Westside Tax Office closure intensifies debate on El Paso County resources

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- El Paso County’s Westside Tax Office has been closed since Dec. 1, according to a sign posted on the building’s entrance.

The closure comes along with rotating single-day closures at other tax office locations, which stem from a new state requirement and ongoing staffing shortages that county leaders and Tax Assessor-Collector Ruben Gonzalez continue to publicly disagree on.

Gonzalez said the Westside office was shut down so it could be converted into a dedicated “Web-Dealer Hub,” where staff can focus solely on processing dealer title work now mandated under House Bill 718. 

The law, which took effect July 1, 2025, requires auto dealers to electronically file title transfers through county tax offices.

“This closure was necessitated due to the enactment of HB718,” Gonzalez said in a written statement. 

He said the law imposed new procedural requirements on both dealers and county tax offices, but he had been unable to hire more employees. 

“I requested additional staff for two years in a row and was informed by the Commissioner’s Court that there were no funds.”

At Monday’s Commissioners Court meeting, several commissioners pushed back on Gonzalez’s statements, saying the issue is not that staffing requests were denied, but that they were never formally submitted with the data required for consideration.

“We have not denied his request for staff. We have not accepted request for staffing,” County Chief Administrator Betsy Keller told the court. “He hasn’t been able to submit staffing requests the last couple of years…his requests have not been able to be submitted for evaluation.”

Keller said departments must justify new positions by demonstrating efficient use of current staffing and providing metrics. She said Gonzalez “isn’t meeting our basic standard to request staff.”

County Judge Ricardo Samaniego echoed the frustration.

“One of the hardest things is the discrepancy between what's coming out of his office and then what we're trying to accomplish,” Samaniego said. “It’s confusing the community tremendously.”

Without extra personnel, Gonzalez said his office could not review title submissions quickly enough, delaying funding for dealerships and even risking lost sales. 

He said the Westside office “is a low-volume office and is equipped with the necessary workstations to review Dealer work,” and was “the obvious choice” to repurpose.

To keep up with the workload, Gonzalez has also begun closing other tax offices one day a week and redirecting staff to help reduce the backlog of electronic dealer transactions. 

Commissioner Jackie Butler said her office has received an increasing number of calls from residents who showed up at the Eastside Annex to renew vehicle registrations or pay taxes — only to find the office unexpectedly closed.

"They’re taking time off work and adjusting their schedules… and it’s not always easy for them to travel across town,” Butler said. 

She requested clearer communication from the tax office and potentially a separate agenda item to address closures if they continue.

El Paso County Human Resources Manager Valeria Fernandez reported that the tax office currently has seven vacancies, with two of those positions expected to be filled in January. 

Three recent promotions created openings for two customer relations specialist positions and one intermediate customer relations specialist position. 

A vacant accounting specialist intermediate role is anticipated to be filled soon, which will leave an entry-level accounting specialist position open; that position has already been posted and tested for. 

The office is also concluding the testing phase for additional customer relations specialist candidates, and an investigator position was recently vacated. 

Fernandez said there are currently 576 pending WebDEALER transactions, a reduction of 305 from the previous week, and noted that the office is scheduled to work two Saturday overtime sessions in December. 

Commissioners also pointed out that Gonzalez has used about $11,000 of the $20,000 in overtime funding allocated to his office.

During the meeting, Keller told commissioners that the large counties she contacted have not added staffing or overtime in response to HB 718, saying many of them conducted early training to help minimize errors before the law took effect. 

She noted that only three counties, Denton, Montgomery and Harris, have added new positions, with Harris County hiring 20 full-service deputies as part of the opening of a new office. 

The county’s Time and Motion study, expected in the coming weeks, is intended to determine whether the El Paso tax office needs additional staffing and how its operations compare to other counties of similar size.

Commissioners also agreed they want Gonzalez to attend the next weekly update to answer questions directly about closures, staffing and workflow. 

Gonzalez said he expects a surge in vehicle sales during the holidays, tax refund season, and end-of-year promotions that “will place us in a backlogged position.”

“If our workload stays busy, I may not be able to open this office to the public,” he said, adding that reopening is dependent on the Commissioner’s Court approving more resources. 

You can still visit the county’s six remaining locations for registration and property tax services.