El Paso County budget request grows $18 million for FY 2017
As El Paso County Commissioners continue to dig deeper into the budget process for next fiscal year, some eyebrows have been raised about raises commissioners approved for themselves this week. But that’s a small part of a lot of other increases commissioners have been talking about and now are starting to approve as they move through the process.
El Paso County leaders are still working through the discussions and decisions for the fiscal year 2017 budget which goes into effect in October. The budget as initially outlined is $340.1 million, about an $18 million increase over 2016’s budget of $322.9 million. That increase does exclude $96.4 million in debt refinanced this year, but that was already issued and is on the books from previous years. That refinancing did add about $6 million to the current year’s budget, now being reinvested into things like technology and projects at Ascarate.
Some of the increases represented in this budget include a 2.5 percent step increase in salary for all full-time county employees on the job for more than a year that meet performance evaluation standards. That’s expected to cost around $2.5 million a year extra going forward. New positions for county departments and other elected officials could cost $1,965,416, though that could change as commissioners continue their discussions on it. Other departments under the county are asking for increases, like Juvenile Probation’s request for $908,778 more. And the commissioner’s pay increase would total $120,703 more.
County Judge Veronica Escobar has said throughout this process that, based on increases in other revenues, she plans on keeping taxes flat or even decreasing them.
“I think we’re going to be able to pass a no new taxes budget,” Escobar said days before the vote on the pay increase. “I’m pretty confident that we’ll be able to address the needs and at the same time be able to meet our goal of no impact to the taxpayer. If we go below the effective tax rate, many taxpayers will actually see a decrease in their county taxes again for another year. So I think that’s going to be the ultimate goal. At the very least we’ll be able to do an effective tax rate. But I think most of us, if we can see it go below the effective tax rate, I think most of us would support it if we’re able to continue to meet our needs.”
