Princeton university is having a problem with meningitis B.
They wanted to use a vaccine to help stop the spread. The one they found is not licensed for use in the United States yet but is licensed in Canada and Europe.
Princeton asked our licensing agency, the Food and Drug Administration for permission to use the foreign vaccine. The FDA gave permission.
What does that say about our licensing procedure?
We deserve better
Brutus
3 Comments | 
Federal Government | 
Permalink
Posted by Brutus
The facts are out about our new superintendent’s compensation from the El Paso Independent School District (EPISD).
He will receive a base salary of $285 thousand per year. I have no problem with a qualified superintendent earning that kind of money from this district. He does not have a state mandated superintendent’s certificate. He will be given three years to get one. Our contract with him requires the taxpayers to pay for the costs related to getting the certificate. That will probably mean travel, lodging, tuition, books, fees and maybe other things. I suspect that we will pay for those costs and then probably give him a raise since he will have become qualified. Who will do his job when he is working on his certification?
In addition he will receive $1,500 a month for a car allowance. In my opinion we should pay by the mile instead.
He will receive $1,200 a month for home office costs. Bunk! This is nonsense.
Another $2,500 each month will go to incidental benefits. I have no idea what those might be. Hopefully they are not bribes.
That comes to another $62,400 a year for things that would come out of a normal person’s pocket.
I haven’t included the $35,000 for moving expenses he will be eligible for.
Nor have I mentioned that that we will pay for his spouse to travel with him when he is out of town on district business. This is simply outrageous to me.
Then we have the up to $20,000 annually the district will pay into a special annuity and the fact that the district will pay the superintendent’s portion of the employee’s contribution to the Texas Teacher Retirement System.
Sick leave will be 10 days per year, starting with a balance of 10 days effective September 3, 2013. Vacation will only be 10 days his first year, but will be 20 days each year thereafter.
Personal protection will be paid for by the district.
The district will pay $3,500 per month for housing rental while the superintendent looks for a house.
A KVIA report from 2012 put the salary of the highest paid superintendent in Texas at $347,834.20 .
Congratulations El Paso! We are getting closer to the top. Our superintendent can get $347,400. Neat coincidence, huh?
This isn’t bad for a guy that earned $182,000 last year.
I have never met the superintendent. I hope that he does well by us. He negotiated well for himself. I do object to some of his perks and to the fact that he is willing to take them. I would think that for this kind of money we would get someone who showed some moral leadership.
I don’t understand our board of managers.
Editor’s note:
This article was written by Cato. I mistakenly attributed it to Brutus. Consider me chastised.
12 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
Our local neighborhood streets are a disgrace.
Driving down them is a bumpy experience with all the patches that have been poorly done over the years.
City council issued $218 million of general obligation bonds in June of 2012 for street infrastructure improvements. I have not seen a lot of construction going on yet as a result of these funds being committed — the city engineers are busy with the downtown projects right now.
I hope that some of this money will be spent in our neighborhoods and not all of it will be spent downtown.
If they do get around to helping us residents I would like to suggest that they make some changes in the way they manage the quality of our streets.
While some streets may prove to be smooth surfaces immediately after they are paved, it seems that inevitably new reasons to penetrate and patch the streets come up right after the new paving is finished.
To me it would be nice if the city would adopt the following policies:
We deserve better
Brutus
15 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
Recently released emails show our city manager taking sides in local political races.
This page from Mock El Paso Times is one example.
The city manager is certainly entitled to have private political views.
Not public. Certainly not shared openly with elected officials, regardless of which camp they are in.
Our city manager should be an administrator, not a partisan.
Hopefully our city council will make it clear to our new city manager that he/she will need to stay out of politics.
While they are at it they should tell our current one to quit trying to manipulate the political scene and spend more time managing our finances.
We deserve better
Brutus
9 Comments | City government, County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
In Hurry up and waste we saw that city council increased a $1.25 million design contract to $4.7 million, no bidding necessary. This was in September, 2012.
The contract was for services to design a new trolley system for El Paso.
The Texas Transportation Commission supposedly had $90 million that it was ready to give to El Paso for the project. We later learned that the money was not available to us. Sadly we might have wasted our $4.7 million.
The amended contract gave the contractor 210 calendar days from the city’s “notice to proceed” to complete the design .
More than a calendar year has passed since the contract was amended. Where is the design?
I went to the city web site and got this page as a result of my search for “streetcar”:
Clicking the City Hosts Public Meetings to Present Preliminary Streetcar System link, I got this page:
We deserve better
Brutus
4 Comments | City government, Purchasing, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
elpasospeak 
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