Joyce Wilson will be able to take new job, still get paid as City employee

El Paso City Council on Tuesday approved amending the contract of previous city manager Joyce Wilson.

Council members Carl Robinson, Eddie Holguin and Lily Limon voted not to amend to contract, with the final vote being 4-3.

Wilson is now allowed to work for Upper Rio Grande Workforce Solutions and continue being a consultant with the city.

She will be a paid city employee with full benefits through Sept. 3, giving up about a month’s salary with the city. Once the contract ends, her pension from retirement will be approximately $60,000 annually.

Wilson was offered the interim Chief Executive Officer job at Workforce Solutions on June 4 after the sudden resignations of then CEO Lorenzo Reyes Jr. and then Chief Operating Officer Teofilo Ugalde were accepted by the board of managers.

Workforce officials said Wilson’s salary would be about $142,000 a year, significantly less than her salary at the city, which is about $240,000 a year.

Wilson would oversee employment, education and economic development programs and up to $50 million of federal and state grants.

“I really just want to move forward and get into a new challenge and be positive,” Wilson said Tuesday at city hall.

She’d answer to Workforce’s 23-member board which is overseen by seven regional elected leaders, including Mayor Oscar Leeser, County Judge Veronica Escobar and the five County Judges for the West Texas counties the organization serves.