City manager and mayor present solutions to City’s ‘deep rooted’ problems

City of El Paso officials said they recognize deep rooted problems in the organization and are actively trying to repair them.

From the San Jacinto Plaza delay to the millions of dollars it missed out on to complete transportation projects earlier, the City has been making headlines the last few weeks. City Manager Tommy Gonzalez on Wednesday said despite those headlines, the City is reforming the organization and saving money along the way.

“Whenever we don’t execute, we need to say we didn’t execute and take responsibility for that that’s what we’re doing, that’s what I’m doing right now,” said Gonzalez who held a news conference with Mayor Oscar Leeser on Wednesday morning. The two said they’re working on fixing problems such as the Engineering Department, renamed the Capitol Improvements Department, they said lacked consistency and leadership.

“Communication needs to be improved there, execution, follow-through. When you have the lack of processes, when you have engrained, embedded processes that you haven’t polished in a while – that youhaven’t made better, then it’s going to show eventually,” said Leeser of the department.

The last City Engineer, Irene Ramirez, retired suddenly a few weeks ago after being promoted only months ago.

“When we do find things, that’s not bad news. And I understand that when we do find things and there’s something that’s wrong, that’s a big news story but really it’s a good thing. If we don’t find things that are wrong then we don’t have the opportunity to ever fix them,” said Leeser.

That fix includes adding 18 new staff members in that department plus hiring two firms, at about $50,000 each to fine tune procedures and help apply for federal money. Despite that, Gonzalez said the City is saving money.

Gonzalez said he’s closed a $7.5 million deficit. The city was more conservative this year when estimating how much money it’d get from property taxes and it was able to put one million dollars in the fund balance, essentially a savings account it’s required to have for emergencies. Gonzalez said The City saved $3.5 million by restructuring the city’s management and despite the issues in the Engineering Department,it saved nearly $2.9 million in capital projects.

“I understand that something has gone wrong. But really the good news is that we were able to find it. That we were able to find a game plan and we’re able to fix it,” said Leeser.

Gonzalez said the City will reinvest some of that savings mostly into public safety. The new budget includes a plan to bring 80 additional cadets for the police academy and buy new ambulances, fire trucks and police squad cars. The city will also hire 15 new 911 dispatcher and a establish a downtown weekend police patrol plus an employee wellness program. City Council is also considering whether to use that savings to give employees a $1,000 bonus at the end of the year. Non-uniformed employees have not received a raise since 2012.

“Sometimes something has to get worse before it gets better and I think this is the classic example of that.” said Gonzalez.