El Paso City Council seeks to sell $93M in bonds to cover costs of previously ok’d projects

EL PASO, Texas -- El Paso City Council has signaled it is moving forward with a plan to issue $93 million in Certificates of Obligation later this spring. That's debt council approves on behalf of taxpayers.

City staff said these are projects approved by previous councils as far back as 2012 and had been deferred for a year because of the pandemic; for example, $30 million will go towards the 2012 Streets Capital Improvement Project.

City manager Tommy Gonzalez told council bluntly on Monday that if they didn't want to issue debt to pay for projects, they shouldn't approve them in the first place.

"This isn't what we want to do. This is what you want to do, council, this is what you've instructed us to do," he said.

He cited projects that required matching funds with the city to pay for street repairs or reconstructions through the Municipal Planning Organization and offered that if council didn't want to follow that model, they could direct staff immediately to stop working on such projects with the MPO.

City Rep. Isabel Salcido said this debt is not being issued for new projects.

"The decision to approve these projects was made in the past," she said as she compared this type of debt to a mortgage. "Having debt in the form of a mortgage doesn't mean you're in bad shape. It's often the opposite."

The city's chief financial officer, Robert Cortinas, said the city also has an opportunity to take advantage of lower interest rates.

"We have the opportunity to refinance debt issued years ago. We're going to repackage it a little bit, resell it and get a much lower rate," he explained.

Council voted 6-2 to authorize the publishing of a notice announcing council's intent to sell the bonds. The public hearing is set for April.