City Council Approves 2008 Budget

EL PASO, TX – Amid strong disagreement, the El Paso City Council approved the budget for 2008 Tuesday.

“This is one hell of a city council…get the hell out of here an resign,” stated Ray Gilbert, a local homeowner advocating for the approval of a budget with a significant surplus, which he believes will keep taxes from going up in the future.

In a vote of four to three,the City Councilapproved the $292-million dollar budget – the largest in the city’s history.

Although the budget mandates an increase in the city’s effective tax rate, some homeowners will actually see taxes on their properties decrease.

This year’s budget includes an effective tax rate that will increase by 8.45% from last year’s rate. It will now stand at just under 62 cents per $100 of valuation on properties.

However, a broader tax base means the city will have more property owners to tax in order to meet the budget’s monetary requirements, city officials said. As a result, most homeowners will see a decrease in their property taxes despite the tax rate being increased.

For example, if you own a home appraised at $100,000, you will pay $638 in taxes this year as opposed to $672 last year. The decrease is due to a $5,000 “Homestead Exemption” that will apply to more than 60% of El Paso homeowners. Most will either pay the same or a lower tax amountthan theydid last year because the exemption allows them to take $5,000 off the value of their homes.

The three City Representatives that voted against the budget, Eddie Holguin, Melina Castro and Rachel Quintana, failed to offer input on where to implement cuts that would have kept the effective tax rate from being increased, stated Mayor John Cook.

“We spent six weeks working on this budget and they came up with absolutely no suggestions as to where they would want us to make cuts…yet, they take the easy way out…the cop out,” said Cook.

In response, representative Holguin stated, “what happened is our tax and spend colleagues don’t know how to spin it anymore and tell people that our taxes are going up… they try and spin the story and tell people taxes are going down.”

The fact that the three representatives voted against the budget despite the exemption that will keep many property owners from paying higher taxes left Cook and others questioning their motives.

“It’s a very popular thing to do, but is it a realistic thing to do,” stated Cook, in regards to the three votes against the budget.

“It’s a great campaign move…but, you know, we’re elected to make tough decisions … Eddie Holguin has never met a tough decision he didn’t run away from,” said representative Susie Byrd, who voted in favor of the budget.

The progression of the city’s budget for the last five years, taking into consideration inflation, shows the city has seen a steady increase in the budget totaling $30-million dollars throughout the period.

During that period, the only fiscal year the budget decreased was from 2005 to 2006 – when it dropped nearly $1-million dollars. The 2008 budget will be about $10-million dollars more than last year’s.