elpasospeak

Climbing to the top

June 28, 2016

After seeing that El Paso had the third highest residential property tax rate of America’s 50 largest cities in 2015, we set off to find out what it would take to get to number two or even to number one, the highest.

Milwaukee Wisconsin had the second highest rate in 2015 at 2.675%. El Paso was third at 2.640%.

That means that our tax rate only needs to go up three and one-half hundredths of a percent to tie with Milwaukee.

Milwaukee’s rate went down in 2015 from it’s 2014 rate. El Paso’s went up.

The Ysleta school district is in the process of selling $430 million that their voters authorized.

It appears that the El Paso school district is going to ask for permission to sell around $400 million of bonds.

The city is selling certificates of obligation and bonds.

Second place

Don’t be surprised if the 2016 numbers put El Paso in second place with the second highest residential property tax rate among America’s 50 largest cities.

Can we be first?

We would have to beat Detroit at 3.809%.

Who knows? Our politicians are talented that way.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Failing so change the measurements

June 27, 2016

Item 28.1 on the Tuesday, June 28, 2016 city council agenda is another example of a failing project.

In August of 2011 city council awarded a four year grant to The Hub of Innovation. The backup material contained this statement: “This item is to approve funding for programs that encourage entrepreneurship, innovation and technology in order to create higher paying jobs within the city.”

Jobs

Job creation was an important part of the $4 million grant and the grant required the organization to come before council and demonstrate achievement of certain goals:

They were required to facilitate the creation of at least 224 full time jobs in the first four years. That averages out to about 55 new jobs per year.

Then in August of 2015 city council approved a four year extension of the grant lowering the city’s contribution to $250,000 per year.

Few new jobs

The Hub’s first presentation to council under the extended contract has this slide:

It shows that they have only created 4.4 jobs out of the 12.5 that we should have seen in the first half of their year.

Their proposed solution is to change the requirements removing the hiring goals completely and replacing them with the requirement that they make more presentations as per the chart below:

We deserve better

Brutus

9 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Underwhelming

June 26, 2016

As our county hospital’s search for a new hospital administrator comes to an end it makes sense to point out that the online effort to extend our current administrator’s contract is now up to 68 signatures after several months of being available to his supporters.

http://www.vivavalenti.com

Weren’t we supposed to have a new administrator by the first or second week of June?

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Cutting out the side deals

June 25, 2016

City representative Robinson placed two items on the June 14, 2016 city council agenda that dealt with the continued use by some city representatives of electronic devices during city council meetings.

We thank him.

Council had previously passed rules that prohibited use of such devices during city council meetings.

Some representatives have continued to use them even after being reminded of the prohibition.

Mr. Robinson asked if there should not be consequences for breaking the rules.

Other members of council spoke of things like paying attention and being polite.

The simple fact is that communicating about agenda items in a public meeting in such a manner that the communication cannot be heard by the public is against the law.

The end result is that council instructed staff to come back to it with suggestions as to how the rule can be enforced.

This is better.

Brutus

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

Impossible barrier to recruitment

June 24, 2016

The 2015 property tax comparison study is out from the Minnesota Center for Fiscal Excellence.

For the 2013 year the group placed us as having the 7th highest residential property tax rate of the 50 largest American cities.

The 2014 report put us as the 5th highest.

Hard work will get you to the top

The 2015 report shows us steadily deteriorating with a ranking of having the 3rd highest property tax rates for homestead homeowners among America’s largest cities.

In 2014 we wrote Hidden taxes and showed that the city was billing us another $116 million or so in “fees”, some of which used to be paid for with property taxes. Our real tax rate is even higher than what the report shows.

Continuing with the awful news, the 2015 report indicates that El Paso has the second highest industrial property tax rate for small facilities and the third highest for large ones.

How can we expect businesses to move here with a situation like this?

We deserve better

Brutus

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

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