A nearly $400 million bond proposal for University Medical Center of El Paso is likely headed to voters in November – alongside a $295 million county bond – as a majority of the El Paso County Commissioners Court expressed strong support of it Monday.
“You are very well-aligned with what we want … our bond is quality of life, accessibility, and you are enhancing that,” County Judge Ricardo Samaniego told UMC CEO Jacob Cintron during the meeting where hospital officials presented the bond proposal. “It’s not about adding money, it’s about what the community needs.”
Commissioners Carlos Leon and Sergio Coronado also spoke in favor of the bond during the meeting, while Commissioners Iliana Holguin and David Stout told El Paso Matters they also support it.
State code requires Commissioners Court approval for a hospital district to call for a bond election. The court will vote Aug. 12 whether to include the proposed $396.6 million UMC bond on the Nov. 5 ballot.
The bond would help to fund additional beds in various departments on the main UMC campus, including a burn center, and to open clinics and urgent centers throughout the county. About $30 million of that bond would go toward equipment for the planned $97 million cancer center in El Paso, for which the state approved $65 million last year.
While the rest of the funding to build the center hasn’t been secured, Cintron said Texas Tech Health El Paso was working on it and felt confident the cancer center would open no later than 2026. He said the bond would pay to move the infusion centers at UMC and El Paso Children’s to the new cancer center, pay for new imaging equipment and help build a pharmacy specific for hard-to-find cancer medications.
“These are needs the community has, and not just the community with insurance, but those without insurance who have nowhere else to go,” Cintron told El Paso Matters.
UMC El Paso CEO Jacob Cintron asks El Paso County Commissioners Court to include a nearly $400 million bond for hospital upgrades and expansions on the November ballot on July 15, 2024. (Cindy Ramirez / El Paso Matters)
Coronado said he understands the community is concerned about taxes, “but this is dire services we are required to provide.” Leon, for his part, asked if the court would “stand in the way” of UMC and its doctors “saving lives.”
Stout told El Paso Matters that the UMC investments are needed: “We have to make sure our people have more adequate access to health care.”
If approved, the bond would increase the UMC portion of the average homeowner’s bill by about $95 a year for 10 years and about $52 a year for the next 20 years after that.
“I’m really glad that this time they are going to go out to voters,” Holguin said, referring to the hospital’s attempt in 2022 to issue $346 million in certificates of obligation – debt that doesn’t require voter approval but is repaid by taxpayer dollars. A petition asking that the debt be issued only with voter approval put a stop to that effort.
The UMC bond request comes as commissioners are working through their own list for a bond that the county Bond Advisory Committee has put at $295 million, though the court would have to vote on a final amount and projects to take to voters. If approved at that amount, the bond would increase the county’s portion of the average homeowner’s property taxes by about $45 a year.
Last pitch for Sun Bowl Stadium bond
Also Monday, Samaniego asked commissioners whether they would support requesting staff to include Sun Bowl Stadium improvements in its bond list “for further consideration” after the county’s Bond Advisory Committee didn’t include it among its recommended projects.
None of the commissioners expressed support for it, with some saying they believed the state or the University of Texas System, which owns the stadium, should be the ones to invest money to improve it.
Samaniego said he felt the “opportunity for revenue” from the proposed upgrades hasn’t been adequately discussed or evaluated.
University of Texas at El Paso President Heather Wilson in May launched a campaign to get Commissioners Court to include $99 million for the 60-year-old stadium in its November bond proposal, saying the upgrades would attract concerts and entertainment that would spur up to $2 billion in economic development in the region over 30 years.
UTEP Athletic Director Jim Senter last week also appealed to commissioners to include the Sun Bowl bond on the November ballot, saying, “We need partners.”
“I stand here just to reiterate how we believe it’s really, really important and how we think it’s a viable project,” Senter said at the July 8 meeting, talking about the projected economic impact of the improvements. “It’s really about how we want to present El Paso and how can we enhance and partner with the county to increase and enhance the quality of life that we have for all El Pasoans.”
Commissioners are also considering whether to include about $60 million for a slew of renovations to the 82-year-old El Paso County Coliseum, which has a seating capacity of just over 5,600, in the county bond.
The Sun Bowl proposal is among several for an entertainment venue in the region. The El Paso City Council on July 2 approved $31 million in incentives to an entertainment development company to build a 12,500-seat amphitheater in the Northeast.
That agreement prohibits the city from building any other venue within 60 miles of the amphitheater, with the exception of the voter-approved Downtown arena.
The City Council on Tuesday will consider asking voters in November if they want to abandon the arena proposal by revoking the 2012 bond funds for it.
What’s Next?
El Paso County Commissioners Court on Aug. 12 is scheduled to vote whether to take the proposed $396.6 million bond for University Medical Center of El Paso to voters.
The court on Aug. 12 could also vote whether to put a county bond – which is now proposed at $295 million – on the ballot, though it has until Aug. 19 to call for the bond election.
The last day to register to vote for the general election is Oct. 7.
Early voting is Oct. 21 to Nov. 1.
Election Day is Nov. 5.
The post Nearly $400 million UMC El Paso bond likely headed to voters as county commissioners express support appeared first on El Paso Matters.
Read: Read More