ElPasoSpeak

It’s Saturday.

What’s on your mind?

We deserve better

Brutus

Great news!

I’ve actually seen motorcycle policemen with radar guns working interstate 10 recently.

This is better

Brutus

Things are not looking good at EPISD when considering enrollment numbers.

Last year in EPISD getting smaller faster we wrote about the district losing about  1,400 students between the 2017 and 2018 school years.

The district evidently tracks these numbers in two hour increments.

Here is the latest report:

As of August 27, 2018 the district showed enrollment of 57,103 students.

As of August 20, 2019 the district was showing 54,813.

We should expect the 2019 number to rise a bit but as of August 20 they are down 2,290 students.

I don’t know how much the state plans to pay the district for each student this year.  In past years it has been over $5,000 per student.

If they end up with a loss of 2,000 students and the state pays $5,000 each they will have a $10 million drop in revenue.

We deserve better

Brutus

It’s another sad day in El Paso.

Our city council met Tuesday to consider ousting one of its members.

The charge?

Evidently there was a Facebook post where a picture of the council member was shown.  The title of the page was “Cassandra Hernandez for Mayor of El Paso, Texas”.

The issue here will come down to details.

Did the council member participate in the creation of the page?

Did the council member authorize the publishing of the page?

Unfortunately many of our city council members are ignorant of the laws controlling their offices and the city government.

If our mayor continues to try to oust her this will probably end up in court.

We deserve better

Brutus

If the police department thinks that they need a new training academy facility why don’t we get them to buy and remodel one of the  schools that EPISD has recently closed?

We deserve better

Brutus

According to a recent article in the Times our city council is now telling the public that part of the reason they want to raise our city property taxes by 6.4% is to build a memorial to the people who died in the recent Walmart shooting.

If a memorial is to be built is should be funded by donations from the public and from Walmart.

The city ought to tell Walmart that if they don’t contribute we will build the memorial as close to the front door of that Walmart as we can.

Contribute and we will put the memorial somewhere else.

According to the article up to four million dollars of the tax increase would be put into a fund that could help fund the memorial.

Let the public build the memorial.

We deserve better

Brutus

Jerry Kurtyka recently used this quote from President Eisenhower in a comment:

“In all those things which deal with people, be liberal, be human. In all those things which deal with people’s money, or their economy, or their form of government, be conservative.”

Thank you Mr. Kurtyka.

We deserve better

Brutus

Its Saturday, tell us what’s on your mind.

We deserve better

Brutus

We should be seeing initial figures about school enrollment very soon.

EPISD has been losing about 1,000 students a year and that is causing significant problems with their financing.

Stay tuned.

We deserve better

Brutus

This item is on the Tuesday, August 20, 2019 city council agenda:

Resolution authorizing the City of El Paso to approve a resolution to Condemn the Weaponization of Political Rhetoric that promotes the demonization and dehumanization of people of Hispanic origin and other minorities and cultivates an environment of hatred and violence.

They might go a little further and condemn demonizing and dehumanizing anyone regardless of origin.

Then again that would require putting some thought into what they do.

Please note that in spite of their stand on what others might say council has imposed the highest tax rate of the fifty largest cities in the United States on us.

We deserve better

Brutus

Take a look at this:

The chart shows EPISD’s property tax rates for last year along with the rate they are considering for next year.

The end result is that they are considering lowering the combined tax rate from $1.31 per hundred dollars of property valuation to $1.2684 per hundred.

They are lowering the operations and maintenance rate while increasing the interest and sinking fund rate.  Remember that we allowed them to take ten cents away from the interest and sinking fund rate and add it to the operations and maintenance rate.  The effect of the change was to increase the amount that the state gives the district.

That is the other part of the news.  You can see that last year the state gave the district $5,554 per student while next year they are projecting $6,686 from the state.

This is better

Brutus

According to an article in the Times the Texas Education Agency released ratings last week that showed three EPISD schools to have failing grades.  (Schuster, Alta Vista, and Moye)

This is bad.

The EPISD board of trustees is having its next meeting Tuesday, August 20, 2019.

The agenda does not include an item to discuss or take action relative to the failures.

No special meeting of the board has been called.

The Texas Education Agency grades should not be a surprise.  We would think that someone in the legion of administrators would have seen this and set the ships right.

Actions need to be taken immediately.

We deserve better,

Brutus