El Paso voters will decide on the county hospital district’s nearly $400 million bond request in the November election.
County Commissioners Court, at a public meeting Monday, voted unanimously in favor of putting the $396.6 million bond on the ballot. The bond proposed by University Medical Center of El Paso would fund several projects at the hospital including the addition of surgical suites, critical care beds, two operating rooms and expanded laboratory services.
The bond would also help fund new facilities, including El Paso’s first burn center, a centrally located geriatric clinic, a health center in Horizon City and an urgent care clinic on the Westside.
The hospital district, which includes El Paso Children’s Hospital, employs more than 5,300 people, according to a presentation UMC’s board of managers gave last month. UMC, El Paso’s only nonprofit hospital, also functions as a teaching hospital for Texas Tech Health El Paso.
Bond would help fund new El Paso cancer treatment center
About $30 million from the bond would go toward equipment for the planned $97 million, comprehensive cancer center, a joint project between UMC and Texas Tech Health El Paso. The state approved $65 million last year toward the planning and construction of the 90,000-square-foot building at the Medical Center of the Americas campus.
UMC El Paso CEO Jacob Cintron speaks at a Aug. 12, 2024 meeting where county commissioners approved putting the hospital district’s bond request on the November 2024 ballot.
UMC CEO Jacob Cintron said at a county meeting last month that Texas Tech Health El Paso would secure the rest of the cancer center’s funding and he was confident it would open no later than 2026.
Richard Lange, president of Texas Tech Health El Paso, said last year the cancer center would offer chemotherapy, radiation, imaging and other services. The center would also house a pharmacy to make cancer medication more accessible.
Lange said at the time El Paso property taxpayers would not have to pay for the cancer center.
Does the UMC bond raise El Paso property taxes?
UMC makes up 8.5% of the El Paso homeowner’s property taxes and the average homeowner pays about $442 in annual taxes to the hospital district.
If approved, the bond would raise the UMC portion of the homeowner’s bill by about $95 a year for 10 years and about $52 a year for the next 20 years after that.
UMC El Paso presented a breakdown of property taxes at an Aug. 12, 2024 meeting where county commissioners approved putting the hospital district’s bond request on the November 2024 ballot.
Representatives of UMC say that without funding for its projects, patients will have to wait longer to be admitted for emergency care, surgeries and catheterizations. Burn patients will have to be sent out of town for care and UMC will have to seek alternative funding for the cancer center’s equipment.
More than half of UMC’s patient population is insured through Medicaid, uninsured or under-insured, according to the hospital’s website.
UMC proposed a smaller bond two years ago that only required county commissioners’ approval, but the bond was stalled by a petition from the LIBRE Initiative, a group in the billionaire-backed, political Koch network.
The petition gathered more than 32,000 signatures – more than enough to force the bond to go to voter approval, but UMC chose not to put the bond on the May 2023 ballot.
Instead El Paso County voters will decide this November.
Key Dates
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 El Paso County leaders approve putting $400 million UMC bond on November ballot appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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