El Paso exceeds gasoline budget
EL PASO, Texas-The City of El Paso, has already exceeded its gas budget for its vast fleet of vehicles, and the fiscal year isn't over yet.
ABC-7 asked city officials if taxpayers would see taxes increase to offset higher gas prices for its fleet.
According to the City's spokesperson, El Paso has 822 heavy-duty vehicles that use diesel fuel and 2,378 light-duty vehicles that use unleaded fuel.
Those vehicles include police, fire and maintenance vehicles, which account for about 80 percent of the City's unleaded fuel use.
"So far for fuel, we're obviously a little bit more than halfway through the fiscal year. We're currently on pace to exceed overall expenditures for the last two years by about a million dollars. Pretty large increase over the last couple of years," said City CFO Robert Cortinas.
Cortinas explains the City spent $3.4 million on fuel last year. So far this year, they've spent around $4 million.
"We're probably expected to hit about anywhere from $600 to $700 thousand dollars more than what we had in the last couple of years," added Cortinas.
Gasoline prices are based on crude oil prices. Those crude oil prices have gone down considerably. Gas prices, however, were only moderately down this week. According to the American Automobile Association, gas prices may go back up.
"Spring travel season has started. Usually, we see an increase in demand for gasoline this time of year. Also, we're about to switch over to summer-blend gasoline, which is more expensive to produce. And that costs usually gets passed on to the consumer," said Daniel Armbruster, AAA spokesman.
And although the City is exceeding its fuel budget, Cortinas says city coffers are not feeling the gas price pinch.
Unlike most of us, the City acknowledges, they pay discounted gas prices.
"But overall in the grand scheme of the City's budget, and just for context, the City's operating budget is over a billon dollars a year. And fuel overall expenditures are less than five million dollars a year. So we're talking about less than half of one percent of our budget." Cortinas said.
Cortinas went on to say the City is looking to increase its fuel budget for next fiscal year.
