Inhospitable

August 2, 2014

Our county hospital chief executive officer (CEO) is upset that he had to fire 56 employees the other day.

He should be

This is a mess that he created.  Our CEO actively promoted the plan for the El Paso Children’s Hospital to the voters.

Turning attention to the 56 jobs and away from the carnage that terminating the employees will cause for them and their families, we should ask about the necessity of those jobs.

Were they unnecessary, fluff, pork?  If so then shame on management for wasting the money.  How much more of this is going on at the hospital?

If they were necessary, what will happen to patient care?  Will this just be an inconvenience that patients will have to endure for the sake of the massive egos of management?  Or will patient care be jeopardized?  What will that do to the quality of life of the patients?  Hopefully no one will die as a result of this cut back.  I wonder how much that would cost us?

We deserve better

Brutus

“Even though the children’s hospital is under our umbrella, it will be governed separately   September 2, 2011

3 Comments | County Government, Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Please don’t revitalize us any more!

August 1, 2014

Let’s look at downtown revitalization as a result of the creation of the ball park.

Texas requires that a mixed beverage gross receipts tax of 6.7% be paid by the owner of the establishment (not the customer) .  The state maintains a web site where we can see receipts for each facility (bar, restaurant …) in the state that sells such beverages.  Let’s call those places bars for the sake of simplicity.

The file that the state made available in April, 2014 reflects taxes for March and earlier (sometimes a bar will report late).  The amount for our bars in 79901 (the downtown district) was $80,020.75.  This was before our ball park opened.

The July, 2014 file from the state shows $86,368.28 in receipts for the 79901 area.

Looks good

It appears that we have had a $6,000 or so increase in collections after the ball park opened.  That comes to roughly 8%.  More beverages were sold.

Except

One thing that is different between July in April is that our ball park was open in July and not for the period represented by the April file.

How much did the ball park contribute to the $86,368.28?  The answer is $11,883.52.  That means that business for the rest of the 79901 area was down to $74,484.76, a decline of $5,535.99 or  almost 7% lower.

To get to real sales numbers, the state says to  divide any of the numbers above by 14 and then multiply the result by 100.  Using that technique the downtown bars lost $39,542.78 in sales.

The winner is

The state pays the city the money that is collected.

I don’t expect that the bar owners downtown will send thank you notes to the city for cannibalizing their businesses.

We deserve better

Brutus

15 Comments | Ball park, City government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Minding the store

July 31, 2014

Back  when the children’s hospital was being promoted to the public for the bond issue vote the chief executive officer (CEO) of the hospital, the county judge, and various county hospital board members assured us that the children’s hospital would be self-sustaining and would not require taxpayer money in order to operate once it was built.

The check is in the mail and other various lies

Now three or four years later the county hospital CEO tells us that the children’s hospital owes the county hospital 70 million dollars.

Who was watching the store?

Our county judge and the CEO are responsible for watching the operations of the county hospital.  Where have they been?  The 70 million dollar debt had to start a mere few millions at a time.  Why didn’t these people ring the alarm bells at that time?

A CEO in the private world who allowed this to happen on his watch would be looking for employment.

Is it fair to say that both our CEO and our county judge have failed us?

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Try this one at work

July 30, 2014

Let’s say that you went to your employer and asked to borrow 3 1/2 months salary as an advance.

What would he/she say?

If you are working for a government agency the answer would have to be no.  In Texas governments cannot pay for work in advance.

If you are working for a private employer they would probably ask you some questions before they said no.  Those questions might include:

How are you going to pay us back?

Are you going to somehow increase your income?

Are you going to get a second job?

Are you expecting a pay raise?

Are you expecting to inherit money?

Have you been playing the lottery?

Does someone owe you that can actually pay you back?

Will this money fix the problem or will you continue to go deeper in debt?

Are you going to cut expenses?

How long will it take you to pay us back?

What interest rate are you expecting to pay?

Hospitals are no different

Our county hospital wants to borrow $20 million from next year’s tax receipts.  How are they going to pay us back?

They can’t get another job.  They should not be playing the lottery.  The children’s hospital owes them some money but cannot pay it back.  They might be able to increase taxes but that won’t fix their ongoing deficit.

Cutting expenses is an option.  Can they?  Will it mean denying care to needy patients?  Will it mean cutting corners and giving medical care of a lower quality?

Could they hire someone that knows how to run a hospital on a financially sound basis?

We deserve better

Brutus

6 Comments | County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Take it from the kids again

July 29, 2014

The Texas comptroller of public accounts published a report titled “Your Money and the Taxing Facts”.  The report discusses taxes in Texas.

One subject her report addresses is local property taxes in 2010.  The breakdown was provided with four categories:

Entity                             % of local total statewide

Cities                                        16.78

Counties                                   16.31

Special districts*                       13.38

School districts                          53.52

 *these include hospital and community college districts

Not us

I was surprised to see that:

Our city takes 25.26% of our local property taxes compared with the 16.78% cities take on the average statewide.

Our county is right in line at 16.13% compared with 16.31% for counties statewide.

Our special districts are at 12.61%, thus under the statewide average of 13.38%

And for those of us in the El Paso Independent School District we are paying 45.99% in school taxes compared with 53.52% in the remainder of the state.

Vote for change

Some at the city have called us “crazies” for being concerned about their spending habits.

These numbers need to be justified or they need to be changed.

The simple facts are that we spend almost 8% less of our local tax money on education and almost 9% more on our city government than the rest of the state.

If no other numbers call us to action, these should.  The fact that we have the 7th highest tax burden of people in the largest 50 cities in the United States should have been enough to call us to action.  The fact that we are short changing our children and feathering the city’s nest is just wrong.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

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

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