City staff asks for a blank check

April 15, 2017

Item 24.2 on the Tuesday, April 4, 2017 city council agenda would allow the city manager or his designee to purchase items from buy boards with no financial limits.

Currently they are limited to $500,000 at a time.

If council approves this action we might as well not have a purchasing department.

Buy boards do not offer merchandise or services at the lowest price derived from a bid.  Instead they are more of a “beauty contest” that lists companies that are willing to pay the agency running the buy board a percentage of any sales they make through the process.

Purchases made through buy boards typically do not end up on city council agendas.  We thus have no idea who city staff is giving business to.

We deserve better

Brutus

16 Comments | City government | Permalink
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EPISD–firing the YWCA?

April 14, 2017

The YWCA in El Paso runs an after school program at elementary schools in the El Paso District.

The children are supervised up to 6 PM.

We were approached the other day and told that district staff has let the cat out of the bag and said that the YWCA program was going to be replaced by one administered by a group from out of town.

From what we have been told the district has not communicated any problems or desires to the YWCA.

This would be a massive blow to another local organization.

We deserve better

Brutus

7 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
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EPISD–sneak preview

April 13, 2017

According to the Times our EPISD board viewed a presentation from the out of town engineering firm that the district has chosen to manage the bond projects this last Tuesday.

The Times article said “The presentation to the board was the first public discussion on what the campuses could look [like] after they’re transformed with bond dollars”.

Public not invited

The only item on the Tuesday agenda was posted this way:

“Discuss and Take Appropriate Action on Jacobs Project Management Company “Sprint Start” Document for Bond 2016 Projects (Approval is needed to proceed with contract negotiations with the selected firms and for selected firms to begin their formal design process for Bond 2016 projects)”

The “Sprint Start” document was not posted on the web site as part of the agenda packets sometimes available to us.

Maybe some of our readers could have read the agenda wording and figured out that there would be a show and tell about what their thoughts were.

According to the Times they are already considering making changes to what the bond projects will turn out to be.

We deserve better

Brutus

7 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
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Media stronger than we thought

April 12, 2017

El Paso Inc. ran an article about city representative Niland’s resignation the other day.

From the article:

When she was finished, members of the council embraced her. After the meeting, Leeser said he was saddened by the “abuse” Niland and her family had taken from the news media in recent months and that it had a lot to do with her resignation.

“She told me that she loves her kids, loves her family and the media had actually destroyed her family, and that was one of the things she told me,” Leeser said.

Abuse?

I must have missed it.

Destroyed?

The media destroyed her family?

It sounds to me like she has chosen to be a victim.

We deserve better

Brutus

12 Comments | City government, El Paso Inc. | Permalink
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City salaries

April 11, 2017

The city wants to send more of our money out of town.  Item 16.2 on the Tuesday, April 4, 2017 seeks authorization to spend $260,550.00 to figure out how much to pay our city employees.

From the agenda:

Award of Solicitation No. 2017-392R City Wide Compensation Analysis to Management Advisory Group International for an initial six (6) month term estimated award of $260,550.00.
BACKGROUND / DISCUSSION:
It has been 17 years since the City has conducted a comprehensive citywide position and salary analysis. The last RFP was awarded and completed in 2000. Over time, market competiveness has created salary compression in the City’s compensation structure. This study is necessary to recalibrate and establish a competitive salary structure, and update the methodology for uniform compensation application.

Pay raises

Maybe the city really needs some outsiders to tell them how much to pay our employees.  Most business people can figure this out by themselves, but maybe having experts from out of town tell us that the salaries need to be raised is what the city employees really want.

Big city salaries

The backup documentation shows that a firm out of Arizona was willing to do the work for $75,000 less.  The city gave the vendor bid a rating of 86.33.

The more expensive vendor’s bid was rated at 86.42.  They are based in Virginia.

From the backup information:

Giving the business to the more expensive vendor tells us a lot.

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | City government | Permalink
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