Take a look at how the city of El Paso compares to other comparable cities in Texas when it comes to debt:
The chart comes from the Texas comptroller’s web site.
Only Austin had more tax supported debt than us in 2018.
However our city went another $161 million into debt in January of 2019. Remember that those numbers do not include the multi-purpose performing arts center or the children’s museum or the multi-cultural center.
We deserve better
Brutus
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City government | 
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Posted by Brutus
I feared the other day that some of the comments that would be written after posting This should not happen would blame the teachers exclusively while others would blame the students.
It is probably fair to say that the students were not interested in learning the subject and that the teachers did not see to it that they learned.
Without regard to who is at fault in these cases the students should not have been given passing grades.
Our democratic republic requires informed citizens.
We deserve better
Brutus
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Posted by Brutus
Elrichboy over at elchuqueno.com nailed it again.
He wrote about how our city budget has had a surplus five years in a row yielding $44.6 million.
We thank the city manager for generating the savings.
The five year streak also makes us disbelieve his constant claims that we need tax increases.
Unfortunately our city council will come up with ways to spend the surplus funds instead of using them to pay down our enormous debt.
Before the city continued their spending spree with $161 million of bonds in January of 2019 the cost of debt service was $110 million a year.
They budgeted $193 million from property taxes that year.
Yes 57% of our property taxes went to debt service in fiscal year 2019.
We deserve better
Brutus
8 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
I went to lunch the other day with two twenty year old university students.
They are bright, articulate and hard working.
Both went to high school here in El Paso.
I was surprised to learn that neither was aware that we had a state legislature. I had to explain that their are state senators and national senators. The title “congressman” was confusing to them. They did not know the difference between a senator and a representative.
Our education system failed here.
We deserve better
Brutus
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Posted by Brutus
I heard on the radio the other day that the state of New Mexico has a budget surplus of $800 million this year.
I then heard about some ideas about how to spend part of it like free tuition to the state universities and more money for early childhood education.
What I did not hear anything about is a decrease in their state income tax.
We deserve better
Brutus
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Posted by Brutus
elpasospeak 
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