EPISD–what happens next

August 12, 2017

The money that YISD announced the other day was authorized by section 46.031 of Chapter 46 of Title 2 of the Texas Education Code.

You can read it here.

From what we can understand the money will not come in the form of a one time payment (as was implied by the superintendent and board president in their TV interviews) but instead will be made available every year to help pay interest and principal payments.

The law has been around for some time.

We wonder if the local school districts were aware of this funding when they proposed their bond issues.  It seems to us that local voters would have been more inclined to vote yes if they knew that the state would be picking up almost half of the bill.

EPISD has been silent about this.

Have then been blindsided by this?  Is it possible that they did not know?

We should ask the EPISD board for clarification.

We deserve better

Brutus

Leave a Comment » | El Paso Independent School District, State Government | Permalink
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Worse than credit card debt

August 12, 2017

If you think that the local property tax rates are high, think about the penalties that will be assessed if you are late paying them.

This graphic came from the city’s web page:

Let’s say that the taxes due on your home are $5,000 for the year.

If you are one week late paying the bill you will owe $5,350.

If you cannot pay until December you will owe over $6,200.

In addition the law firm that has been hired to collect past due accounts can charge you up to 20% after four months.

You could end up paying over 43% for being 11 months late.

Yet the city still complains about the high rates the payday loan companies charge.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Sold into slavery

August 11, 2017

Both the city and county are considering raising your taxes 8% this year.

State law allows the voters to trigger a tax rollback election if they go over 8%.

The rollback process requires that 7% of the registered voters sign a properly formatted petition asking for the rollback election.  The signatures cannot be older than 120 days.

Getting to the 7% number would be difficult.

Even with the difficulty, the cowards that are our local elected officials are afraid to go over the 8% and thus give us a chance.  Their fear confirms the belief that they know the voters are unhappy and might rise up and strike them down.

Our state legislature is currently changing the law.  Some think that they may go as low as 4%.

Word on the street is that city council and commissioner’s court want to get their money while they can–before the 8% threshold is lowered.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

EPISD–held the line

August 10, 2017

A regular reader asked us the other day if there was a report that showed the amount of the tax increases our local governments have imposed on us during the last few years.

As it turns out The El Paso Times published an article on September 16, 2016 that did just that.  You can read it here.

The numbers do not include the majority of the quality of life bonds, nor the bonds for EPISD and some of YISD since most of the projects are still in the planning phase.

The numbers show the percentage of increases (for that “average” home–somewhere around $115,000)  for the period beginning in 2006 and ending in 2016:

  • City                                 46.7%
  • County                           50.0%
  • County Hospital          81.0%
  • Community College    43.4%
  • YISD                               14.6%
  • SISD                                  3.5%

Much to our surprise, the El Paso Independent School District showed up with a negative 1.3%.

While we applaud EPISD for their results, we still cannot see the wisdom of investing over $600 million to build new schools in a district whose enrollment is declining every year.

Recent reports indicate that the City and the County are each targeting another 8% increase in taxes this year.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

 

6 Comments | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

City hides from the public

August 9, 2017

The city took the “arena” question out of town to an Austin courtroom as Texas law allowed them to do.

While it may have been legal, we don’t think it was fair.  Going to Austin effectively stifled public input.

Now the judge has gone on record thinking the same way:

“I doubted from the beginning whether it was wise, as a city, to come ask a Travis County judge to tell them what they’d done was correct or not”

No kidding

We deserve better

Brutus

 

8 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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