that rules are made to be bent.

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | Ball park, City government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Necessities first

May 8, 2014

Our city council showed some leadership in it’s April 24, 2014 meeting.

Items 14.3 and 14.4 were items that contemplated trading money with the state of Texas for various projects.

City staff told us that the state wanted to make aesthetic improvements to bridges that cross over I-10 near downtown El Paso.    The improvements contemplated did not improve  pedestrian access,  the state funds that they wanted to use were not eligible for that purpose, the state funds needed to be spent for pedestrian access and wayfinding.

In a typically convoluted formula the city was to give money to the state that the state would use to dress up the bridges.   In return the state would contribute funds to the city to be used for pedestrian wayfinding and city median and parkway landscaping and improving projects.

Necessities

Thankfully a city represented stepped in and expressed his view that there were public safety issues in his district that were more important than making some bridges look better.  He complained that there are significant arterial roads in his district that do not have lighting and that public safety is being ignored.  The deputy city manager making the presentation told council that the funds being discussed could be designated to resolve the deficiency he was speaking of.

Other city representatives then agreed and stated that there were public safety issues in their districts that could be addressed with roadway median lighting.

Confusion

The discussion was a long one.  City representatives asked some questions that could not be answered with a simple yes or no.  The deputy city manager failed to explain the various complexities of the issues.  She gave what appeared to be different answers depending upon how a question was phrased.  My take on the discussion is that she did not anticipate council wanting to get to the heart of the manner and as a result gave the simplistic and often misleading answers that city staff often gives in an effort to quiet council.

Yes or no

At one point a city representative asked if the proposed wayfinding expenditures were associated with the ball park.  It was a simple yes or no question.  The answer was yes.

The city manager and another city representative entered the conversation and told us that the expenditures were not related to the ball park.  They had been planned long before the ball park was started.  Yes the project concerned areas physically adjacent to the ball park but those changes were going to be made even if the ball park was not built on the new city hall site.

No one explained how the project could possibly benefit anyone if the new ball park was not built.

Frustration

Council clearly expressed it’s frustration and outrage at the way city staff has been manhandling them over the years.  Questions about funding were not clearly answered.

Notably the city’s chief financial officer and candidate for the job of city manager was no where to be seen.

Council ultimately agreed to the swap of money with the condition that the projects that the city will manage will be brought before council for decisions about how and where the money will be spent.

In this case council did not bow to city management.

Something got better

Brutus

 

5 Comments | Ball park, City government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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