How is El Paso paying off the debt from the ballpark?

dollars by refinancing the ballpark debt. so do you really know how that debt is being paid off? abc-seven’s complete coverage continues live with reporter maria garcia. she has visual explanation … … you’ll see this only on abc-seven. maria? taxpayers were slated to pay 153 million dollars for the ballpark. but after city council voted to refinance some of the debt at a lower interest rate, taxpayers will pay about 147 million divided every year until 2043. so where does the money come from every year? in 2014 – the city had to pay 4.1 million dollars in ballpark debt. but the ballpark only made the city 3.1 million dollars. and it made that money through hotel and sales taxes, ticket revenues, rent it charges mountainstar sports, and parking. but with all those combined – it still didn’t have enough money to cover the debt payment. so the city had to dip into it’s general fund. this is the pot of money the city uses to operate every single day and to provide you services. and the city had to take out 977 thousand dollars out of this pot to pay for ballpark debt. in 2015 – same deal. the city was short but this time it only had to take a quarter million from the general fund because there was more sales tax revenue from that big bowling congress. now this year. the city projects it’ll have to take nearly half a million dollars from its general fund to pay for ballpark debt. but check it out: the ballpark has spurred a lot of new business downtown. new hotels, bars, things like that. and that’s brining more tax revenue into the city. this year up to the tune of about 400-thousand dollars. still, the city’s financial officer projects the city will have to keep dipping into it’s general fund to pay for ballpark debt until 2023. so there you go, the ballpark payments demystified. a look at the city from the abc-seven downtown cam on the chase building.