More hypocrisy from the Times

August 27, 2016

The Times continues to show its hypocrisy through its editorial the other day.

They want us to agree that our elected officials at the county  should be paid much more than they are now.

El Chuqueno did a nice job challenging the Times the other day.

Can we get the Times to divulge the salaries of their reporters?  While we’re at it maybe we could talk them into bringing back to El Paso the jobs that they have exported to other cities.

Then again maybe if they had their editorial content managed somewhere else we would end up with a newspaper that advocated for their readers.

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | County Government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

EPISD spending per student

August 26, 2016

Some of the recent discussion was about the per pupil operating costs of various school districts.

We got the numbers below from the Austin Independent School District FY2017 Preliminary Budget.

They presented a chart titled “FY2015 Per Pupil Operating Expanditures [sic]”.  They evidently have chosen to neither use a spell checker nor hire literate people.

For the 2015 year they showed Austin spending $9,881 per student, Dallas $9,672, El Paso $9,254, and Houston $8,493.

We deserve better

Brutus

10 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

EPISD bonds–a new team?

August 25, 2016

DavidK over at Refuse the Juice posted a frightening thought the other day.

It is a worthwhile read.

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | City government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

EPISD funding from the state

August 24, 2016

We received a comment from a regular commenter  the other day that “we have a rigged [funding] system that favors the Dallas-Austin-Houston corridor”.  The comment was about state funding of local issues in general, not just about school district funding.

Looking into the 2016-2017 budgets for the Austin, Dallas, El Paso, and Houston school districts we were quite surprised by the amounts the state provides for each student.

Austin Independent School District projects an enrollment of 82,690 students.  They show total anticipated state funding at $68,994,815.  That comes to $834 per student for the school year.

The Dallas Independent School District projects receipt of $332,186,058 from the state and an enrollment of 159,310 students.  The per student revenue from the state works out to be $2,085.

Our El Paso Independent School District anticipates enrollment of 58,542 students and total state revenue of $309,110,521.  That works out to $5,280 per student.

The Houston Independent School District has been declared property rich by the state and as a result will actually pay money to the state.

What have we missed?

We deserve better

Brutus

 

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

How much can you afford?

August 23, 2016

The Wednesday, August 17, 2016 front page of The El Paso Times was a doozy.

All of the articles were about potential tax increases from local governments.

Our city council wants a 5.29% tax increase.  The mayor vetoed their motion.

Our county hospital wants to raise their tax rate the maximum amount they can without triggering an election that would require approval by the voters.  Even with that increase they are projecting a $19 million deficit.  Keep in mind that this is a situation left to us by our former hospital administrator.  The new guy has only been on the job about a month and is the inheritor of this mess.

The El Paso Independent School District is calling for a $668.7 million bond election because of declining student enrollment.  Elrichiboy pointed out in Count Your Blessings how fortunate we are that enrollment has not reached zero.  If the bond issue passes school taxes will go up 15.25%.  At least we get to vote on this one.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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