El Paso City Council to vote on budget
At Tuesday’s El Paso City Council meeting, representatives will vote on a more than $826 million budget.
That amount means taxpayers will have to dig deeper into their pockets to live in the city.
The average homeowner will have to pay an extra $27 a year if the home is worth $125,000.
But what kind of fees could you be facing along with that average $27 tax increase?
The City has talked at length about how the effective tax rate will impact budgets and services, but a public meeting last week focused primarily on the impact the wide-ranging fee increases will mean for taxpayers.
Citizens addressed Council, focusing mainly on the issues they had with the fees that a number of city departments are proposing to raise. Some of the fee increases ABC-7 first reported last week include city trash pickup and parking meter rates.
Parking meters could top out at $10 a day, up from $8.25, and trash pickup could jump a dollar to a total of $17 a month.
There are also possible increases in water utilities fees through the Public Service Board, and some speaking before Council took serious issue with it.
“That’s a terrible precedent to start,” said one man. “Operationally easy. We just add two dollars to every water bill that goes out each month, and we’ll identify a city street repair fee. But while it’s easy to put on the bill, it’s going to be very difficult to get it off.”
Mayor Oscar Leeser defended the possible water service fee increase.
“You do need to be fair to the city and point out that a lot of the services between the PSB,” Leeser said, “because the PSB is part of the city, a lot of the services are shared between the two entities, and that’s where it becomes a savings to the taxpayers, and that’s where it offsets some of the charges and no charges.”
So as the City gets closer to the end of the budget process, these fees could still change, and the real impact to your wallet will become clearer.
Adding the increased cost of trash pickup alone to the tax rate could cost you closer to $39 extra dollars a year. And the other fees could take tens to hundreds of extra dollars out of your budget.
