In past years the candidates for the various judge positions pretty much relied on word of mouth and familiarity with the local lawyers.
This year we are seeing candidates featured on expensive billboards.
That means that they are spending more money to get elected than they used to.
Does anyone know why?
We deserve better
Brutus
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Posted by Brutus
We saw another unfortunate example of the effects of cost cutting the other day. It seems that our news outlets do not have controls in place to see to it that what they report is correct.
KTSM Television reported this in a piece about the new William Beaumont hospital recently:
The hospital is expected to be up and running by September 2020. However, that depends on how much time it takes to move all the patients from the original location to the new one.
In 1893 the original hospital was at what is now building 8 on Fort Bliss.
It expanded to a new facility in 1916 and in 1921 to the one that subsequently grew massively to handle the effects of World War II.
The current facility was opened in 1972.
Be careful in believing what you are told by these news outlets.
We deserve better
Brutus
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Posted by Brutus
It’s Saturday.
What’s on your mind?
We deserve better
Brutus
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Posted by Brutus
Let’s hand it to the city for figuring out another way to scam the taxpayers.
The way property taxes work in Texas requires the city to figure out how much money they raised in property taxes last year.
They they look at what the same properties are appraised at this year and must tell us the tax rate that will bring in the same amount of money. This is called the effective tax rate. If property values go down they can raise their effective tax rate thus bringing in the same amount of money as last year. If property values go up they must lower their effective tax rate. New properties are not part of the equation.
From there if they want to raise more money they are now capped at an increase to the effective tax rate of no more than 2.5%. If they want to go over 2.5% the voters must be given an opportunity to vote on the issue.
Well this year as it turns out our central appraisal district folks took a conservative view on commercial property values. They subtracted 3.3% from what they thought commercial properties were worth just in case the commercial property owners decided to fight their valuations.
This is nothing new, they do it every year.
What was new was the 3.3%. Normally they take a 1.8% reduction on average. The net effect according to the city’s own chart was that the city set their tax rate using the 3.3% decrease instead of the 1.8% norm.
The actual calculation requires a little bit of algebra so I will just use the city’s chief financial officer’s numbers. He said in a city council meeting recently that the result was $10 million of additional revenue to the city. He then said “we’re over collecting on property taxes”. The city manager then stepped in and said that they were not really over collecting they were just collecting based upon what the central appraisal district came up with.
The city chief financial officer told city council that city staff did not agree with the evaluation but they used it anyway.
That was really convenient for them.
In reality the city knew that the historical value was 1.8% but used the 3.3% number without taking it back to the central appraisal district for a better understanding.
If they claim that they did not know then they are saying that they are incompetent.
We deserve better
Brutus
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Posted by Brutus
It seems that some people think they are getting exercise when they jump to conclusions.
We deserve better
Brutus
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Posted by Brutus
elpasospeak 
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