How State Budget Could Affect El Paso City And County

There is unrest in the Lone Star state.

Protestors outside the capitol used coffins to prove their point – that cuts to mental health care and nursing homes – could cost some their lives.

After a marathon debate – Republicans have made it clear that they won’t support tax increases, making cuts inevitable.

“If you increase the burden on my, and my constituents,” State Rep. Jason Isaac, Republican, of Dripping Springs, said. “People are going to lose their jobs, they’re going to lose their cars, they’re going to lose their homes.”

This is how El Paso’s delegation voted on HB-1: Democrats Marissa Marquez, Naoni Gonzalez, Chente Quintanilla, and Joe Pickett voted no, while Republican Dee Margo voted for the budget.

State Rep. Joaquin Castro, Democrat, of San Antonio, said, “But the people of Texas want something else. they want a balanced approach. they want other ways of raising revenue besides doing cuts.

Long after these cuts are decided upon and local lawmakers leave the capitol this summer, it’ll be local governments and local taxpayers who will be left to deal with the changes.

“We are not cutting anything,” State Rep. Jessica Farrar, Democrat, Houston, said. “The cost is still there. It’s just a question of who’s going to pay for it.”

And that who – is you – say some.

“let me give you an example,” said State Sen. Jose Rodriguez, Democrat, El Paso. “When they say they’re going to cut the state’s contribution to the teacher’s pension fund and to health care programs for teachers… the state is gonna make that cut from the state budget, but the school districts are gonna have to pick up that cost. How do they pick up the cost? By increasing the property tax.”

Rodriguez said the Republicans approach to deal with the $27 billion dollar deficit is, “As bleak as it sounds.”

Democrats are urging Republicans to take more from the rainy day fund. they wanted to use $3 billion in reserves to pay current bills and billions more to lesson cuts.

But Republicans aren’t budging, saying cuts will eventually lead to a better economy.

“There’s not going to be any more money,” Isaac said. “We’re not going to raise taxes.”

On top of the deficit debacle, there’s the problem of unfunded mandates.

Here are just some examples of things the state requires local governments to do but doesn’t provide the money for the local governments to do it.

-The City of El Paso has to change the fonts and lettering to street and traffic sings at a cost of $12 million. -With other unfunded mandates, that’s a total of more than $18 million the city somehow has to come up with.

Then there’s El Paso County, which has a total of nearly $180 million of unfunded mandates services and support services, including more than $61 million from jails and $23 million from prosecution services.

All of this making the budget battle even more worrisome for many.

“People should be concerned about what’s being proposed in Austin,” Rodriguez said.

El Paso County collects fees for the state of Texas but only gets to keep a fraction of what it collects.

In fiscal year 2010, the county collected more than $100 million. Out of that money, the county retained less than 1 percent – .17 percent to be exact. That comes out to about $171,000.