Don’t shift the burden, lower it

July 7, 2015

Evidently the other day as our city manager proposed next year’s budget he said that out of 125,577 homes in El Paso 45,509 are eligible for a senior citizen or disabled homestead discount.

By my reckoning that comes to 36.2%.  Our city is now giving a $40,000 reduction in assessed property value to those eligible.  This does not cap the property tax the senior has to pay.  Instead it reduces the value used to compute the tax.  The formula is:  take the assessed value and subtract the exemption–call that the taxable value–multiply the taxable value by the tax rate giving the tax owed.

On the other hand seniors have their amount of tax owed frozen for purposes of school district taxes.  That means that means their tax bills do not go up regardless of the rate.

School district taxes account for almost 50% of our local tax rate here in El Paso.  The taxes the city assesses are about 25% of our total bill.

Shouldn’t we take this into account as we consider public debt?  How can we expect young people to stay here when we are asking them to pay these bills?

It seems to me that if we spent less our tax bills could be lower.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

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

Outmatched

July 6, 2015

Up until the 1980’s our city council members ran as a slate.  Several candidates would band together and let it be known that they stood together and that they would make a difference on city council, as a group.  For those too young to remember this, these were the days when El Paso was considered to be a jewel in the desert.  We were seen as more desirable than Tucson, Albuquerque and Phoenix.

The laws have changed since then and now we have what are called “single member districts”.  Individuals are elected to represent their district first and the city as a whole second.

One of the unfortunate consequences of the new laws is that many highly capable people will not run for city council because they fear that their one vote will not make a difference and that they will have to tolerate city council meetings that resemble middle school.  Witness what we have at council today.

Not competent

What we have today is a group of city representatives that simply do not have the capability of  managing city staff or special interests.  Our city representatives are paid less than 30 thousand dollars a year.  I am not arguing that these people need a pay raise.

Each Tuesday they deal with a string of city officials that by and large make more than 100 thousand dollars a year.  The city manager gets paid $239,000 per year.  The city attorney is paid almost $200,000 dollars a year.

Most of our city representatives simply do not have the experience to manage people at this level.  If city staff wants to lie or hide the truth our city representatives don’t know the questions to ask.

Crazies

When concerned members of the public do ask the right questions they are dismissed as crazies by city staff.

We might be able to change this if we could somehow get capable people to run in each of the districts.  Together they could make a difference.

Yes they would have to deal with a daily newspaper that is used by some in power to discredit those that they disagree with.  The newspaper is in danger of becoming irrelevant and while they may try to continue promoting what their masters tell them to, eventually the public will catch on.

Then too, we might have an opportunity to vote on the strong mayor/city manager form of government.  I imagine that our current mayor would like to have more power to clean up the mess he sees.

Every election is an important one.  We have the opportunity to change course.

We have time if we start now to find candidates.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

9 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

What does our chief performance officer do?

July 5, 2015

I’ve been wondering about us having a chief performance officer at the city.

Is the San Jacinto Plaza disaster something where we should expect performance?

Maybe a reader can explain to us what our chief performance officer is supposed to do.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

7 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Thoughts about our future independence

July 4, 2015

What those brave people did in 1776 changed the world and all of us should be grateful.

Thinking of our situation today, two quotes come to mind:

“Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both”.  Ben Franklin

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.  Edmund Burke

Be careful today.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Take a smaller bite

July 3, 2015

The El Paso Independent School District announced that they are considering a different plan for the school consolidation and refurbishing.  Instead of needing one billion dollars they are now projecting the need for $686 million.

That is good news.  It looks like the district is working to come up with the best solution that they can find.

Earn our trust

Many of us do not trust our local governments to handle bond issue money.  Cost overruns, “repurposing”,  switching projects, and never ending projects  are events that we continue to see and are on our minds.

Much of the money will be used to remedy “deferred maintenance”.  Instead of maintaining our buildings on an annual basis,  past school boards have ignored maintenance in order to pretend to balance the budget.  The result is that they have to ask for bond money when the schools are too run down to continue to operate.

I have a straightforward suggestion.  Instead of asking for all of the money at one time the district should ask for a smaller more manageable amount (say $68 million) and then prove to us that they can handle the money wisely.  They could then come back to us and ask for another tranche after having proven that our money was well spent.

Remember the old saying: “pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered”.

The quality of life bonds at the city have caused us to realize that the city staff does not have the capacity to handle the $400 million that we voted for.  They are going to have to parcel out the construction over a period of time.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

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