City Council - Special Meeting

Well, good morning, everyone.

We are going to, did we lose somebody? Oh, we're gonna get started, Ms. Bryant?

Yes, sir. Good morning. This is a special meeting of the El Paso City Council for Thursday May 28 2026. It is 9.01 a.m. Mayor Johnson is present and presiding in council chambers along with Mayor Pro Tem Chavez, Representative Maldonado Rocha, Representative Boya Trejo, and alternate Mayor Pro Tem Fierro and Representative Nino. Mayor, we have a quorum.

OK, thank you. Representative Fierro, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

Thank you well yesterday was an incredible day and I know today's going to be even better and I think we are on page 74.

Yes sir and this is a presentation discussion in action for FY 2026-2027 budget as presented by the city manager and we continue with the departmental presentations with the libraries.

Ms. Norma Martinez.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning, Mayor, Council. It's great to be here this morning. I wish I would have gone last night, but here I am. What we do. I don't know. It's the presentation. Am I supposed to? There it is. What we do. We provide resources for educational, recreational and cultural development to the El Paso community. In our budget variances, it includes an increase in salary, janitorial and security service expenses, rising fuel costs, and an additional $100,000 for collection development. In our positions, we'll see that we have 176.5 FTEs, our cross-general and non-general fund. And we did lose a position to a grant, but we were able to provide full-time to our ORYA mentors. And I'm happy to say that we only have one vacancy at the moment. Okay. In our program snapshot, our library has nine programs, all of which are very, very significant to what the libraries deliver. And it is very hard to pick one from the other. But the first one listed is our Career Online High School. And I'm just going to tell you a little bit of what we have been doing in our programming this year. We have had 60 graduates this year. And this was the highest graduating class since the program started. And they received a high school diploma and a career certificate. The ELC program is now two years old and it has issued a total of 10,690 cards. Out of these, 4,963 have been given to county residents, while 5,727 have been issued to city residents. The cards are available to anyone aged 18 or older, and we are currently awaiting a response from the county as they are reviewing their budget. We expect to have more information soon regarding the possibility of offering cards to individuals aged 16 and 17. The next three listed programs are family programs, literacy and adult basic education, and literacy initiatives. This year, we have an increase in attendance of 25,731 for all our programs in the library. The Opportunity Youth and Young Adult Program has successfully reached its first milestone by celebrating its first year at the main library. It has been an incredible honor for me to participate in this program. I had the opportunity to hear from young adults who expressed gratitude for the space and highlighted its positive impact on their lives. One individual returned to school, another secured a job, and the third mentioned that she found housing with the help of our mentors. It is truly rewarding to hear that we are making a difference one life at a time. Our passport program is offered at four locations, and we are the only agency that is open on Saturdays. During this fiscal year, we have processed 8,414 applications, but most interestingly, we have interacted over 17,000 people inquiring about passport services. OUR SIGNATURE PROGRAMS, WE HAVE SIX CITY-WIDE PROGRAMS THAT THE LIBRARY CONDUCTS, AND THIS YEAR WE HAD OUR FIRST YEAR HOLDING LIBRARY CON, WHICH ATTRACTED 3,000 PARTICIPANTS. TEAM TOBER HAD APPROXIMATELY 5,400 PARTICIPANTS, AND DIA WAS A MAJOR SUCCESS, DRAWING ABOUT 13,000 ATTENDINGS. And we want to thank Mayor Pro Tem Chavez, Representative Rocha and Representative Limon for joining us and participating in the parade. It was a lot of fun. Thank you for being there. And our last program, our support services operations. This is the jewel of everything that we do. It's our day to day operations, interactions, promoting lifelong learning and serving as the community hub. In this strategic plan alignment, we will continue to focus on those two pillars that we are in economic mobility and the quality of life. These pillars will continue to guide us, our efforts over the next two years. And we will continue to focus on providing top quality educational, recreational, and cultural opportunities to our community, guiding ourselves with the programs listed on this list. And that concludes my presentation. And I'll take any questions.

Very good presentations. Questions for Representative Chavez?

Thank you, Mayor. I don't have questions, Norma. I just want to thank you for the space that you provide to the community. I know that you do a lot of programming at the library, at least the one in my district, the DVD one. The director there, Patricia Hernandez, is also great. And we are just very grateful for everything that you contribute. Thank you for creating those spaces for my constituents. Thank you so much.

And Norma, what are the hours for the passport services on Saturday?

They're open from 10 to 4.30.

10 to 4. And you process 8,400 already?

Yes, sir.

Wow. That's amazing. Representative Limon.

And Representative Limon joined the meeting at 9.07 a.m. Good morning.

First of all, thank you, Ms. Prime. My apologies for arriving late this morning. Norma, one incredibly outstanding department. And again, as I did last year, my apologies to Ms. Mack. When the graduation program came about, I was no vote on the time. I really felt that the school districts were doing the kind of programming that was being done. But after having attended the last two graduations, talking to the students, it's a fabulous program. So Ms. Mack, my apologies. Congratulations for such a wonderful, wonderful program. I'm very, very honored to be a very small part, whether it be just simply in the audience or speaking to the students. It's that second chance in life that can turn a life completely around, and I'm a believer in it now. And of course, Dia de los Niños, incredible turnout, just a wonderful, wonderful event. I hope that we can keep it for another year in District 7 for this coming year. Thank you, Mayor.

Congratulations, Norma.

Thank you. All right. Up next, it's my pleasure to introduce Anabel Casas from the Municipal Court.

We need to get some energy in here. Come on.

Good morning. Good morning. What she went through, I went through last year, but we're ready. Good morning.

Anabel Casas, Municipal Court.

One more, okay. Okay, so what do we do? The court provides efficient, courteous, CORE CUSTOMER SERVICE TO OUR APASO COMMUNITY. OUR BUDGET, PRELIMINARY BUDGET IS AT 7.6 MILLION WITH A VARIANCE OF OVER 230,000. WHAT YOU SEE AS FAR AS BUDGET VARIANCES IS THE CITYWIDE INCREASES THAT HAPPEN ACROSS AND THE ADJUSTMENTS THAT YOU SEE ALSO ARE ATTRIBUTED TO THE ATTRITION, THIS IS DUE TO VACANCIES. WE HAVE A TOTAL OF 93.65 employees. This is a combination of general and non-general. We did convert a position to a court support technology position. Our budget profile is comprised of six programs. This is a variation from the judges to court administration, court staff, and all of them are dependent on each other. This is to provide, again, any support across any stage of the life of the citation. And our aim is to, again, as I've spoken to all of you, and my aim with the goals that we're going forward with is case resolution. And again, that's flexible in the options and again, reaching out to our community. How do we align with the strategic plan? Not only are we part of public safety, but one of the areas that we really wanted to strengthen is good governance, going back to basics. Looking at how we can, as you all know, and I'm visiting one of you this afternoon, then thank you for opening the doors, visiting your community meetings, but we wanna be able to put a human to what we do. It's not transactional, it is really what services that we provide the community in person, through online, through web, ANYTHING THAT WE CAN DO. SO ONE OF OUR GOALS AND KEY ACTION PLANS IS TO DEDICATE SOME OF OUR TEAM TO CONTINUOUSLY IMPROVE THE COURT EXPERIENCE WHEN SOMEONE WALKS THROUGH THE DOOR OR WALKS THROUGH OUR WEB PAGE. THE OTHER IS TO BE ABLE TO REPORT BACK PERFORMANCE. HOW IS IT THAT WE'RE DOING? WHAT ARE WE DOING? IS IT REACHING OUR COMMUNITY AND IS IT WORKING? SO WE'RE TRYING TO DO THAT THROUGH DATA AND CLEANING UP SOME OF THE DATA THAT WE HAVE AND YEARS AND YEARS OF IT. The other is exploring other options to be more flexible and, again, customer service options to be more efficient, again, reaching case resolution. And that's all I have in a nutshell.

Any questions for Municipal Court? Representative Lamont?

More of a comment. Thank you very much for having staff available at our community meeting. It was really insightful and it was a really good presentation. We got very good responses from our community. And then thank you especially for sending out three gift cards for our Loteria that we play every game and they really loved it. They thought, oh, this is great. Atop of that, and then AARP presenting at the same time, it was really centered on services for our community. And thank you, Annabeth. Appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. I'd like to present or pass this on to our Museum and Cultural Affairs, Ben Fife.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Ben.

Good morning, Mayor and Council. Ben Five, for the record, extremely delighted, as Ms. Mack was yesterday, to be able to present our projected budget for FY27 for the Museums and Cultural Affairs Department. What we do in a nutshell is actually enhance the city's cultural vitality through the provision of quality arts and culture programs. Our budget is actually made up of general fund and then non-general funds which are specifically from hotel occupancy tax proceeds, as well as funding that is raised by staff through a variety of sources, including donations, sponsorships, grants, and also revenue. And I just need to take a minute and really thank the staff because they do a tremendous job of augmenting our programs with outside funding in an environment that I don't need to stress is very challenging right now for philanthropy with inflation and a lot of economic uncertainty. So I'm so proud of the work that they do to align our programs to funders and keep them engaged. This year, our variances are really driven, like a lot of other departments, by increases to salaries, benefits, and also overtime. And then we also have contractual increases related to public art maintenance, our office lease, and also La Nube's operating stipend. Our work is really drilled down to about seven different programmatic categories. The first is collections care, and that's really just stewardship of the over 20,000 works of art and historic artifacts that are in our museum collection and our public art collection. And then the next four that you see here can really be I think summarized by public programs. And I think what I'd like to say here is that we saw in the strategic planning process and specifically in the community input that helped drive that that public programs and events are so important for the quality of life of our community. Many of our citizens actually said that those were really strong reflectors of their quality of place and quality of life in El Paso, and we're so proud to be able to provide these types of services that include creative sector investment, which is actually the funding that we give out to local artists, nonprofit arts organizations and cultural organizations, That's everything from our symphony performing in the beautiful historic Plaza Theater to a local kids theater company maybe performing in a neighborhood space or a park. Exhibitions, I will just say we just finished out our Frida exhibition at the Museum of Art with over 35,000 people visiting over the course of about two and a half months. A third of those were from out of town, actually a great illustrator of how culture also drives economic development. And then one of our larger categories that you'll see here is operations. And that's actually a lot of salaries. That is the lease for our office space. It's training for employees. It's our fine arts insurance. It's services like custodial and security for all of our sites. And then, of course, signature events and festivals, which I don't think I need to actually educate anybody on what those are and why those are so important. But it is a really big part of what we do and our identity in the community. So we really strongly align to quality of life. You've already heard me use that phrase several times. I'm not going to walk you through all these key priority actions, but I will say that that last one is the one I'm most excited about this year. One of the things I know that we can definitely be better at in this community is actually doing more routine and consistent feedback mechanisms after our programs with the community. so that we can figure out how to refine existing programs and also understand what kind of programs 21st century El Pasoans would like for us to develop for them. This also aligns really nicely to the corporate goal in the strategic plan of engagement. So I'm looking forward to be able to getting a lot more data to be able to help develop the programs that will be in your constituents areas. And with that, I am open to questions.

All right, questions for Ben? Ben, just a comment. With the increase of visitors for the BTS show, did you see an increase in the museums?

Intense increase, actually. We had hundreds of visitors that weekend. It was a great weekend at all of our sites. We actually had our sites almost fully staffed for Saturdays and Sundays so that people could experience the museums at their best, the arts district at their best. But it was really great. What we heard over and over again were that people were really amazed at our museums, the quality of the exhibitions, the fact that they're free, and also just how friendly the community was.

Yeah, that's what I heard, some anecdotal information as well. And La Nube kids were, they just loved it. So good job, Ben. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry, sorry.

We will next hear from Real Estate, Marilu Espinosa.

Good morning.

Good morning, Mayor and Council. Marilu Espinosa with the Real Estate Division for the record. So what do we do? At real estate, our focus is on being good stewards of taxpayer dollars by managing city property assets, the revenue generated from real estate related transactions, and the compliance of property agreements. This work is carried out by a group of 10 creative and driven individuals in the real estate staff. Our team currently has two vacancies that we hope to fill before the end of the fiscal year. And there's a budget variance that you see here for $90,000, approximately 90,000 for fiscal year 26 adopted versus actual, all of which is due to salary increases. So the division has two programs, the compliance and transactional programs. For the compliance program, in collaboration with the Office of the Comptroller, with the risk and purchasing departments, this program ensures consistent administration of approximately 130 property agreements with recurring terms on them. This program is responsible for ensuring all obligations under contract terms such as rent, insurance and inspections are met. The transactional program in collaboration with the city attorney's office advances property related transactions from point of request through contract negotiations and ultimately council approval of contracts. In collaboration with the planning and IT departments, the program also manages property records for over 5,000 properties in the name of the city of El Paso, and that's based on El Paso Central Appraisal District data. That work involves verifying and reconciling property data, consolidating records, evaluating the financial performance of those transactions and developing a single source of truth for records on property owned by the city. Both programs support revenue generation and strategic portfolio decision making. Our division aligns with the strategic plan in the economic mobility and good governance pillars. In the economic mobility pillar, we activate underutilized real estate assets to generate revenue. We support economic development and land use optimization, and we align property decisions with long-term financial sustainability. ON THE GOOD GOVERNANCE PILLAR, WE ESTABLISH RELIABLE, ACCURATE, AND TRANSPARENT REAL ESTATE DATA, WE STRENGTHEN OUR AUDIT READINESS AND COMPLIANCE, AND WE IMPROVE INTERNAL COORDINATION AND PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY. THAT CONCLUDES MY PRESENTATION.

THANK YOU, MARY LOU. ANY QUESTIONS? REPRESENTATIVE TREJO.

Thank you, Mayor. I was fumbling around trying to find the information on the budget book. It's under non-departmental. Yes. So I didn't get a chance to review it all. But Mary Lou, I had a question on, you had done a presentation, you did a presentation at the Get Park with the developers. How did that go in? Are you continuing to have those meetings or anything like that with developers?

So we have a really good working relationship with GEPR. We get invited on a fairly frequent basis. So next time we get invited, we will be their representative.

Okay, very good. Thank you. No other questions.

And for the record, Representative Acevedo arrived at 921 and Representative Canales at 919.

Thank you, Mary Lou.

Thank you. Up next is Tammy Fonse.

Good morning.

Good morning, Mayor and Council. Tammy Fonseca with Strategic Communications. So what do we do? Our department supports citywide media relations, public information, marketing, social media, video production, city TV and crisis communications. Our budget this year reflects a leaner staffing model, one position transferred to the customer driven innovation section and two vacant positions that we've deleted. The biggest increase you'll see in our budget this year is for our PEG funding, which stands for Public Educational and Government Access Funding. These are telecommunication fees that we receive to support our highly specialized video and broadcasting equipment updates, such as our abilities to promote and broadcast this meeting and the meetings that we have out of City 3. on our program snapshot, and I apologize, I'm going over the paperwork. Our program snapshot, we can fall under three, Basically three areas. So what we do is we organize campaigns, public education campaigns, social media postings, ribbon-cutting events, grand openings. We also do media relations, crisis communication, which really helps everything that we do provide consistent information and clear communication to the public we also do our video programming which helps our residency and understand our city projects and services and initiatives in videos next slide please And our strategic plan alignment, we fall under infrastructure because we do a lot of work in trying to get our residents to understand that we have a lot of capital projects out there. So we do a lot of promotions related to street reconstruction, park improvements, new city facilities, as well as our media relations and crisis communications where we really do spend a lot of time trying to educate the public about other city services and initiatives. We also fall under good governance. Next slide. And this is where we really, again, we strive to increase the city's visibility of everything that we're doing here from our programs and our services and our initiatives, because it's really important that the community be engaged, that they understand what our government is doing out there in our community to make our quality of life better, to improve our infrastructure, and to basically make their day-to-day much better in our community. And with that, you can tell I'm nervous because this was not my plan to be up here talking about our budget.

No, you did great. You did great.

So if you have any questions, I'm happy to talk about what we do. But the project, the budget specifically, the breakdown, I'm going to have to defer to Robert because I don't have all of that in my head. But I can tell you that overall we have a leaner budget this year.

Well, Tammy, not to make you any more nervous, but we've got about 14 questions. We're going to start with Representative Limon.

Let's go. I'd rather answer questions than read a PowerPoint.

Representative Limon.

I'll start off with a softball. Thank you very much for all that you do. Tammy, I can understand having that budget in your head because you've got everything else, everything else that goes on in this city. We recently had a groundbreaking ceremony, and you handled it completely well, of course, with all of the crew. It was very well done. You are one of those departments that sort of operates in the dark. We don't see you quite up front, but you all do a great job, all of you, every single one of you that's in your department. Congratulations.

Thank you so much. We do have a great team.

Agreed.

Representative Trejo.

Thank you. I just basically wanted to do what Representative Limon said. You and your team are amazing, are awesome, and you're always behind the scenes taking care of everything. Thank you for all the work that you do.

Thank you, Representative. I appreciate that.

I want to echo the same thing. I've been with you at landfills, been with you at a lot of places. The wind is blowing. You're holding the mics, everything. But you guys do an incredible job. So thank you for all that you do, Tammy.

Thank you so much, Mayor. Appreciate that. Yes, we're very well informed about the city services, and that's what we try to keep the public informed about. The budget, that's Robert's area.

Representative Chavez.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Tammy. You did great. Appreciate you. I have a question just because of the on slide 89 where it says campaign social events the budget is 358 and change and then under media relations and crisis the budget is almost twice as much so I'm just wondering If that's typical to have, I'm assuming, more money for crisis than for social events. It seems to me like we have more social events than crises, but.

I'm gonna defer that because I believe it might be salaries.

We actually split half of the responsibility when we think about the campaigns and social events with Parks and Recreation. So previously we had the special events people, and I'm sure you know Miss Deanna, Miss Winterfest. you know that we move that whole division color Latin recreation so really what you're seeing in the media relations is where people spend the most of their time and then we share that responsibility in terms of the events with the other quality of life folks and how we do so that's why it just seems low here okay got it thank you thank you tell me thank you thank you sir tell me tell me tell me

You've got to give the answer.

Oh, that's right. I am. Sorry, I'm not Laura. So I'm introducing, I believe, Alex Hoffman with Planning for Urban Designs.

Good morning, Alex.

Good morning, Mayor and Council. Alex Huffman with Urban Planning and Design. So Urban Planning and Design leads city planning and design efforts that creates the vision for El Paso's future through policy implementation and new programs. And so for this upcoming fiscal year, we have a slight budget variance of about $67,000, and that's for salary increases and the addition of one graduate intern. And so in terms of our program snapshot that we want to be highlighting for this upcoming fiscal year is going to be the housing strategy implementation. So as we've been presenting to council for the last two and a half years, we've been going through a process of updating the city's comprehensive plan in Vision El Paso. And so when council adopts that plan, hopefully at the end of summer or early fall, we'll be moving into the implementation and so one of the the key priority areas that we heard through the community and then was reflected also in the strategic planning process was housing and so we're going to be really focusing this upcoming fiscal year on implementing programs related to housing And so in terms of the strategic plan alignment, we are supporting the economic mobility pillar. But specifically within the strategic plan, there are two key strategies, strategy three and strategy four. which was to support the expansion of housing options and affordability. And then strategy four, which is streamlining permitting and licensing processes. And so what we're really looking to do is institute new programs and services that will increase housing supply, which is listed in the first bullet. Second is that we will be working with real estate to look to put city assets to work through developing those. And so looking at a variety of options there. And then third, streamlining approval processes by updating our city ordinances, working with plan inspections, economic development, and community human development, just to make sure that there's broad alignment to help bring these projects to market a lot faster. And so with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Questions for Alex? Alex, great job. Thank you.

Thank you. Up next is Office of the Comptroller.

Good morning.

Good morning, Mayor and Council. Margarita Marin, the PDCFO and Comptroller, presenting for Office of the Comptroller. A VERY HIGH LEVEL OVERVIEW OF OUR FUNCTION IS THAT WE ENSURE THAT ALL FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES FOR THE CITY ARE RECORDED AND REPORTED ACCORDING TO GOVERNMENTAL ACCOUNTING STANDARDS. WE SET AND DEPLOY INTERNAL CONTROLS IN THE FORM OF FINANCIAL POLICIES. WE PROMOTE COMPLIANCE WITH FINANCIAL RULES AND REGULATIONS INTERNALLY AND EXTERNALLY, AND WE EFFECTIVELY MANAGE CASH AND INVESTMENTS FOR THE CITY. This year, our increase in budget is $270,000, mainly due to salary increases across the board. There is one position increase in the general fund, but this position is actually gonna be funded by a grant, the Build Back Better grant, so it really is not gonna be paid by the general fund. Our total budget, 4.4 million for FY27. our program. So we have four programs for Office of the Comptroller, and the first one has to do with the asset cycle, everything from acquisition of an asset all the way to inventory to ensure that the asset exists in a specific department, all the way through accounting for depreciation, disposals, transfers of property. And in this program, we have the auction The action of the assets we do with GovDeals and we also have the inventory program. The financial stewardship is our, technically one of the biggest programs that we have and this has to do with the financial reporting itself. All the compliance requirements that we have with every entity at every level, annually, quarterly. to ensure that we are reporting out. Then our grants program is the oversight of the city to provide oversight citywide of all grants to ensure that we comply with the grants requirements. And then the revenue and expenditure and expense management program, this one is the day-to-day. So it has to do with paying vendors, employees, retirees, debt service payment, recording revenues, and everything that has to do with cash inflows and outflows. We fall under the pillar of good governance, and for a strategic plan alignment for this year, every program has a different priority. So the financial stewardship, we're working to develop an investor relationship page, website, And this is to attract more investors to buy our bonds. We are a good city to invest on, so we want to show that to the world. As far as grants, we're working on developing a dashboard to centralize the information and be able to provide any information that you will request fairly faster than we're doing it right now. As in inventory management, trying to eliminate 99% of reclassification. Tackling at the front whenever the acquisition happened at that point in time is when we determine if it classifies as an asset or not, rather than coming afterwards and doing analysis. So becoming more efficient in this regards. And then as far as the revenue and expense management, We're almost through with the implementation of the debt management software, and this is gonna help us be more effective in the way that we manage our bonds and reduce risk of errors. And with that, I take any questions.

Representative Rocha.

Thank you, Mayor. Good morning, Margarita. Good morning. I just want to say that you may have pared this down in this presentation, but Margarita, you were at one of my community meetings and you provided a huge, comprehensive explanation of what the office is responsible for and I still get compliments on that today and so I'm just very grateful for the work that you do and and the efforts that are put forth through your department so thank you. Thank you, thank you so much.

All right any other questions for OTP? Oh, nope. Office of the Comptroller.

OTC. Yeah.

OTP is what we call it. OTP. Yeah. All right, Margarita, thank you so much. Thank you so much.

And I will introduce Pablo Caballero with Parks and Rec. Thank you.

Good morning, Pablo.

Good morning, major city council members. Pablo Caballero, Parks and Recreation director for the record. Okay, what do we do? With 42 recreational facilities and close to 300 parks, our department provides indoor and outdoor leisure services to the El Paso community to develop skills, socialize, experience nature, and live a healthier lifestyle. With a proposed preliminary budget of $60.6 million for FY27, reflecting an increased variance of $1.4 million from FY26, all these mainly due to salary and benefit increments, outside contracts such as portable restrooms and security services. Also, a big investment in heavy equipment for the maintenance of our Eastside Sports Complex. With a total of 528 FTEs for FY27, and with making an adjustment of deleting 41 vacant positions, I want to make clear, again, these are all vacant positions that had a couple of years of being vacant. So we did an adjustment and a cleanup for the department. Followed by our program budgets, we have 12 programs, all aligned with the quality of life pillar. And I'm just gonna highlight a few, starting with the aquatics division with a budget of $7.4 million. Overseeing 13 pools and 10 spray parks, we provide a safe and welcoming aquatic experience for all ages and skill levels, promoting water safety, fitness, and personal growth by well-trained staff. Our largest division parking land management with a $29 million dollar allocation. This structure will focus on maintaining citywide parks trails medians sports fields and open spaces to effective maintenance safety management irrigation performance and operational responsiveness. Our senior division, with a budget of $2.1 million, overseeing 10 senior centers, we provide recreational opportunities that enhance excellent customer service, clean, safe, and welcoming environments through staff well-strapped training, quality programs, and activities that support the physical, mental well-being, social connection, and independence among participants. Finally, our Special Events Division with a budget of $1.3 million. They all coordinate all season and special events that enhance community engagement, promote recreational experiences, and support the overall quality of life of residents and visitors. Just to name a few successful events, Movies at the Park, Dia de los Ninos, Dia de los Libros in collaboration with libraries, our Juneteenth celebration, and of course, our biggest event, Winterfest, with over 500,000 visitors throughout our six-week program. For our strategic alignment, again, all of our programs align with the quality of life pillar, and we're focusing on two. Our senior services, this strategy focuses on boosting participant satisfaction and program impact to data-driven evaluations, community partnerships, and pilot programs with a safe, clean, and inclusive facility. At this moment, we have two pilot programs going on, one at the Veterans Recreation Center and the other one at the Beast with very good numbers. Finally, our parks planning and development leading our next master plan. This is achieved through the strategic execution of the parks and recreation master plan and robust community engagement during the planning and design phases, identifying current and future parks and recreation needs by prioritizing projects and investments to ensure equitable access to our park system, recreation facilities, and programs for the next 10 years. With that, I'm open to any questions.

Okay, Representative Nino.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Pablo. Quick question. Can you touch base a little bit about pit number two and the increase of vehicles and heavy equipment for the Eastside Sports Complex? I know last year we dissolved the TURS, which we were able to allocate funding for District 5 to have. you know, lights and canopies at the park as well, and on Monwood Drive. Now, the pit also covers that same area, which can stay intact to help fund the maintenance of the park, because maintenance is extremely important, specifically in such a big investment, right, such a big park. Can you just touch briefly for the community to kind of know what that expenditure would look like, what it's for, and what we're doing with that?

Okay, it's basically for heavy equipment. We're looking to get some aerators, tractors, vehicles to maintain the 16 fields we have at the Eastside Sports Complex. All thanks to the PID funding that we have allocated for that specific complex.

And the pit is specifically within those boundaries correct so that money is being generated specifically without boundary and we also didn't use the pit funding for the last 2 years, I believe correct is why we have those essentially almost nearly $1,000,000 to invest on the site sports complex correct sir, OK yeah for the questions Mary, thank you for for being strategic on that.

Representative Lamont.

Thank you mayor. Pablo, when we developed our strategic plan for District 7, parks was right center point. When we talked about quality of life, that's what was brought up, that many of our constituents see the quality of our parks as indicative of a factor of a quality of life. And it is very rewarding to see the parks in District 7. So lovingly maintained, clean, accessible, and just, it's such a nice thing to see when I drive out in that community. And thanks to you and to the leadership and to Emilio who served on our strategic planning committee and everyone that's out there because for our community, Those parks are so vital for their lives, for their wellbeing, for their summer activities. And so you all do a really fantastic job and I'm very thankful and grateful that you are up at that place and that our community can see the good. As Dion stated, I think from the very first meeting we have, we need to take care of our basics first And those parks are exactly what the community looks for. And so thank you very much for the work that you all do.

Thank you, Reverend Senator LeMond. I really appreciate it.

represent fiero thank you mayor mayor i'm sorry well maybe you'll be the next mayor county i don't know thank you very much for what you and your entire team do i mean we have never had an issue at any of the parts in district six where there hasn't been a resolution uh option not that we can't do that we don't have a budget we IT'S NEVER BEEN NO IT'S LET'S FIX IT LET'S LOOK AT THIS OPTION LET'S LOOK AT THAT OPTION IT'S NOT ALWAYS OPTION WE WANT BUT THERE'S ALWAYS AN OPTION TO MAKE IT BETTER SO THANK YOU TO YOU AND ALL YOUR TEAM THANK YOU THANK YOU THIS MAYOR I APPRECIATE IT APPRECIATE THAT APPRECIATE IT REPRESENTATIVE CHAVEZ

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Pablo, for the presentation. I have several comments and questions. So the first is there's been some vandalism in parks I know in District 1 and I know in other areas of the city as well. How do you budget for that?

Well, it's hard. It's hard to budget for that. That's why we have that allocation for the amenities. And every time we come up with benches being vandalized or picnic tables or a fence or something in a playground, that's why we have that especially allocated money for the amenities throughout the city.

So you do have like a line item or some reserve?

It's all under our amenities for the entire city.

And I know that's probably very difficult to predict because you don't know the scope of whatever you're gonna have to be repairing for that. Correct. Okay, what about... Park fees. I know that you've been looking into that. I know that we're putting together the park 10-year master plan. How do you foresee this being implemented?

Right now, we're in the middle of a study with an outside contractor. They're looking into all of our fees, and we're going to have a final product by the end of the year.

And those fees will probably not be a part of this next fiscal year's budget, but until the following year?

More than likely.

More than likely? It depends. So we have two studies that we're working on right now, one for planning and inspection and one for parks. We do have the ability, we're bringing those to you on the 22nd. I've asked the team to think about, based on the preliminary information that we got, One of those categories makes sense for us to recommend that we have a phasing in early on And so it may be that we are starting to have that within the next fiscal year Of course We have the opportunity with the adopted budget to give people notice and have that be implemented after you know a period of review So we actually could have some of those dollars come into the next budget and that's why we're really reserved in the 22nd to take a deep dive into all the fee schedules that are going to be adjusted for all the departments, as well as a deep dive into this cost study analysis that I cannot recall us taking a look across the board like ever, or doing a holistic adjustment of it at least in the 15 years that I've been here. So I think it's going to be a robust conversation. The numbers I've seen so far is our recovery rate is far below the national average. And we're leaving a lot on the table in terms of what we really would need would like to bring in to reinvest in our parks moving forward.

I Think that's a great idea miss Mac would those fees go into parks fund specifically or to the general fund?

They could go into either. I mean last year We were very pleased that you were able to increase our park amenity be the funds that he just talked about It was a million dollars. We added an extra $500,000 to that. We certainly could allocate some funds to parks and recreation and things that we're doing. I think you all talked about yesterday the serious vandalism that we see. I get reports every single solitary week. The costs and expenses continue to go up. And we established a park amenity fund so that we can have new things, that we could replace your playgrounds and the benches. And we don't want it to be replacing things that are not at the end of their useful life. And so it would make sense for us if we could make some investments in those areas. But I think it gives us the opportunity to have that broader discussion and really figure out where those dollars should go at the end of the day.

Yeah, and I think it's appropriate to bring up that last year at the Westside Sports Complex, after some rain, some water got into the electrical system, the whole park lighting system was out, and we were scrambling because it was right before tournament season. I know that all of the soccer players and teams and tournaments were happening right at the time that that happened, and we were scrambling to figure out how we were gonna fix it because it was just so costly and it was not something we could have predicted was gonna happen. And yet we were very close to not being able to offer the Westside Sports Complex for those tournaments. And it's something we don't wanna be facing, right? It's obviously unpredictable, but it's hard to budget sometimes for those types of things. And I appreciate you and Ms. Mack for being able to figure it out and getting the right price quote so that we could hold those tournaments there. Which brings me to another question, Pablo, maintenance. I know that there's a lot of maintenance that goes into the rec centers and park amenities in general. How do you budget for maintenance? How do you prioritize it?

Okay, we work together with facilities, and we align to our budget to what we have. Sometimes we do have line items for some maintenance at the facilities. On the fields and parks, we do have all that budgeted, but for specific facilities, we work with streets and maintenance and facilities department.

So you share the budget with streets and maintenance for that?

yeah more than likely all of our buildings uh are managed in the facilities area but by streets and maintenance so we'll upload for you soon again that's topego and thank you again for increasing that last year um so we have 5.4 million dollars um in our facilities plan um that randy manages he has a list of all of our facilities and he's ranked What's in the worst condition? It's a lot of roofs. It's a lot of You know HVAC systems and so I believe the list that I saw was actually seven million dollars So I think he scaled that back but he has a full rollout plan and we'll make that available to you So you can see across the board where we're making those investments. They make the priority of course public safety facilities that we absolutely can't close and also the four basic facilities for our parks and recreation libraries and others

And sometimes it's even just paint, but paint makes a big difference. Thank you for that. The last thing I want to talk to you about is lights in parks, because I know that you know that I've invested in lights in parks. And it's just something that I think is very valuable and directly impacts a lot of people in our community, increases their quality of life, and increases the opportunity for people to utilize our open spaces, builds community, helps families gather. for many purposes, and it's something that I know is probably not in your budget, Pablo, and I know you also share that cost with streets, but I would like to maybe consider looking into that, especially with the Parks Master Plan. I know I've mentioned previously that Alex Hoffman has helped me a lot in analyzing data in my district specifically, but I'm sure that if we did the study citywide, we would see direct benefit to the community by adding more lights in our public spaces, especially at parks. So thank you, Pablo. I want to give a shout out to Mike Garcia, the Northwest Corral Park Supervisor. He's done a fantastic job. EG, of course. Thank you so much for all the work. And your entire team, La Reina, Diana, and everybody else at parks. I know I've given your department, I think, the hardest time of all, Pablo. But you guys have done just a great, great job. And thank you so much. Thank you. We appreciate it.

Representative Acevedo.

Thank you, Mayor. This is really important to my constituents. I think you kind of know all the ins and outs of what's going on in my district parks-wise. One thing that continues to come up and I just feel obligated to say this is People want their pulse to reopen right and since I've got in here. I've tried to do everything I could do and those are capital projects. It's 12 million dollars for each poll nations Tobin Grandview and I guess I want to ask do you think that the parks master plan could help toward opening those polls again.

Well, this is the beauty about being working with the master plan throughout this couple of months. We get all the community input. We went through all the community first phase community meetings and we're gathering all the information and our consultants are doing a great job of having the priorities in all capital investment and as like you said it's big investments but at the end of the day we'll find the final product at the end of this year to see what what they recommend to get adopted on November December of this year

Okay. And on your all funds budget, I was looking at the operating leases. That's going up $310,000. Do you know why that's going up?

All of our operating leases, including Sarabia, janitorial, trash picking, and some of these are, we're doing rebates this upcoming year, so we're elevating those contracts.

Okay, so that's the reason, that makes sense. Okay, well, I appreciate all the, oh, one thing. Yes, sir. Last year, we were talking about where you were with filling vacancies and I just kind of wanted to hear from you if those vacancies are filled, how many are left? Are you feeling better about your staffing?

Up to this date we're close to 95% of full staff. We're feeling way better because previous years we were very low, but right now we're very efficient with our staff in all divisions and in maintenance and we're getting close to being fully staffed.

Okay, good to hear. Thank you.

Representative Canales.

Thank you, Mayor. Pablo, you may know this may be a Sacho or Robert question, but it's similar to some of the questions I was asking yesterday. One thing I'm trying to understand this year is the web of operating transfers in and operating transfers out. Do you mind shedding some light on the various ins and outs here?

Good morning.

Good morning, Sacho.

Oh, you're only, okay.

Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, I guess if we can just go through all the, I mean, I see in all funds, well, we can look at.

So what you see in all funds at $460,000 in property taxes, that's PID. And then you see another $460,000 in the operating transfers. That's $920,000 that Pablo talked about for the east side complex. So we are using accumulated funds. this year and then for next year we're going to use the funds that that PID is going to generate.

Okay so all of that operating transfers in is from the from the Public Improvement District that funded the construction of the park?

Yes.

And then the let me see operating transfers out there are 4.58 million from parks that's the one I was more curious about.

So well part of that is 3 million dollars for water parks

Okay.

And then the $1.5 million, I need to check that one. That's for the amenities. That's for the amenities, yes.

Okay, and so we would see a good portion of that reflected on the operating transfers in for destination? Yes. Okay, that makes sense. Again, this is my goal for myself this year. I need to learn the web of the transfers. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Representative Nino.

Thank you, Mayor.

Pablo, one quick question. I know that we briefly had a conversation about ensuring that we're working with IT on developing a website where individuals can potentially book parks. Can you just touch base a little bit about what that looks like and when we can foresee that coming live? I think it's extremely important for members of the community to have access to that booking system online and also be able to know when or when a park is not available for any sport activity.

Of course, sir. We're working very close with Ms. Patrick and the IT department just to make it more friendly and more visual. That way, because all the information is there, but we need to make it more visual for the community. That way they have those processes just by a touch of their finger.

Do we have a timeline? We don't.

I mean, we're just starting. Ms. Patrick, come up. So she mentioned yesterday we're doing a total revamp of all the websites. And so we have beginning that schedule and doing some outreach. And so I don't know if we have the specifics. Oh, you are here. Speak for you. Speak.

Good morning. Yes, the website redesign. We've already been doing preliminary work that is basically setting the framework, setting up what the structure will look like. Our tentative launch date will be next January. So we're doing a revamp of the entire city website, working with each department. Our focus is really going to be trying to shift somewhat from department-focused messaging to really making it easier to find information and services that are available. So consolidating information, consolidating services that are available on certain pages, consolidating updates that are of interest to the public. That's going to be a big part of the focus in this redesign.

Yeah, thank you for all your work on that. I think definitely that could also give an opportunity to even, you know, generate even further revenue should there be availability for any sports groups or organization that wants to essentially book a park or have use of that. I just wanted to touch base into that because I know that we've had meaningful conversations on that and I'm looking forward to that.

Thank you. And as a result of the input that you provided to me, One of the conversations that we had was inviting you all to help us to do a focus group as we're developing the website. One of the things we heard is that community wanted to provide input. And so we're gonna try to figure out how we do some of that. I think it's kind of easier if you all just help me find people. But that's something we were thinking about, including just to make sure that the final product really has input from the community.

Thank you for all your work.

Thank you.

All right, any more questions? Thank you, Mayor.

okay up next planning inspections with Kevin Smith Thank You Pablo

Okay, good morning. Good morning. Mayor and City Council Kevin Smith with Planning Inspections. Before, actually before I get into the presentation, Mayor, I was wondering if you might indulge me for a moment. So today is the last council meeting for our director, Phillip, who is retiring and wanted to spend a moment for council to recognize him. Let's bring him up. Let's bring him up.

Bring him up.

good morning council city manager deputy city managers and all the department heads i just want to say thank you for letting me be me i had a wonderful ride i've been in your offices i've been in your district and so you've allowed me to do what i do best and especially i want to say thank you to um

TAKE YOUR TIME. REPRESENTATIVE LEMON.

PHILLIP, AFTER SO MANY YEARS WITH THE CITY, THIS IS SUCH AN EMOTIONAL TIME AND THANK YOU, KEVIN, FOR DOING THIS BECAUSE HOW MANY TIMES DO LONG-TERM CITY EMPLOYEES SIMPLY WALK OUT THE DOOR, THEY'RE DONE, BUT WE DON'T RECOGNIZE THE WORK THAT THEY DO. an outstanding public servant. I'm very sorry to see you go, as I absolutely love visiting with you, learning, learning from you. and you walk away with an incredible amount of knowledge, institutional memory that cannot be replaced. I know the sons have graduated and it's time to move on and be closer to family, but I want you to know that you will be missed. your smile, your hug, your ability to resolve issues quickly. You're not a man who sits around for an hour talking about something. If there's a problem, let's get it done, let's get it fixed, and let's move on. And I love that. I love that attitude. Philip, I'm going to miss you immensely, and I wish you the very, very best. And enjoy your retirement. It's time to enjoy it, Philip.

Excuse me, I think old age.

I'm getting emotional. We'll give you a minute. Representative Chavez.

Thank you, Mayor. Philip, I came into government in January 2025. This is not a space that I'm familiar with. It's not something that's even inside of my comfort zone. And you welcomed me and you were patient with me. and you were patient with my constituents, and you taught me so much. I have asked many people about you and everyone has spoken so highly of you in our community and it's because of the service and dedication that you have put in to our community to our city. I'm grateful to you. I know many others are grateful to you. We will miss you and we will be in touch with you. Thank you. because I can't imagine not having your knowledge to count on. So thank you for everything that you've done, and I hope you enjoy your retirement and everything that is to come after this. Congratulations for a job well done.

Thank you. Representative Nino.

Thank you, Mayor. And Phillip, thank you for your leadership, your guidance, your mentorship as well throughout the years. I echo what my colleagues have said. It's not a field that we're all familiar with, but you really have guided us and taught us so much and have worked hard to make this community even more beautiful and even keeping the community safe. I know we've had many conversations of different projects. You tell me the reason we do this is to keep our community safe and beautiful. So thank you for all your hard work, and we definitely will miss you. You will always have a friend in me. Thank you for your work.

REPRESENTATIVE FIERRO.

THANK YOU, MAYOR. PHILIP, PHILIP, PHILIP. REMEMBER, IT'S ALWAYS FOR THE CHILDREN, MY FRIEND. IT'S ALWAYS FOR THE CHILDREN.

THAT'S WHAT I'M DOING THESE FOR, FOR THE CHILDREN.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PARTNERSHIP. THANK YOU FOR YOUR LEADERSHIP. THANK YOU FOR YOUR FRIENDSHIP. YOU'VE MADE OUR OFFICE RUN SMOOTHER. IT'S VERY DIFFICULT TO GET A YES. DON'T WORRY. I'LL TAKE CARE OF IT FROM YOU. BUT YOU ALWAYS AIM US IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION. BUT YOUR FRIENDSHIP

THANK YOU MY FRIEND THANK YOU ENJOY YOUR RETIREMENT THANK YOU THANK YOU MAYOR ALL RIGHT PHILIP WAIT HANG ON DON'T RUN OUT REPRESENT CANALAS

Thank you, Mayor. We were all calling Pablo Mayor, but he's the one you might have to actually worry about now. Yeah. Now, Philip, I did come into this position with some knowledge of planning. And I think I can imagine that for a planning director, There's nothing more annoying than a council member who knows just enough about your field to be able to ask hard questions and push you a little bit. So I really appreciate having had you all these years to bounce ideas off of and thoughts off of. I think you've done a wonderful job guiding this department. We've seen such a change in the operations of the planning department. Thank you. I've been here for 10 years, and I know your tenure here has been longer than mine. So I just want to say I appreciate so much the amount of change you've brought to the institution. And really, I see a department that runs so much differently than it did in the past, and I think provides such an improved service to the public. And I think for any public servant, the knowledge that you are leaving your department and your colleagues in a better position than when you started is the ultimate takeaway. So you should be proud of that contribution. Thank you. Thank you for your help throughout the years. I hope I didn't annoy you too much. Thank you. No problem.

Philby, you want to say anything?

I just want to say thank you, especially to planning staff.

Well, Phillip, you are the perfect image of a public service servant, and you've given so many years to this city. I am convinced there are three Phillips, though, because we can call you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and you answer somehow. So I don't think you sleep and you're always busy, but you've given your heart, your time to this community, and it's very much appreciated. I can tell you when you announced that you were going to retire, I must have received five to ten phone calls from the community asking, where's Phillip going? They cannot even envision that. YOUR DEPARTMENT WITHOUT YOU. SO THAT TELLS YOU THAT YOU DID THE RIGHT THINGS ALONG THE WAY WHILE YOU WERE WORKING AND PLANNING AND INSPECTIONS. BUT PHILLIP, THE CITY IS NEVER GOING TO SAY GOODBYE. IT'S TILL WE SEE YOU AGAIN AND WE'RE GOING TO WISH YOU ALL THE VERY BEST IN YOUR RETIREMENT. THERE'S A WHOLE OTHER CHAPTER OF LIFE OUT THERE FOR YOU AND YOU WILL ENJOY IT AND YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO TAKE THAT SUIT OFF AND RELAX AND PUT ON SOME SHORTS AND ENJOY YOURSELF. BUT, PHILIP, WE CANNOT THANK YOU, AND I KNOW I SAY THIS ON BEHALF OF THE CITY OF EL PASO, THANK YOU FOR THE MANY YEARS OF SERVICE AND GOD SPEED. THANK YOU. THANK YOU, PHILIP.

I WANT TO THANK THE CITY MANAGER.

OKAY. REPRESENTATIVE FIERRO.

MAYOR, OBVIOUSLY YOU'VE NEVER CALLED PHILIP MONDAY NIGHT AT 7 P.M. PLEASE, DON'T EVER DO THAT.

WHY? WHAT'S HE DOING? PHILIP, WHAT HAPPENS ON MONDAY AT 7?

MONDAY NIGHT ROLL.

THAT'S YOUR SHOW, HUH? WELL, LET'S SEE IF WE LEARNED SOMETHING. DON'T CALL PHILIP AND CONGRATULATE HIM MONDAY NIGHT AT 7, OKAY?

NO, ON FRIDAY. FRIDAY. So thank you again so I want to say thank you. I really appreciate everything that you've done for me and the support. I encourage you to support. Mister Smith Mister de la Cruz and kind of stuff as you've always done so and the city manager as well and made my deficit manager. Nicole 20 sitting back there. So thank you very much appreciate everything.

Thank you thank you.

And we all look forward to celebrating him his party tomorrow.

Tomorrow's Phillips Day. Kevin, thank you for doing that.

You're welcome. Kevin. Thank you, Mayor. So Kevin Smith, again, for planning inspections. I think I should have debated doing that after I give the presentation, but it'll be good. So Planning and Inspections is a revenue generating department that works on providing excellent development services to our customers to help achieve our community's development goals as well as economic growth. To highlight or to show the breadth of our department is basically every property, every building within the city of El Paso should have come through our department to be developed. And so every time you visit business, every time you visit your home, in theory, that should have gone through our department for the review and inspections throughout the development process. To support these efforts for the next fiscal year, we have a preliminary budget of approximately $9.6 million, which is a net decrease of approximately $189,000. This is due to the citywide salary increases that took place, along with the proposed deletion of five full-time employees. And again, as I will note, those are vacant positions. For FY2027, we have a proposed staffing of about 122 full-time employees. Our department has four programs and I'll be highlighting three of them during this presentation. So first I will talk about the construction and permitting program. This program addresses primarily the vertical construction within the city of El Paso. This team ensures that there is a safe built environment through the permitting and construction of structures. And I will note that this includes both residential as well as commercial development. Second is the planning program. And this generally occurs before construction and permitting. Zoning, which is the one that council gets to see on a regular basis, is basically what you can and can't do on a piece of property. As well as subdivisions is the other large component which deals with the division of land within the City of El Paso. And then finally, the one-stop shop, which is often the initial location to assist our customers with their development questions, with their goals. We give them guidance through this team. They assist through the licensing and permitting and whatever information that people may have in terms of how to comply with the municipal regulations. The interesting thing about this team here is as a lot of our customers, sometimes they're not knowledgeable about the development process. So sometimes we have to boil things down very basically to them so that they understand about some of the rules and regulations in order for development to occur. So in terms of our strategic plan alignment, I think we're one of the unique departments where we actually cover the breadth of all the pillars that were established. But we do fall primarily under the economic mobility pillar. As is noted under the key priority actions that are listed a number of times on the screen, we are focused on improving the permitting process and allowing for development to advance and to support the growth of El Paso. One of the significant undertakings is the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative. And through this effort, we want to accomplish a number of points and I'll just go over a couple of them. First is we want to reduce the amount of review cycles for building plan review. We want to improve the applicant experience through the online customer portal. And I just want to say thank you to the IT department who's been great partners in working through this effort so far. And then finally, we want to provide more customer workshops for educating the public, whether it's the public themselves or often the design professionals and the construction teams to make sure that they're giving the community the right information. With that, that concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Okay. Questions for Kevin? Representative Chavez.

Thank you, Mayor. A quick question, Kevin. Thank you for the presentation. I think that you are also going to be reviewing and revising your fee structure. Could you talk a little bit about that?

Yes, ma'am. So we have over 500 fees on our on schedule C. I don't even know the last time that they've been looked at comprehensively. And this is something that we've been able to communicate with leadership and they've been able to give us the resources to get a third party to come in. do a complete analysis of all our fees from basically the moment that an application comes in to the moment of final completion, what is the cost of service? So we're working through that with our consultant, and we'll bring it forward. We have done, here and there, we've done some piecemeal approaches here and there to address it, and we've done it very regularly. But this is something that's been sorely needed so that council can understand the cost of service and then determine the appropriate fees to impose. For our department, it is up to the property owner to come to us. And so it is something they're choosing to pursue. And so that's why we want to do a complete evaluation. And we're looking forward to seeing the final results and bringing it forward to council.

As you go through the process Kevin do you think redoing your fee structure will impact your efficiencies at all within your department.

I think at the end of the day, there will be less impact on the general fund. This isn't looking at the processes themselves, just looking at who touches a piece of paper or an application and make sure we're getting the cost of service. So I'm not sure if there will be any impact to our process improvements. But that is obviously something we're constantly looking at is how can we improve the speed of processing. That's where the Bloomberg initiative is really helping look at that aspect.

If my memory serves me correctly, I think last year during the budget cycle, we talked about a decrease in the money you've collected, the revenue that you had received. What is it looking like this fiscal year?

So we've actually seen a continued decrease in residential. We've seen it actually for the past roughly eight or 10 years where we've seen a slow decline. A lot of the development is going out to the county. As we see, the east side has generally been built out to the city limits. And then there is some land in the northeast and on the west side to develop. But a lot of the development we see is on the outside of the sea limits. We are seeing a steady stream of commercial activity, though. So that is a good sign that we see that redevelopment of sites within the sea limits. So that is something that's been pretty constant and pretty steady for us.

And I wonder if that also ties into recent articles that talk about our population decline, if our population is just reshifting and moving like what you just mentioned outside of the county. I know that we're part of the cross-functional team, and we're thinking holistically at how to approach this. So I'm looking forward to those conversations, and thank you once again for the work that you do and the rest of the department. I appreciate you.

Thank you, ma'am. Kevin, thank you. OK, thank you, Mayor and Council. With this, I will turn the time over to Chief Pacillas with the Police Department.

CHIEF PACIAS with the Police Department. Good morning, Chief.

Good morning, Mayor. If we can bring up the presentation. Good morning, Mayor and Council. Peter Pacias, chief of police for the record. So what is it that we do? At the core of our mission is the preservation of life and the protection of property with highly trained personnel in conjunction with community relationships that we serve the community with compassion and integrity. To highlight what the El Paso police officers have done over the last year is they have overall reduced crime from 2024 to 2025 by over 6.81%. They have reduced violent crime by 7.47% and property crime over 10% for 2025 compared to 2024. So these officers are committed to what they're doing out there to ensure the safety of the public. Looking at our budget on there and the variances on there is basically due to salary increases that Ms. Mack and Mr. Cortina's talked about through collective bargaining, the civilian increases on there, and then contractual obligations that we have. And the decrease that you see over there in the non-general fund is due to the, we came five million dollars under with the award for the Texas anti-gang grant. Talking about the variances of employees on there, we are not losing, I wanna make sure that the public understands this, we are not losing police officers on there. We are transferring people out of ARPA into the general fund, so that's what you're seeing right there on that slide. Our program snapshot is we have six different programs in there highlighting what the El Paso Police Department does on their investigations, evidence management, community education, specialized teams response, and our employee organizational support services. All those are people that work behind the scenes from patrol on there. It's anywhere from internal affairs to our training academy to our civilian staff and our employee and organizational support divisions. Investigations, that's all our CIDs across the board that do the follow-up investigations. And our community education, that's where we have our PAR officers, our outreach, that's where we do our youth academies and our citizens academies three times a year. And our special teams response, those having increased on us with the number of events that are happening in El Paso, we do deploy our special events teams out there to make sure that the community is safe. Where I'd like to focus the attention on is what the community is most concerned about. On there is our response times out there. When somebody calls, they're still waiting on an average of about 22 minutes for a dispatcher to be able to find a unit to respond to their call on priority one calls on there. What we have done is we are strategically moving people throughout the department. When I first came into office, we were about 41% officers in patrol. With this class that's gonna be graduating in January, we're expecting to be up to 48% of our personnel in patrol. Our patrol services unit that's up there on the board, this is where our DWI task force lies along with our TAC units and some of our other specialty units. We are making a concerted effort to address our DWIs on there. With the class graduating this January, we're going to be moving three more officers into our DWI task force, bringing it up to 19 officers and two supervisors out there. We still will have a seven day a week coverage out there. We're going to continue to grow that unit along with our traffic enforcement units. Where do we fall is public safety. We do touch all the other pillars in there in that we continue to be one of the safest cities in the nation of over 500,000 population. Our priority is to get those response times down for priority one calls. working on our DWI enforcement through education and working with our district attorney's office to ensure that we get successful prosecutions on those that are arrested for DWIs, whether it's their first time or more than three DWIs. Looking at a concerted effort in recruitment and retention of our personnel. And then lastly, improving the equipment that our officers have that they're in the field on a daily basis. And with that, I'll open it up for any questions or comments.

Representative Limon.

Thank you, mayor chief. I'm looking at slide 109, which was your last slide and looking at what I would consider be the priorities under the different programs there. And these certainly are priorities. Response time is critical for our community. And that's the biggest one of the biggest concerns, because while maybe the average is 22. The actual can be very different depending on the cases. And unfortunately, those are the ones that draw the attention. We may have response times that are three minutes, five minutes, 10 minutes. But whenever we have someone for hours, then that's the one that kind of drives the attention. So I'm glad to see that that's one of the priorities that we see on here. Also, it's always great to see the increased recruitment. It's interesting to see how we really, after all these years, we really haven't hit a very, very good high. You just stated the percentage of officers when you came on board and like we're almost at the same location that we were. I remember thinking over 1,000 officers and we barely, seems like we barely moved. And of course, it's due to retirement and things that people moving on to other areas. One of the concerns and I'm not sure where would fit here is how do we diminish that concern just like these, of perhaps excessive force and what is being done. Where would that be in the priority scheme?

So you're talking about our internal affairs or investigations that people can file complaints. Ms. Patrick was just talking about the website. So she helped us revamp our website that went live earlier this year. on there, people can come in and file a complaint at any regional command, or they can file a complaint, initial complaint on our website on there, and it'll be investigated by our Internal Affairs Division.

And I guess maybe more in line with what Chief Killings does and with the 911 call, how can we best identify an issue that should be not necessarily enforcement, but safety, a safety issue, so that the officers are prepared. I'm wondering if there, and at some point in time, I'd like to have a conversation on that. How can we look at and designate and be able to tell when an incident really needs to be about safety for, the person that's calling in. So maybe for the future, so that maybe we can see it on here.

So if I understand about education, that's what our PAR officers and our community relations officers do. They go out and train personnel, just like we did training for all of city council on what to do in active shooters or active violence incidents. We do those throughout the year for different organizations. on a regular basis, we do that. When somebody calls in, it goes into the 911 operations center and Chief Killing and his staff has done a very good job on that call taker trying to get as much information for those officers and then also instructing the person on the other side of the phone what to do and how to do it without getting themselves in any safety issues.

Right, without getting themselves or the person that's calling. Yeah, I think that would be really important. Thank you very much, Chief.

Representative, I pulled out of, as you saw the strategic plan, I have corporate cost cutting focus. I think every department's gonna be focused on communication, engagement opportunities, and so you won't see it in each one of the buckets. But we know that everybody will have a strategy under good governance that really is focused on some of those pieces. We'd be happy to share citywide what some of those strategies are going to be. I actually have, Julie will be coming up talking about my department. It's actually under that bucket about all the things we want to do about community engagement and input, and every department will have a piece of that moving forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

It's always good to see you, Chief. I just had one question around the increase to the EHN contract. Can you dive a little deeper into that?

Yes. So EHN is also trying to retain qualified specialists to stay on staff with them. They have the same recruiting problems. that we do on there. So in order to stay competitive with their world in mental health, their salaries went up. So therefore, that reflects in our contract with them.

Okay and is there any thought on trying to expand CIT? I know we've talked about it in past budgets and it's been it's been difficult but are you hoping to do that maybe next year two years?

As we continually look at our staffing issues that we have in deployment so we're looking at we're using all the data that we have available to us on how we're deploying our personnel out there. Yes, I would love to increase our CIT unit, our traffic units, and our DWI units, but it's a factor of numbers, and we use our data on where we're putting our people. We did increase them by five through the ARPA funds on there that was absorbed. That's where you saw some of the numbers on the first slide that were absorbed into the general fund. So we increased it by five officers and five specialists. OK.

The chief made me speak to the team looked at the data and the information. My understanding is that when that was set up 2 o'clock to 6 o'clock was the busiest call time. And so they allocated those staffers to the call times and where we saw the calls. And so it really was helping to have responsiveness to where we saw the higher call volumes. You know as you know what the budget is a lot that you know we're pulling over. We had the benefit of ARPA for many years. I think we save MAYBE FIVE TO SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS WITH NOT HAVING THOSE ON THE GENERAL FUND BUT I THINK WE HAVE TO FIGURE OUT THIS BALANCE AS WE'RE MOVING FORWARD WITH YOU KNOW OUR PROGRAMS AND SERVICES PARTICULARLY WHAT IT MIGHT LOOK LIKE NEXT YEAR SO I THINK HE DOESN'T WANT TO OVER COMMIT BECAUSE WE DON'T HAVE MONEY THANK YOU CHIEF YES MA'AM THANK YOU VERY MUCH YES MA'AM NO WELL I APPRECIATE IT WORK IN PROGRESS OVERALL I THINK AND YES THANK YOU FOR PRESENTING THIS ABSOLUTE REPRESENTATIVE CHAVEZ

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Chief, for the presentation. Could you talk to us a little bit about retention at the department and how that influences the budget in any way?

Yes, so we continue to try to find ways to retain officers out there. We are competing with departments all across the nation, from local to state to federal. When the federal government started having these high bonuses for hiring federal agents on there, we saw people leaving to that organizations. What we do is we try to educate our personnel that things are not greener on the other side. thinking about these people that might be considering going into the federal program. They get their paychecks furloughed and things of that nature and they're still showing up to work and we let them know with the city of El Paso, their checks are funded and budgeted for every year so that they're gonna be getting their benefits on there. We also look at improving the quality of their equipment, things of that nature and one of the highest priorities of the department has been the officer's wellness programs that we've instituted out there. We hired a police psychologist on there, and we've seen some great improvements working with how he helped us establish a relationship with Endeavors out there. And some of the comments that I'm getting from some of the officers out there that it was a long time coming, and they're taking full advantage of all the services. It's not just mental and emotional. They're getting licensed financial training. licensed nutritionists, things of that nature. So they're taking full advantage of this stuff. So that's how we're looking at retraining them and then also continually training them to the highest level that we're capable of training them so that they're prepared for whatever they encounter out there in the field.

How does technology play a role in that? And did you add any more money into your budget for technology specifically?

So in the part that we're looking at as far as technology, what our administrative bureau has done on the site is they've looked at workflows over the past year and how we're automating several things. And we've been able to move some of our officers out of support services and back into the field. So we are trying to leverage technology and we work with Carolyn's team to help ensure that we have the most updated technology.

And I know that you can't put this on a line item in your budget, Chief, but I say it many times. I read the crime reports that we get sent weekly. We just got one yesterday in our inbox. And citywide, there is a 4% decrease in crime. You can't put that in a budget, right? Like you can't determine if crime is going to go up or down. I think your department as a whole, its morale is high, I believe. And I think it's a reflection of our crime rates. When people love what they do, they do it well. And it's reflected in these crime reports. So I commend you for that. And I just hope that we get... the support that you've just described through technology and mental health and physical well-being and everything else that you provide to the department so that they can continue doing the work that they do. If you'll just indulge me for a minute. I'm also a professional chef. And so when I think of like a recipe, if any of you have ever made a roux, you know, you start off with butter, you melt the butter, then you add the flour. The flour is what keeps the roux together to make any sauce. I look at the police department as what's keeping us together. You are that flour. You are that binding ingredient that everything else in the city is built off of. So I appreciate the work that you do and all of the officers.

I can't say enough about the officers that come into work every day. Unlike other cities around the country, the El Paso police officer mainly lives in this city. Other cities, they live in the suburbs and things of that nature. So every officer that lives in the city of El Paso is embedded and ingrained in this. And we recognized two officers the other day that you all took the time to recognize. Those two officers are just an example of the other 1,100 officers that are out there and the 300 civilians that support those officers every single day that come to work. And it's truly a privilege for these men and women to do what they do every single day. And I couldn't be more proud of every single one of them.

And thank you for that. And thank you for the work that you do so that all of us can continue doing the work that we do. We appreciate that.

Thank you, Mayor. Representative Canales. Thank you, Mayor.

Probably the same situation. I have a couple of questions more diving into the book here. Police department isn't the only department. I was just curious about this. But I notice in the non-general fund, you have grant match budgeted as a negative. Yeah, negative $849,729. Do we know if that's maybe accounting for in-kind? Grant match, is that? I just want to understand how that gets recorded.

So that's probably linked to the Texas Antiquity Unit that they received under the budget amount. So for that, the city match is decreasing.

The city match is decreasing. But it's not just decreasing. It is a negative.

So previous year was $5.2 million, and then this year is $4.2 million.

Sorry, that's one line. That's the capital outlay. So I'm looking one line up on the grant match.

Give me a second.

No problem. Yeah, again, and I noticed it in a couple other departments. I wonder if that's how we account for in-kind grant match. I don't know. Just a strange quirk that I noticed in a couple departments. And this is the first time where it's come up. I will give you an answer. OK, thank you. And then I just wanted to ask about a couple of the larger variants outside contracts is 2.9 million Less than last year in non-general funds Do we have an idea of what what that was it a one-time in influx Sasha you want to come back up? Sorry I Would imagine potentially grant funding from last year Serving some outside contract Again, I only ask because there's not many departments where you see a variance on a line like that of nearly $3 million. It's like a 41% decrease in outside contracts on the non-general fund side. So I'd imagine it's grants.

I will have to give you that answer. No problem.

I'm sorry. I'm asking complicated ones here. And then the capital outlay is the other larger variance, about 1.5 million less than last year. Was that also maybe just some one-time purchases that happened on the non-general fund side in 26 that we won't have in 27? It's actually the same variance, all funds.

So we'll prepare a spreadsheet of all the variances, and we are going to give it to you.

OK. I appreciate that. I just, again, want to make sure, so if this is particularly for the capital outlay, if it's equipment replacement or something like that, I just want to understand what the police department was able to fund last year that isn't necessarily getting funded this year. Just to understand, essentially.

Yes. Give me a follow-up.

No problem. I appreciate it. Thank you, Sasha. And thank you, Chief. Sorry to dive into it like this. Again, we're seeing decreases, and so I just want to make sure that we have an explanation for why the department's getting less or spending less on capital outlay. That's all for now.

Thank you mayor chief. Just one quick question And I know the fire department received a grant for personnel as well and you receive the cops grant Is that continuing through? 27 as well.

Yeah, so it's a three-year grant. So the way it looks like on there is we can't supplant and So the amount that we're budgeted for for recruit classes, so we're budgeted this fiscal year for 30 recruits per academy, so a total of 90 that was presented yesterday. So anything above that we get into the academies, those officers will be put into the COPS grant. Oh, that's fantastic. We'll take advantage of the COPS grant that way, but it's for three years with a one-year extension on it.

Very good. And you have a graduating class coming up next week?

January 5th. We have 32. June 5th? I mean, sorry. You're already in next year. Sorry. I'm getting hopeful that we'll have more officers by then. So June 5th, we'll be graduating 32 new police officers from the academy at 9 o'clock at the Sunlight Event Center.

Okay. Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Chief.

That's it. Next up is Public Health, Dr. Tanaha.

Good morning, doctor.

Good morning. I'm Vinny Tenasia. I'm the public health director, mayor and council. I'm going to give you a quick briefing on public health. You know, what do we do? We're dedicated to reducing health inequities by providing and promoting diverse, proactive services for our community through empathy, engagement, education and disease prevention. That's a mouthful. So really what we do is disease prevention. You know, that's the take home message. If I could direct your attention to the budget amounts, of course, it's showing a little bit of an increased variance on our general fund budget, but as is the theme, mostly it's related to salary increases and then some other fixed cost increases related to our various contracts. And on the non-general fund side, there is a negative variance, but it's mostly related to a grant that's coming off cycle. And then, of course, there are some decreases in grant awards, but it's not as bad as what we received last year. Last year we lost about $3.2 million. Of course, the federal budget's up for discussion still, so we don't know what the final outcome would be, but we're keeping our fingers crossed that there's not a major impact. And again, in terms of staffing, you're only seeing a 0.55 increased variance on FTEs. And again, that's just related to some of the positions are split funded between grants and general fund. And as the salaries increase, the grants didn't have any more room. So it increases the cost on general fund. And then on the non-general front side, there's a variance of about negative 3.55. There are some positions that are pending deletion. OMB and HR did help us get those through. They're just not reflected here. So there's going to be about 25 further reductions of vacancies. So all of these positions that we're talking about are you know, really aligning with what the funding that we have. Some of those were remnants from COVID days when there was a lot of grant funds and then over time people just didn't remove them. So we took it upon ourselves to clean up the org chart to make sure we're truly showing what's actually funded and what we can fill. Luckily, my team's been doing a great job working with HR. We're down to about seven and a half vacancies. That's a far cry last year when I a couple years ago when I joined they were like 130 vacancies on the org chart So the team's done a great job We'll filled about 50 60 positions that were needed and then eliminated the rest that were not funded not needed So we're in good shape right now, and hopefully we can keep it there Going through our you know program snapshots I'll highlight a couple of things. For example, we have our preparedness program. Yesterday, I think you heard Mr. Ibarra talk about them losing a grant called BioWatch. There was a discussion at the federal level. There was some money that was pulled back. TCEQ decided to pull out last year. So we had a little bit of a gap. But this year, the money's back, and our department received that grant, and we're going to be able to cover that gap in the community. Our laboratory already has federal contractors that are able to test for environmental samples. There's collectors all across major cities, including El Paso. And so with this grant, we'll bring back the team, hopefully still some folks from ESD who are familiar with this work, and then be able to cover that gap for El Paso. Very important as El Paso is getting on the map with major concerts and public events, we want to make sure the public's protected. And I wanted to highlight, even though we're a quality of life department, a lot of our programs do align with other areas of the strategic plan. So this would be a great example of a public safety alignment, even though it's focused on health. Another program I want to highlight is WIC, which provides food benefits for women and infant and children. The program itself is one of our major grants, almost $5.6 million of funding comes through, but the economic benefit of the community exceeds $10 million. I think last year they were above $11 million or $12 million in benefits issued to the community, especially important when You know, all of this inflation's going on and public's having concerns about putting food on the table. So this is a great program to help service and it's again focused on health. We teach them nutrition education while the moms and babies are in that phase of listening and building good habits. So it's a great program, has a good return on health investment as well. Again, plan alignment, like I said, even though we're quality of life department, we do have programs that align in different parts of the strategic plan. So, for example, our housing of people living with AIDS, that program works under the economic mobility pillar. Epidemiology is another example that's, you know, health-focused, but it's public safety. Last couple years you saw measles outbreaks that the epidemiology team worked on, but this year we're now focusing on looking at the Ebola outbreak overseas and the hantavirus outbreak, and that's keeping us on our toes, and our team's really prepared to deal with any eventuality, but we're keeping our fingers crossed that they stay away from El Paso. And then, you know, a couple other, of course, quality of life programs. You all seen our mobile units out in the community. WIC has one, or quite a few actually, and then dental program and our prevention program. So they bring public health services into the community and we try to get those things out there because we know people can't always come to us to brick and mortar locations. Same thing with health promotion. They do a lot of educational events across the community focused on nutrition, bloodborne pathogens, general wellness, overall health. teaching people how to take care of their own health. Again, we're the prevention engine of the community. You know, there's the primary care gap, you know, covering like the FQHCs in the community, and then the University Medical Center, they're the tertiary care. But we all kind of work together on this continuum of health, and it starts with prevention. So health promotion is really key. Of course, we provide some clinical services as well. And then again, under the good governance pillar, we do have our public health accreditation program, again, focused on quality improvement and trying to get our health department accredited to national standards so that people can rest easy, that the quality services that are being provided match national standards that are out there for public health. So with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions about public health.

Very good. Representative Trejo.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for the presentation. Last year, we did the ribbon cutting there in my district. And we're very grateful to have you all there. You also had the ribbon cutting for the mobile unit. So how is that going with the mobile unit?

So that particular mobile unit, even though the ribbon cutting happened last year, it also came at a time where the grant got pulled pretty badly. We had almost a million and a half dollars remaining on the grant. So a lot of the staffing that was supposed to actually get the mobile unit up and going was cut. But we built programming around it. We have some staff that are now dedicated to it. So it's been out a few times, but as with a lot of these larger units, it's been running into some technical issues and it's been in and out of the shop. So it hasn't fully gotten off the ground where we wanted it to go out like every month on a regular basis. But it's going out. Dental has a mobile unit as well that goes out on a much regular basis. And then, of course, our WIC program has mobile units as well that are out there providing services in the community. So it's a, again, integrated program, but the bigger mobile unit that was supposed to provide that care has been sputtering a little bit with some issues. Again, mostly started with grant cuts and now with some technical issues with the bus itself.

So what are the plans going forward?

So once the bus is repaired, I mean the directive to the team has been try to get it out as much as we can at a minimum of about three excursions a month. They haven't gotten there yet, but we'll definitely try to make that as our priority to get it out into the community. Again, we understand that there's a need in the community. And of course, there's opportunities out there. There's a big push on rural health initiatives, even though El Paso is primarily urban. But the mobile unit does get out into the community, into areas that are semi-urban, rural. So if we can find funding opportunities to sort of solidify the programming around it, that would be helpful.

Okay. Okay.

And as far as WIC, has there been any additional funds cut?

No, we were managing within the department with that unit and trying to assign staffing to go work on that unit. So that's been part of the challenge, you know, trying to rebuild the programming because the entire team pretty much got eliminated with the grant.

Right. Right. Okay. Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Manny, before I pass to the other reps, you mentioned the word Ebola. Yes, sir. And we know that it's wreaking havoc on the African nation as we speak. Do you, and I'm just asking, do you foresee it arriving in the US and when?

Well, anything can happen. So the Feds are trying to keep it at bay. I think there's a lot of travel restrictions now. They're limiting flights coming in, and there's a traveler monitoring and screening program put into place. Originally, I think they were going to do only Dulles, Washington Airport. But now there's three airports, including Houston, George Bush International. So there's going to be people coming in from those impacted countries. But they are trying to limit how many people can come in. And there's a strong screening and monitoring program in place. When I first started as a director in public health in 2014, Ebola outbreak did occur. I was in Dallas-Fort Worth area at the time. So I have a lot of experience managing the monitoring program and what needs to happen. So we've been talking with our team. We've done some initial briefings with our team on the outbreak. We involve other entities like OEM, fire department, police department. So they're aware, and some community partner agencies. But currently we're in a monitoring situation only because it's overseas. Nothing's happened in the U.S. But if there's a case that lands in the U.S., I'm sure there will be elevated levels of public health preparedness that we'll put into place. And that's where our entire team comes into play. It's a coordinated effort. We have a department operations center that gets activated. So, you know, we have epidemiology, preparedness, immunizations, health education, all these teams that work together, including the PIO office. So we have a lot of plans to put into action if certain eventualities were to happen.

Thank you for that. Representative Canales.

Thank you, Mayor. Sasha, sorry. It's the same issue here where we have negative grant match on the non-general fund side. So it doesn't have to be an instant answer. I'm just curious about these.

No, so this is the way how, and I apologize, I didn't understand the question earlier. So the way how we budget, especially for the grants, so when you're budgeting for the grants, in the non-general fund, you do negative amount, but then the positive amount is in general fund, because the general fund is the one who supplies the city match. So in the general fund, in order the grant amount to be correct, you will have a negative amount, but then on the general fund, the amount will be positive. It's the same situation for every department.

Yeah, I understand. Okay, so because the match is paid by the general fund, but the full grant amount appears in the budget on the revenue side, non-general fund, you account for it with a negative. That makes sense. And then I think it's just important to point out, looking back historically, and this isn't captured in the presentation, but I'm looking at it in the book. I mean, you know, general fund, remarkably steady for the public health department. Non-general fund, totally different story. uh looking at the actuals for 2024 non-general fund and again for the public we're talking primarily grant funding and most of that from the federal government just over 19 million in 2024 just over 18 million in 2025 and then a stark cut to just more than 11 million in 2026 and we're at 10 and a half for 2027 preliminary and so um incredibly heavy lift by your department to continue to sustain all the programs. Kudos to yourself and the entire staff because those are massive, massive Reductions in the resources available to you as a department to the entire community For our public health at a time when I don't think we can afford to lose the the programs You know as we've emerged from a pandemic and now see as the mayor is talking about some increased global risk and so I just wanted the the the opportunity while you're here to say I Thank you for the hard work to sustain all the work that you do, because the Public Health Department does a lot of, you know, provides a lot of services to the public. Lots and lots of services, ones that people never see, plus all of the ones with, you know, thousands and thousands of people served here in El Paso. So 19 million reduced to 10 and a half million in a handful of years is a massive, massive reduction.

YES, SIR. AND I WANT TO TAKE THE OPPORTUNITY TO THANK MY TEAM WHO HAVE ACTUALLY DONE A GREAT JOB DESPITE ALL THESE FUNDING CHALLENGES. NOW, SOME OF THESE NUMBERS OBVIOUSLY WHERE THE GRANTS ARE OFF CYCLE. SO IT'S NOT EXACTLY THAT AMOUNT THAT GETS CUT, BUT THEY GET BUDGETED AT THE TIME THEY ARRIVE BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT ALIGNED WITH OUR BUDGET CYCLE. Yeah, but we did receive major cuts like last year alone was $3.2 million impacting about 25 positions. Luckily, we only lost about eight staff because we were able to absorb them in other areas of the department. But the team does a great job. So thank you for recognizing them. And we appreciate it.

Yeah, I know last year, a big part of the budget puzzle was looking at how to absorb those those staff positions in particular in some of the programs into the general fund. And so I appreciate that that's sustained this year as well.

And some of the prior expenditures that you see in the book are ARPA related expenditures as well. So public health department was a recipient of quite a large amount of ARPA funding for none of the facilities, but also just some of the services that they were providing as well. And so obviously with the termination of that ARPA funding, obviously you're going to see a decrease.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, I hope that one day we are in a different situation where there is an appetite to continue to maybe to increase funding to public health support instead of decrease.

We do try. I mean, the BioWatch grant, it's small, about $150,000, but that's a start, right? In a declining funding environment, if we can get even little amounts of money, it's helpful. With that, if there are no more questions. There's plenty of questions. I think you have more coming. I didn't want to take too much time.

Yes, go ahead. I believe that's all that I had, Mayor. Thank you.

Okay. Representative Lamont. Thank you, Mayor. Dr. Taneja, Health Department is a department with no borders. Correct. You're everywhere. What is the role of the health department in assisting Camp East Montana?

So because it was a federal facility, you know, it's been outside coordination or when we're invited in. For example, we were invited in a few times to help provide vaccinations to their staff. And then there was a need to vaccinate the individuals that were being detained. The guidance we received from the state was that there's a federal contractor whose responsibility it is. So coordinate with them, give them the vaccine, monitor the temperatures, and let them do their job. So that's how we handled it. And those messages are being delivered to state and federal levels that we need tighter coordination. an outbreak is occurring in our facility regardless of who has control over the facility. So hopefully we'll get better coordination on those going forward.

And so the immunization was for the staff, but not necessarily for the people that are detained there?

So for the staff, our team was able to immunize because most of them were residents of El Paso or neighboring communities. But for the detainees, the contractor was given the vaccination under our watch for them to do the medical work. Again, it's a liability concern because they were the medical provider for those detainees, and that's the guidance we were given from the state to let them handle the work but provide the vaccine.

And were we reimbursed for those immunizations.

So we receive the vaccine free from the state and in the outbreak situation obviously there's no charge for administration either. So we we handle those. Thank you.

Representative Nino the doctor. Question for you. One thing that I observed was on the health infrastructure grant. It's listed for zero for this upcoming year.

So again, I think it's just an off-cycle budgeting of that. So yes, we still have the grant. It's not zeroed out. It just comes at a different time. We still have funding left over. In fact, it funds a lot of things that the department didn't have money for. One example is that public health accreditation program. It's entirely funded through that public health infrastructure grant.

Okay, great. Yeah, because I do see the actual page where it has the health infrastructure granted also says that there's 39.8 full-time employees that have been funded through that, correct?

Yes, that is correct. So there were some new hires over the years that, you know, for example, our compliance program, and accreditation programs, some other things. We had a safety officer currently that's vacant. But there were other positions that were funded through the grant. So for example, last year we got cuts in federal funding. Some of the people we were able to move on to that public health infrastructure grant. And again, as there's delays in filling positions and things, we've moved more positions onto the grant so that we can utilize those grant dollars. And then eventually, once that funding runs out, we'll hopefully have other funding sources. So it gives us runway time to go through this dime cycle in funding so we can continue to apply for more grants and more opportunities.

When were we last awarded this public health infrastructure grant?

So it was a five-year grant award. It gets renewed every year. I think the first five years end in November 2027. Our expectation initially was that it's going to be a renewal Like many other grants, they get five year awards. But with the current administration, we don't know what their plans are. A lot of folks at the CDC are no longer there who were part of the initial development of this grant. So we're kind of a little bit in the dark on the future of it. So currently we're gunning for at least we have it till 2027. And advocacy efforts are going on at the federal and state level to see if the grant will survive.

How much do we receive annually?

I think the total award amount for the five years was about $9.8 million or somewhere in that range, so a couple million almost every year.

And do we know how much is left from that?

Yes, so we're about, I want to say roughly about 40% spent, but that's why we've been doing a lot of these budgetary moves loading up on the personnel that were existing on other grants that were declining or reducing on funding. That way we can burn up more of that grant in a timely fashion and not get delayed in things that we're trying to procure because sometimes it takes a while to just get widgets. So we're trying to make it personnel heavy so we use up the dollars in a timely fashion.

And is it based on reimbursement from the federal government? We submit expenses and we, right?

So feds were a little bit flexible, but most local entities have chosen the reimbursement model. It fits how we typically work with grants. But the feds were actually open to providing the entire funding up front. But having been in public health almost 25 years, most all local entities have chosen that reimbursement model. So we do the expenses and then we get reimbursed on the dollars.

Okay, thank you for that.

Benny, thank you. Thank you all. And with that, I'll have our director of strategic sourcing and purchasing, Ms. Claudia Garcia, here.

Representative.

Mayor, before we move on, would you mind taking a 10-minute break?

There's a motion for a 10-minute break. Is there a second?

Second.

OK.

There's a motion and a second to recess the special city council meeting for 10 minutes. All in favor? Anyone opposed? The meeting is in recess at 11 o'clock AM for 10 minutes.

Good morning. Good morning.

Okay, Ms. Prine, I believe we're ready to get started. Has it been 10 minutes? Okay.

Yes, sir. Council, is there a motion to reconvene? So moved.

Second.

There's a motion and a second to reconvene the city council meeting. All in favor?

Aye.

Anyone opposed? The meeting is back in session at 11 10 a.m. Claudia, you're up.

Can you hear me? Yes. Good morning, Mayor, City Council. Claudia Garcia with Purchasing and Strategic Sourcing Department. As a support department, we facilitate the procurement of goods and services for all city departments in an open, fair, transparent, and competitive environment. Looking at our preliminary budget for next fiscal year, you're going to see an increase. The increases are due mainly to salary increases, as for other departments. Also, we need additional funding for continuing education, as some of our positions require a certification. So four members from my staff received this certification this fiscal year. So we need to help them continue maintaining that certification. Also, because of the creation of the new contract administration division. Also, as you can see, our FTEs remain the same. The department has four programs, and I'm gonna highlight three of them, being the main one, procurement, as a core function for our department. We assist departments to have the contracts they need so they can continue running their operations. The next program I would like to highlight is procurement support. As one of the main objectives of this program, it is to increase supplier participation in the procurement process and as well as helping us implement systems to improve efficiency and productivity for the procurement functions. And the last program, it is contract administration as part of our new division as we want to continue supporting departments so they can manage their contracts effectively, compliantly, and efficiently in order to obtain the maximum value for the city under those contracts. The reason why I highlighted these three programs is because they align with our strategic plan under the pillar of economic mobility through the procurement support program. As one of the key priorities of this program, it is to expand supplier outreach as we want to continue helping suppliers to do business with the city. procurement and contract administration programs they fall under good governance having some important key action activities for this next fiscal year being one of them the implementation of high impact recommendations are going to be coming from the assessment that department is going through and also establishing the contract administration division to health departments with their contract administration programs at a department level. And as important as the other, to enhance Harold Pasofer's program as we want to continue providing opportunities to local businesses through the procurement process. With that, I respond, any questions?

Very good, any questions? Reverend Acevedo.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm wondering on this last slide, the implement high impact recommendations from the department assessment. Are you envisioning that some of those recommendations could be in terms of reducing the time from maybe nine months to eight months to seven months to six months or something like that?

So they're gonna be looking at our processes in place. They're gonna be looking into some efficiencies, of course, for those processes in place, and the alignment that we have to comply with for regulations for certain procurement processes. So we'll wait to see what those recommendations are, but certainly we're looking for some efficiencies.

Okay and I noticed that you you made some staffing changes and you didn't add more stuff but you kind of moved around and has that been to make it more efficient to have more people working on on some of these bids to shorten time at all?

So part of the of the moves it is due to that and also to utilize the staff that we have with the abilities and skills that they have in order to increase efficiencies at some levels.

Okay. I hope that we could continue this conversation and I look forward to seeing what this implementation is going to look like. Thank you.

Claudia, thank you.

Thank you. Oh, let me introduce Ian from Strategic and Legislative Affairs.

Thank you. Wait, Claudia, hang on, hang on, hang on. Representative Trejo.

Quick question. Social economic compliance officer, can you explain what that is?

So that is a position that was created to assist Harold Paso program on the audit part of the process, reviewing applications, ensuring that the information we're receiving was correct. So that is the position. That was the main objective of the position.

Can you explain ?

Okay, so the position was assisting with Herald Paso offers program through the application process. Businesses have to submit an application with backup, so that position was ensuring that the backup that we were getting was correct in order to provide a certification as a local vendor under Herald Paso program. Okay, thank you.

All right, Claire, now you can do it.

Okay, now let me introduce Ian with Strategic and Legislative Affairs.

Thank you. Good morning, Ian.

Good morning, Mayor and Council. Ian Volhuy with Strategic and Legislative Affairs. The mission of Strategic and Legislative Affairs is to strengthen the city's resilience and competitiveness through strategic resource development, legislative leadership, and intergovernmental collaboration. our variance is associated with the staff salary increases and Some position changes, but our FT's are the same Strategic and legislative affairs has five programs. I'm going to highlight four of them. Our climate and sustainability and energy program is currently underway on executing the recently passed climate action plan. The veteran and military affairs program provides critical coordination of veteran services to the community while also maintaining a critical strategic partnership with Fort Bliss. Our Grants and Strategic Partnerships program focuses on identifying state, federal, and philanthropic funding opportunities for city departments. And finally, our Legislative Affairs program is pushing council, state, and federal legislative agendas and is already hard at work on the 90th Texas State Legislation. We work across several pillars, and the economic mobility pillar, we're very focused on the advanced manufacturing initiative, which is a key driver of high-paying jobs for the community. We work on that program with economic development and the airport, and increasingly with the office of the comptroller through the Build Back Better grant. On the infrastructure side, we're working on implementation of the Climate Action Plan. You'll see a lot of activity in that space around heat mitigation, solar lighting, 915 Treekeepers Program, and in general, you'll see integration into various city operations and decision-making. We also continue to maintain funding strategies for key projects. For example, these led a port of entry and the advanced manufacturing district, as I just mentioned, and we work on those strategies with international bridges, with economic development, with other departments. On quality of life, veterans is a very important program for us. We are in the process of launching veterans needs assessment this June, which will inform a lot of the actions that we plan on taking next year. And with that, happy to answer any questions.

Okay, thank you. And Representative Limon.

Thank you, thank you in I'm looking at a slight one 22 specifically under infrastructure and the role that your department place and I'm very curious to know exactly what it is that you're doing in reference to developing funding strategies for the deck Park.

Yes, so we, as I mentioned, we're in the process of preparing for the 90th Texas Legislative Session. We are developing a rider, just as we did last time. This one is for, I believe it's 10 million, to continue to fund the future proofing.

For the next legislature?

Yes.

Which starts when?

It starts in January of next year.

And the deadline for the future proofing is October?

It's October, but we are in the process of requesting a delay.

Who is requesting that delay?

A delay in being able to turn in the funding for the future proofing.

Who is asking for that delay?

The city of El Paso has requested at that time. The city? Yes.

OK. Obviously, if the city is requesting that, then we're expending time.

We have not asked for the project to be delayed.

Energy and staffing. And I have repeatedly asked if there is a funding source to support the deck park. And I've been told no. So is there a funding source in your department for that?

I'm not sure I understand the question.

In your budget that you've presented, is there a funding source dedicated to developing funding strategies for the deck park?

So that would be our grants program is who is working on developing that funding strategy. And what grant is that? The writer, as I mentioned. Okay.

Representative, I believe that we did have action of counsel that allowed us to pursue federal and state resources for this. I don't remember the date. It might have been last October. So we did receive direction to move forward in utilizing resources to be able to pursue this. It was last spring, I believe. It was last spring. I'll find it.

Okay. But I guess now my more direct question would be, how much money is being expended on this. And then I want to understand real clearly, because everything that I have heard is that the deadline is October. And if the future proofing funding, $6 million or thereabouts, is not there, then the project is done. We're moving on. TxDOT is coming in, doing the expansion that they need to do. But that's it. We're out of that conversation. But if you're expending time and energy on developing a writer for the next legislative session, I think that that's unnecessary. And I believe that that energy, time, and resources should be spent on other important projects like the Isleta Board of Entry and the Advanced Manufacturing District.

So what I would say is, so we're also in conjunction with that writer. We're also developing a writer for the Isleta Board of Entry, and we are pursuing it as aggressively as we pursue anything. Some of these funding sources are dynamic. So if, say, for example, between now and October, we were able to find the $20 million gap, then we could then turn around and use that rider for another aspect of the Deck Plaza project.

$20 million gap? I thought it was a $6 million gap.

At the last council meeting that we presented on the Deck Park, it was a $20.5 million gap. For future proofing? For the future proofing.

$20.5 million that we're short.

Yes.

Well, that someone's short, not us necessarily. But is the deadline still October?

So right now we anticipate that the project would start in October, but that is determined by TxDOT. So that could move purely as a result of TxDOT. In fact, it would only move purely as a result of TxDOT.

Okay. Have you gotten any word from TxDOT that there are plans to move the deadline?

I don't. Hi.

You don't need to respond to my question.

I'm sorry.

That we're focused on the budget.

I am.

But I do want to tap for the record because I do want to make sure, Representative, that we did get permission to take these steps. On 4-15 of 2025, we had a presentation of council and the direction was that we would pursue federal and state dollars. We also brought forward the state legislative priority plan for council, which was adopted by this body before we began having conversations about the rider for $25 million.

And I fully understand that, Dion, but timelines. So if the deadline is October, as we have all understood, unless there were other conversations that we are not aware of. If the deadline is October and we're talking about the session in January, then it seems to me counterproductive that we were using staff, energy, and resources during all of this time.

So if I can clarify, just to make sure I'm absolutely clear, council directed us to develop a funding strategy for the deck park as a whole. And when we originally have conversation, when we brought you the legislative agenda for the state, we didn't specifically say that the rider was going to be for the future proofing. So I apologize for saying that. If we have the opportunity to use it for something that is a need for the deck plaza to continue, then that is how we will shift our strategy at the legislative session. But it had always been, our understanding is it had been the plan of council for us to continue to work on developing these funding sources.

And that's fine. Is it possible to identify a line item that shows how much money is being expended for this service. And if it's not to be included in the budget can it be include or can you share with us what that line item is going to look like or the projection on a monthly basis. I'm not sure how you would do it, Sasho, how you all could do this. But I'm very interested in knowing how much money the city is expending for this project that we clearly understood the deadline was October. Is it possible to get that? Ms. Matt or Sasho?

It's purely staff time at this point.

Yeah, and staff time costs money. When our attorneys are working on a project or something, it's billable hours. I would like to see the same thing for this project, because I believe that this project is not going to materialize under our watch. And if we're spending money on this when it could go for other things, I have a problem with that. And I'd probably vote it no. on the legislative agenda because of that. Because I think it's not what the city needs right now. So if I could, maybe you can't do it right now, but I would like to see a line item of time that is spent on that if possible. Thank you.

Representative Chavez.

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Ian. Just as a reset I'm happy that we're having preliminary budget discussions. So I appreciate coming six weeks earlier than usual so that we can give our input. I would like to pivot the conversation if possible. In our massive budget book I'm just going to hold it up real quick. that staff took the time to put together for us. There's actually no fiscal year actuals for this department. So could you just walk us through for fiscal year 25, we had fiscal year 26, which I think was the first year for you. And I think it's the first time that we've adopted or hired a consultant. or lobbyists, sorry, for the state and federal level, at the federal level at least. Talk to us a little bit about your budget and what your plans are for that, for the legislative agenda for the federal level.

So certainly, so I do want to take the opportunity to call out Representative Limon's comment yesterday on the Bridge of the Americas conversation. So up until this point, there are conversations that are happening in D.C., where we're simply not present. And council made the decision to allow strategic and legislative affairs to procure a federal lobbyist. And we can now push forward an agenda that allows us to pursue future funding for the Isleta Port of Entry. So this year, this coming year, we plan to work very closely with that federal lobbyist to be able to have a better shot at a lot of these funding opportunities. We've mentioned in the past that the environment has shifted a little bit at the federal level, that it's much more of a fend for yourself federalism environment. There are a lot fewer federal funds for grants, and what is available you have to fight for. And so having that lobbyist in place is a critical advantage that we need in order to be able to secure those funds. These letter port of entry is going to be one of our biggest targets.

And that is going to come through your department, right?

That is correct.

Right. And yesterday we heard from Nicole from Community and Human Development and her budget cuts because of ARPA. We just heard from the Department of Public Health as well as budget cuts that have come to his department. So that is why I think your department is so pivotal in this political environment that we're in right now. So I think everything that you're doing, again, your preliminary budget looks really good to me. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Representative Fierro. Thank you, Mayor.

Wrong button. Thank you, Mayor. Ian, thank you and your team for all the great work that you all have done. Your vision, being prepared, getting us prepared at the quickest, most, we've never been prepared for a legislative agenda like we are this year this fast. And I can tell you that from the delegation side, they appreciate it. It gives them the opportunity to start putting things in place to be champions for our agenda. And then you have been able to communicate to us as a council that it's really our agenda and it's a living document. And I know that a couple of meetings ago, Mayor Pro Tem put an agenda item on there, which you all had already been looking at, but we made it official. And so I appreciate the fact that this agenda is a living document and that we're able to. to have input and help it grow as at this early point so thank you to your team for all the work you've done when we went to dc it was amazing that how hands-on your team was and the meetings that we had the the different organizations and committees that we were all part of and each one of us was in a different one and very active but it's all because of your department so thank you very much for everything you've done thank you

Representative Trejo.

Thank you, Mayor. I also want to thank your team. Very, very helpful team that you have there. Even Omar. Whenever I have questions, we can give Omar a call. He's a walking encyclopedia. And also, you know for securing the the work that you all are doing securing funding grants from our federal and state You know the work that you all are doing this is very very good for our city and thank you to you and your team Thank you And thank you it's And I think you can introduce the next I would like to introduce.

Mr. Randy Garcia with streets meet. Thank you.

I

GOOD MORNING, RANDY.

GOOD MORNING, MAYOR, COUNCIL, RANDY GARCIA WITH STREETS AND MAINTENANCE. I'M HERE TO PRESENT OUR BUDGET FOR FY27. SO WHAT DO WE DO? I THINK MOST OF YOU ALL KNOW WHAT WE DO AT STREETS AND MAINTENANCE. WE DELIVER COMPETENTIVE STREET internal fleet, and city facilities maintenance. But I think our role is bigger than just fixing streets. I think we're ensuring city vehicles can travel safely, businesses and neighborhoods can stay connected, roads remain drivable, and city services can operate without interruption. I think our work directly affects the quality of life, traffic flow, safety, infrastructure reliability, and how well the city functions overall. With that said, we look at our budget this year. We have $110 million budget with a $4 million variance increase over FY26. Our positions, they stayed the same. We did not lose any positions. Our variance is due to increases in salaries, as you've seen before, trying to right-size the salary amounts, increase in service contracts, increasing utilities costs as well. So we have 11 programs within the Streets and Maintenance Department. And I just want to highlight four of those. First, the Facility Maintenance Group. Streets and Maintenance maintains approximately 304 diverse city-owned buildings. We have implemented or refined, I guess is a better way to say it, is our version of the City Facility Assessment Program. And Ms. Mack touched on that earlier. So we are looking at our facilities in depth and how we actually do the assessment and developing new criteria. Street operations, you know, that's what streets is, you know, we do we do our pothole patching It's our frontline staff out there every day no matter what the weather looks like rain or shine hot or cold We are out there. We're doing the installation of the speed cushions in all your districts. We're doing Guardrails and installation, you know We're out there in emergency situations dealing with floods with El Paso water and just really overall being out there as a frontline staff We look at our traffic engineering group the they help us manage how the the traveling public move safely and efficiently throughout the city. Lastly, we want to highlight our fleet maintenance group. It's our internal fleet maintenance group. And they really keep our vehicles going, our emergency vehicles such as PD, the trash trucks working with ESD and PD to make sure that we know what vehicles they need out and developing those KPIs, those minimum amount of vehicles that they need on the streets every day. So something I want to highlight with our strategic plan alignment is really the quality of life, something we've kind of overlooked a little bit. We really want to focus on that. Mr. Hernandez has really pushed me this year, coming into this fiscal year and this year, to really help really identify the projects that we need to get going on. So we've identified 32 projects for this fiscal year that we feel fairly confident that we can complete. I don't want to oversell it, so I'm just going to say. to be safe, but we really looked into it. We want to do assessment of all the buildings. We feel fairly safe to say we'll do 25% of all the 304 buildings, and we'll do a full assessment of those so we can go ahead and prioritize the dollars that have been set aside to really get the buildings to where we want them to be. It's going to take time, but we've really developed new criteria and a new way of looking at it, similar to what we did with the resurfacing program, taking really a hands-on, really intentional and structured approach.

to how we're going to go ahead and maintain these facilities and determining which ones through the assessment are going to get prioritized for those maintenance repairs so with that i'll take any questions represent nino thank you mayor and thank you randy for all your hard work um in our community i'm grateful that you know you you're very proactive in engaging with my office and we've had a lot of meaningful conversations um i know Specifically I'm interested in the illumination program and I know I've had many numerous conversations with you and city manager as well What I'm interested in in further looking into is I'm gonna give a quick example on Saragossa Road currently, you know, Saragossa Road runs from district 5 through district 6 and district 7 and And currently right now there's 23 light poles that are down in the entire stretch of Zaragoza, going through those three districts. And the reason I mention this is because I know yesterday we talked briefly with ESD about the maintenance of but in those agreements, we also took over the maintenance of the lipos. So whenever there is a lipo that is knocked down, the taxpayers are having to pay for the repairs or the reinstallation of those lipos specifically. And so I'm grateful that we've had a lot of meaningful conversations. And in my district, I often mention that I'm playing catch up with infrastructure, with streetlights. I mean, last year we dissolved a TERS to try to light up Mongwe tribe. And essentially, I don't know when I was going to be able to get lighting on that street. And I know there's many other different streets in my district that still don't have lights. And I just want to put this on the radar of the council members that we're having to pay infrastructure damages for streets that are not owned by the city of El Paso. And this is just Zaragoza Road, right? We still have Montana. We still have Mesa. We have numerous streets that we've taken maintenance over and that we're responsible to pay for those damages. Now, I had done a budget request last year to put lights in front of El Dorado High School, the school that I graduated from many years ago. And, you know, one of the requests or that request specifically was going to be a million dollars to install 30 lights. So me trying to do the math, I'm like, okay, so each light pole possibly costs anywhere from $20,000 to $35,000. So if we do the math of just 23 light poles that are currently down on Zaragoza Road, it's essentially about $750,000 that potentially could be costing the taxpayer dollars. when it's not a city street. And I bring this up because I think it's important for us to start having further conversations when the city is working hard to put further illumination in different areas of our city that are needed. And I believe we had a presentation yesterday, and I think, or Monday, with Vision Zero that stated that low-lit areas are more prone to having fatal accidents, but yet, again, when we're having to play catch-up in District 5 of putting lighting on Tim Foster and Longwood, but then we're having to pay for damaged infrastructure due to reckless drivers, I think it's an important conversation that we need to look into and have. And keep in mind, some of these might be DWIs, some of them might even be hit and runs. I know I've had a lot of conversations even with our legal team where people are damaging this infrastructure and then they leave and we don't know who, what, how. But again, potentially, that one lipo could be costing the taxpayer anywhere from $20,000 to $35,000. But I'm very grateful for the work that you all are doing. I know that I also initiated a conversation with some of the TxDOT engineers in regards of Zaragoza. I did a night shift right along with them and I was showing them. I'm always submitting requests of these light poles that I see every day and they keep me up at night because I know that come Monday there's going to be a new light pole that's down. But I think I'm grateful that also the city manager is looking into a broader strategy of how to address this. And I don't know if it's possibly having a further conversation with TxDOT of possibly sharing those costs or what it means, right? Because again, we're limited with the resources that we have and the taxpayer dollar we have. And kind of what Representative Rocha mentioned yesterday, it comes down to the community to taking care of each other, right? But if we're having to pay for all this damaged infrastructure, It's also costing the city of El Paso. So I just wanted to make that comment and put that on your radar Because I do see specifically here There's about two million dollars that is budgeted for illumination. But Randy whenever we're having to pay for these Damaged lipos, where are we getting the money from?

It's from the maintenance budget that you just mentioned

the maintenance budget okay no and i think that's extremely important to look into because um some of these live poles won't be repaired for months you know and it's not your fault i'm just saying it Again, when poor elimination puts our community at risk, and we're having so much damaged infrastructure, I definitely think it's an important conversation to have. So thank you for all your hard work. Again, I'm very grateful that we've had a lot of meaningful conversations, because this is extremely important for me. And also, Ms. Mack, thank you for even sharing that agreement. I have the agreement. I've been reviewing it. I analyzed it also last night. where it specifically states that we are responsible for that infrastructure of the lights, of the signage. And this is happening citywide, right? But I'm very interested in learning further of how much all of this damaged infrastructure is costing the city of El Paso. And I think that it's going to be worthwhile to highlight that. So thank you, Randy, for all your hard work. You're welcome.

Representative Rocha.

Thank you, Mayor. Thanks, Randy. I appreciate the presentation on the budget. I was at a neighborhood association meeting last night, and your staff was out there. So thank you so much for the information that they provided. One of the things that came up is obviously resurfacing. And we know that there's a limited budget, but just because I hope that they're listening today and they hear it from you because we talked about it last night. How many miles does the city have that would require resurfacing?

The total we have right now is approximately 2,400.

2,400 miles.

That's the total network. So we talk about trying to do one on a 20-year, 25-year cycle. So you're looking at at least close to 100 miles that we have to do every year.

Yeah, that that just helps to really put things into perspective. And I hope that they're listening. We told them to to check in today on YouTube for the city of El Paso to listen to this particular budget session or this part of it regarding streets and maintenance and the challenges that the city has in regards to resurfacing all the streets that need it. Right. We're trying to get to all of them. It's just it's challenging. We're we're constrained by cost or what we have as far as budget. And I believe there's also could potentially be a constraint should we have all the money by contractors at some point. You know, that's a good problem to have, I think, but we're not there yet. So thank you, Randy. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Representative Chavez.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Randy. On slide 126 page 126. You mentioned traffic signals. Yes. About three point four million dollars. Is that from general fund.

Yes. All the traffic signal money comes from our general fund. Yes.

And I know that there's a big need in our community, and I know that there's some traffic signals specifically in my district that have been identified, some even a decade ago, but we haven't had a funding source for them. How are you identifying which traffic signals you'll be implementing with this fund?

So that is not for new installation, that is for existing signals, and that's for the maintenance of those signals, and that does include salaries, parts, supplies, and everything else.

So that's just maintenance?

That's just maintenance.

So do we have any budget for new signals?

So generally the budget for those have in the past have typically come from bond funding or outside sources. So typically there is not a set budget within the streets and maintenance department to build new signals.

So what is what is an example of an outside source.

So when we work with the school districts, when they want a specific development, say they have, okay, El Paso High School, we just installed a new flasher. They paid for 100% of it. In your district, the new school at the middle school, the flasher they're gonna put in there and the signal they're gonna put in there, they have to pay 100% of those costs. So those are instances where you'll see outside funding coming in.

But what about intersections that have already qualified or been identified as needing one that don't have a new development coming in that intersection?

So we would have to, as a city, go back and look to see how many of those have we warranted, have we identified, and then where is that funding source going to come? I think a lot of it comes from when we get those requests, either CR requests from city council members or service requests from the general public and ask us to evaluate the safety of that intersection. and it's us being diligent you know working with the different groups that you know that have interest in it joaquin's group with vision zero and everything else and uh cid you know helping us out if we have to build an intersection but we it's incumbent upon us versus traffic engineers to look at that safety issue and determine if that intersection needs a signal so if they ask us we're going to look and then we're going to follow the mtcd i know you guys hear this the standards we have to follow And if it warrants it, it warrants it. We can't just turn a blind eye to not try to do anything. But that doesn't mean that because we can't afford a signal that we don't do anything. Of course, you guys have all the council members have seen us throughout your districts trying to make improvements to intersections. We had an ISIP program in the past that we still are working on. We have HSIP program that we work in conjunction with . I think that's in district where they're putting up a new intersection along Mesquite Hills and Dyer. So there's different avenues that we try to look at once we do warrant these signals at those intersections.

Okay, I'm thinking of one specifically in my district that I know has already qualified like literally a decade ago. So I will, I guess, put it in to your budget simulator and see what comes of it. Randy, I know that we added capacity for street resurfacing this last year. We added a third contractor. Could you talk to us a little bit about what oversight you have over those contractors and making sure that they are going through whatever streets that you've identified for them to do through those contracts to make sure that we're doing it on time and on budget?

Okay, so currently we have actually four active contracts with three different contractors. So we've been active in almost every district this year alone. Three, two of the contracts are at over 10% completion already and they just started about two, three months ago. The other one is closing in on the 10%. COMPLETION ALSO. WE'RE GOING TO COME BACK TO COUNCIL IN A FEW MONTHS TO GIVE YOU A FULL UPDATE TO SEE WHERE WE'RE AT. SOME OF THESE CONTRACTORS FEEL CONFIDENT THAT BY THE TIME WE COME TO BRING OUR NEW UPDATE THAT THEY'LL BE AT OVER 25 TO 40% COMPLETED. I WOULD BE ASTONISHED, AND THAT'S THEIR PROMISE TO ME, BUT NOT MY PROMISE TO YOU. I HOPE THEY'LL GET THERE, BUT WE'LL BE ABLE TO BETTER EVALUATE WHERE THEY'RE AT AT THAT POINT. Also, if you look at, we have two reconstruction contracts, the run by CID and Javier's group, you know, doing a good job over there. So technically we have, you know, four or six different contracts, large contracts for resurfacing and reconstruction and four different contractors working on these projects. So if they're able to withstand or hold up this capacity, it's just about being able to have the funding in the future to be able to continue to engage the construction community to keep this up for the city of El Paso. But we'll come back with additional information, but they're at a good pace right now at over 10%.

Thank you for that. And so we've already approved for the street resurfacing list for the next two years. Does that mean that this fiscal year that we're budgeting for right now, there's not going to be a street resurfacing list that comes forward?

It was already presented to council and it was already approved by council. It was the one we gave February, I believe. Yes. So no new streets will be added until 2027. And we'll see what the progress is like then.

And you'll start working on your analysis of that, I'm assuming, next year.

The analysis never actually stops, but we will start looking at it a lot closer. The street conditions change. We're looking at the criteria. We have to, you know, always try to challenge ourselves to make sure the criteria and the way we're looking at the streets is good information, solid data that we're building upon, working with different groups within the city to make sure that gets done. So we will always be working on it, but once we get closer to those days to start presenting to council, we'll make sure that we have it solidified and ready for y'all to look at.

Okay, one last question, Randy. So it is my understanding that you also coordinate with El Paso Water, right? So whatever infrastructure improvements that they're going to be making, you collaborate with them so that we don't duplicate our efforts.

Yes, we do. Just a project that we have coming up with them. They're going to be writing on one of our contracts to remove some old stormwater facilities that they had in place. And CID right now is working with them to establish some type of change order so they don't have to go back. And when we go into the central neighborhoods and repave those roads soon, go back and tear up our roads that we just paved to take out their old infrastructure. So yes, we do have that along with them.

Okay, thank you. I appreciate your department very much. I know I give you guys a hard time too. So your crew is awesome. Every time I see them out on the street, I will stop and say hi and introduce myself. So thank you so much.

Thank you.

Representative Trejo.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just want to say thank you. So I'm jotting down some notes here. 304 city-owned buildings, 2,400 miles of street. 442 employees and 32 projects on a limited budget. So thank you, Randy. Thank you to you and your team. You are very proactive and available whenever we give you a call and that's very much appreciated. You do take our feedback when it comes to the community and hearing the community's feedback and taking action on that. So I do appreciate all the work that you and your team are doing. When we look at the streets and maintenance strategic alignment plan here, and you have economic mobility, infrastructure, quality of life, and good governance, I think you should also add public safety as that, because you're taking care of the roads, striping signals, that is also part of the strategic plan. And when it comes to quality of life, I think that's also very important beyond the facility maintenance because you're taking care of our streets and adding to the quality of life every time a street gets resurfaced. We had our street resurfacing and reconstruction in District 4 and you set it up so that we can meet with the contractor. That was pretty amazing. He gave me and my team a lot of great information and we were able to get in there and see how things get done. I appreciate that. So thank you.

You're welcome. Representative Canales.

Thank you, Mayor. Give me a comment question. No, no. I think shifting gears here with you.

I was looking forward to it. He's got it.

He's got it. He doesn't need Sasha. I know your department is one of the ones that had a lot of challenge with turnover in the past. A lot of the work is not easy work. People are out in the sun working on the streets. It's hot. Have you seen similar improvement that we've heard from other departments in your staffing retention?

Yes, I think last year we talked about it really be proactive with HR groups, you know, they've given us some of the tools we need to go forward. Last year we were at about 24-25%. This year we've gotten down, I think right now we're at 14, but we hit as low as 11%. Vacancy, you mean? Yeah, on nutrition. So what I had said last year is one of my goals, you know, for myself with the department was to cut it in half, and I think we've hit that goal. But still, we have work to do. Just because we're there today doesn't mean we'll be there tomorrow. So it's still working with HR, still working with all the other departments that help us to get there, making sure we can sustain that attrition rate, working with OMB, working with the budget office, and making sure that we can keep that attrition rate where it's at.

Yeah, again, I think it's one of the departments where probably there's the greatest impact of the salary increases because Again, it's very different to be paid $10 an hour to work out in the sun versus $15 or $16 or $17 an hour. You know, we want to show that we value those employees. Yes.

And I think, you know, with the trades helpers positions, we have electricians and plumbers, you know, that we're battling against, you know, outside entities that are coming in and putting big dollars to some of these trades positions. So that's difficult also. And I just like to thank all the tools that the city management has given us, you know, to be so much successful, you know, and be in a good place.

All right. Yeah. Happy to see the staffing table look more full than it did in the past in this department in particular. So thank you for the work on that.

I appreciate that represent fear.

Okay.

YOU SURE? OKAY. RANDY, THANK YOU.

I JUST WANT TO HONOR MY TEAM'S EFFORT. THEY'RE THE ONES THAT MAKE ME LOOK GOOD UP HERE. SO IT'S NOT JUST ME. IT'S THOSE 440 PEOPLE OUT THERE THAT ARE ACTUALLY GETTING THE JOB DONE. THANK YOU.

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK. RANDY. RANDY. HE NEEDS WALK-UP MUSIC.

HOW CAN I FORGET THE MAN WITH THE MOST ENERGY? THE PERSON THAT GIVES THE SUN, SUN METRO.

30 minutes? Three.

Good morning, Anthony. We're gonna say good morning, good afternoon when you're done.

Good morning, Mayor, City Council. Yeah, there's a slide. Anthony DeKaiser from Sun Metro Public Transportation. So Sun Metro offers bus, streetcar, and paratransit service, our three main lines of effort. This last year, we serviced about six million passengers. The paratransit and bus service, their ridership is remaining pretty steady. After the fire we had last year, it dropped down some, and so we're working on that with some different initiatives, but it stayed pretty steady. Same for paratransit. But the streetcar ridership is increasing since we did the optimization. It's up to about 40,000 passengers per month. That's about a 285% increase. If we just want to talk about the year we're talking about now, it's a 43% increase. So we're doing well on there. So we developed our budget, focused on reducing contract services and purchases, reduced our contracting budget by about 3.2 million. And I attribute that TO NOT HAVING TO BUY BUSES BECAUSE WE ALREADY GOT A GRANT AND BOUGHT LIKE 40 BUSES LAST YEAR, 40 BUSES LAST YEAR TO THE TUNE OF MORE THAN A MILLION DOLLARS A BUS. And so we also had the IT infrastructure expenses that we didn't have to incur for this year because we did that last year as we found that we were spending less through the year. We pushed that up into the year we're in so we didn't have to worry about that in the next year. So we did all this to taking advantage of discretionary grants and buying all of those buses. And so the new flower is not going to produce a 35-foot bus anymore. And so we have to go to 40 if we're going to be with them. And so that was kind of some of the rush to do that, because that saves us $250,000 a bus. And you could take it times 40 and figure that out. So we worked hard on that. We also had our IT infrastructure. Excuse me. We also procured IT infrastructure this year to the tune of about $770,000. Now, again, we don't have to do that next year. In addition, we benefited from the big sales tax increase. That pushed us up about 6.7 million. So what does all this mean? Like you can see the budget went up 2.1 million. And I know I stood here last year and said, it's not going to go up. In fact, I said we're going to do it again and again and again, right, for three years. That's what I said. So in 25, it went down $6.1 million. For 26, it went down $1.8 million. But this year, it went up $1.2 million. But we still did better than we did last year. And you say, how could that be? The budget went up. It's because we did a direct charge or transfer of $5.3 million to the fund balance. So in essence, our true operating balance went down $3.2 million.

That's how you see it?

That's exactly how I see it.

That's exactly how I see it.

Because it's actual and factual. That's why I see it that way. Actual and factual. Yes. So why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? We're preparing for the future. We know that with some mental rising, we're going to have to do route adjustments. So that's going to cost right. We also bought property on the east side next to the east side terminal for about $5 million. But when we do the infrastructure, that's going to cost us another four or $5 million. So we're also embarking on the transit asset management plan that's required by FTA, and that's going to tell us about all of our facilities and what we have to do to keep that up according to federal regulations. So we know that's coming up in the future. We anticipate there being some cost for uninsurable expenses to the fire, so we know that's coming. Eventually, we're going to have to go east, right, with transit. And we're going to have to go northeast with transit. The bottom line is we're being responsible for FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR TODAY AND THE FUTURE. SO IF WE WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE POSITIONS, WE REDUCED 13.25. AND SO THESE POSITIONS WERE JUST ON THE BOOKS, SOME ADMIN, SOME MAINTENANCE POSITIONS, BUT WE DIDN'T NEED THEM FOR THE OPERATIONS THAT WE'RE DOING. SO THAT'S WHY WE CUT THOSE. Sun Metro has five programs. They all focus on safe, reliable, and on-time service. And so you can see the categories, but getting around includes bus and streetcar operations. Accessibility and mobility includes lift and paratransit. Safe and reliable fleet includes safety, security, and fleet maintenance. Rider experience is customer satisfaction. And then the administrative, all those who support. planning, finance, grants, contracts, data, IT, customer service, PIO, outreach, HR, and of course, the director's office. So for strategic plan alignment, we align with the infrastructure pillar. Our priorities are, again, the successful implementation of Sun Metro Rising, reducing bus travel times, increasing ridership, and enhancing the experience. Also, we're maintaining a safe and reliable fleet with our maintenance program, who has done an excellent job considering what happened last year, running split operates. So but I do get another shot at this because Mass Transit Board requires a brief for the approval. So so I will keep it to three minutes then, too, because he just gave me the big three. So that concludes my brief. So subject to your questions.

Representative Chavez.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Anthony. I'm going to give you a chance to talk more about your fund balance. So you transferred $5.3 million into it, is that correct?

Yes, ma'am.

How much do you have in it?

I think the last look was $176 million, and that's $26 million up from last year. So, but again, I do wanna stress, we're not just putting money in the bank. We have things to do and it's gonna start next year. So our budget cannot keep decreasing. Like the cost of doing business is increasing. And as we find these efficiencies and do these things, we're preparing for the future. And so I outlined here some of the things that we're going to do. And there's more. There's more things that potentially we're going to do to try to add to that, partner with Fort Bliss, partner with Greyhound and other things. we have to have money in the fund balance in order to move from a known position when we have to move and expand with the city when we have to change a route which potentially cost a million dollars when we have to buy a bus or 10 buses a year like that money is good but we don't know when the sales tax is not going to increase by 6.7 million dollars And on those years, we have to be ready. If we're not ready, then service will suffer. So we're not putting money in the bank. We're not stacking it up. We're preparing to spend it starting next year when the budget will have to increase because we've found all the efficiencies that we have at this point over the last three years, reducing the budget to include this year. We just did it in a different, better way for our future.

Are you looking at changing your fees in any way? We've talked to other departments that are looking into that.

So I think the last time fees got changed was 2014, 2012. And I don't believe that we need to increase the fees. I believe that we're making headway in other areas that I don't want to do that. In fact, we're looking at other things with the fees in the future. But I think when we get to the point of doing our internal analyzation, I think everybody would be happy with the way that we potentially might be going in the future with that. but it's not going to be increasing.

Okay. I'm just a little bit worried about the Sun Metro Rising implementation, but I know we've had that discussion. I think District 1 is the most adversely affected out of all the districts. So I will continue to monitor that, but I do thank you and your team for what you do.

So just to speak on that, we put, we're looking at a couple of different things. So you know we want to wait for six months for all the information to come in so we could see the ridership and the adjustments that we have to make. But we're looking at some other options for those areas where, you know, you're still concerned about and you're saying, hey, these people are put to a disadvantage in whatever way. So we're looking at a couple other methods to address those, but those we can address potentially prior to the six months. For instance, we used to run out to William Beaumont, but we didn't have a bus. It was more kind of like an on-demand request because the requests were so low it didn't require a bus for that area, but we could do something else. So we're looking into that to try to help with any of the concerns that you guys have or the constituents have as we launch Sun Metro Rising.

Yeah, and I know, so yeah, there's one area of my district that's the most adversely affected, I think, from your whole presentation on Sun Metro Horizon, so I'll be monitoring that closely, but then I am grateful also that you've added a stop to the outlet malls way out west. There wasn't one, and the outlet shops had reached out to me and then to you to see if they could SHOPPERS IN THAT AREA. SO I APPRECIATE THAT.

I WOULD JUST LIKE TO SAY ONE MORE THING ABOUT THE FIRST QUESTION THEY ASKED ME. IF YOU REMEMBER BACK, YEARS BACK, 2021, THE FUND BALANCE WAS AT ZERO. AND PRIOR TO THAT, WE WERE TAKING $2.5 MILLION FROM THE CITY EVERY YEAR TO RUN SUN METRO. THAT DIDN'T HELP THEM. IT DIDN'T HELP THE GENERAL FUND BALANCE AT ALL. I never want some Metro to be in that position and so it's my responsibility to ensure that we never get close to that or never have to fear that that will happen and be prepared for the expansion like we've done a lot to get away from that. We're going to do a lot to stay away from that and continue to make service better.

Thank you, Anthony.

You're welcome, ma'am.

Representative Acevedo.

Thank you, Mayor. Anthony, you always appreciate the energy. You're welcome, sir. I also want to thank you for meeting with my constituents on Sun Metro a few weeks ago. Honestly, I have quite a bit of community meetings a month, and they're usually always colorful. But this one was extremely heartbreaking. It was devastating. I'm not sure where we go from here. I walked out of that meeting thinking, I can't help these people. And I've been losing sleep over it for a while, and it's over the Route 65. turning into Route 24, and there was probably about 40 or so people there. There were tears. There was frustration. These people have a lot of different disabilities. There's a complete range of it. Most of them are elderly. They live in housing and the bus stop is right in front of housing and now it's moving to Valverde which is at least half a mile away from them and there are challenges to get there because of the range of disabilities that most of them have. The sidewalks are not really there. I know when this was adopted a few months ago, there was gonna be money for the sidewalks. And I'm not sure if that's coming there, but even if that happens, it's just really concerning to them. They're worried about waiting the six months. They said, we can't even handle one week just to see how this goes. They're going to work They're coming back from work. They're getting their groceries. I had never seen a group like this Dependent on the transportation that we provide some of them said just raise the price a little bit for us and another comment that was said was the people that are making these decisions are not bus riders and And most of the people that were there, only about a handful knew that this was coming, that they were engaged. So this was the first time that they were getting engaged. So I'm just at a loss here. I don't know what happens here. I had another constituent, one of the senior centers, is going to be heavily impacted by it as well. There are a lot of worries for this specific route. I haven't heard other concerns in the Northeast and Central, but this route just keeps coming up. I'm really hoping that we can do something about this.

It really disheartens me that you think there's no way to go. I don't think the city council ever presents a problem that the city management doesn't work on diligently to fix. So that's really disheartening to me. I'll start with that.

That was the energy in the room. That was what was difficult.

I said that you are disheartened about where we're going to go, not about the people in the room. yeah so so to address the people in the room i'm aware of this this route 65 and and just like i told um representative thomas we're looking at other ways for the pockets that get impacted the most prior to the six months So that is opposite of how you feel. That is opposite of how you feel. And we're also going to continue to assess and reassess because that's the way transit is. And so we're not finished with this Route 65 and the potential changes or how we can address that. We're looking through that right now. If you go and you look at how much it costs for the amount of people that's going to ride, it doesn't make sense. But that doesn't mean we cut it off. That means we continue to look for how we're going to address that. And so we will address it. It may not be the answer that everybody wants, but I don't have last say. Once I say here's what I think we should do to be financially responsible and take care of all of our citizens,

i push that up to the chain and they say go left go right but they never say we're not going to address it either and this is directly just said on the infrastructure on slide 131 implementation of sun's sun metro rising that's why i'm asking that sounds great i want to just make sure to remind everyone to stick to the budget Yeah, it is part of the budget, and it's one of their biggest goals, key priority actions.

So it's not over. I'm still looking at that and trying to figure out what we can do for that group of people. I'm not tracking 40. Maybe there is 40 there. But in addition to that, when you go, CALL ME ANY TIME A CITY REPRESENTATIVE WANTS ME TO DO SOMETHING HEY CAN YOU GO TO THIS EVENT CAN YOU GO TALK TO THESE PEOPLE I GO I'VE BEEN TO PEOPLE'S HOUSES SO CALL ME WE'LL GO I MYSELF HAVE BEEN TO PEOPLE'S HOUSES TO ADDRESS THEIR ISSUES TO CHANGE AND I KNOW YOU'RE VERY RESPONSIVE AND I APPRECIATE THAT AND I'VE TOLD YOU THAT BEFORE THAT'S GREAT AND THAT DAY SUN METRO WAS THERE AND THAT WAS THE COMMUNITY MEETING THE WHOLE COMMUNITY MEETING WAS CONDUCTED IN SPANISH

And so that was helpful. The ladies had come here. We provided transportation to bring them to city council. And once they got to city council, only two of them spoke. There was probably about six of them here in the audience. They got too scared to speak. And these ladies were just crying. They came to City Hall. They showed up. They wanted to talk to me. And they were just crying. I've been losing sleep over it. And this starts June 1st. 14th. 14th. So I think there's still some time to rectify at least this one stop in front of housing. And when we talk about housing, we are always talking about the bus stop that's closest to them. And now we're going to take that away from them. And so I'm really hopeful that we could continue this conversation. Yes. And we could find a real solution to this.

I'm looking at this, the one you're talking about, is the change you're proposing is $670,000 a year, repetitively, for years and years, for that one. And if there's three people, then I have to make a recommendation to my boss about what we're gonna do about that.

They were told that there was 20 people that were writing that, and that was considered low-writership, which to me, 20 people is quite a bit of people. It wasn't one of those that it's just one or two people. And maybe it's the adjustment of the schedule where they're using it in the morning between 6 and 8, 9 a.m. to get to work, and then they're coming back between 3 and 6. I don't know.

Something creative. So we'll continue moving through the budget. Anthony and Representative Asada, would you guys take this one offline?

Yes, sir.

Thank you. Thank you, Anthony. Any more questions?

Thank you. Thank you. I HAVE A FEW THINGS I WOULD LIKE TO STILL SAY. I WOULD LIKE TO INTRODUCE THE TAX OFFICE.

THANK YOU.

GOOD AFTERNOON.

Sorry about that. Okay, so what do we do? So the tax office provides collection and disbursement services to 44 taxing entities in the County of El Paso. So this is on behalf of 44 entities. Our variance this year is 359,000, and it's mainly due to an increase in indirect cost and salary increases. We are adding one position, which is an accounting and payroll specialist. This position is needed because we have a new mandate that requires automatic refunds of overpayments greater than $20. So this position is critical to our operation. The tax office has four programs. We have an accounting program, collections, customer service, and office of the director. Our accounting program is responsible for reconciling and dispersing the funds to the taxing entities. We collect over $1.5 billion on behalf of all of our entities. Our collections team, they are responsible for establishing and maintaining payment locations for our community. I would like to highlight that this year we had a temporary tax office at the appraisal district in response to the voice of our customers. So we had our staff at the appraisal district the last six days in January. And we received very good feedback. It is centrally located. It has parking space. Our team came to the appraisal district. Taxpayers already go to the appraisal district, confusing us for the tax office. So it was great for them to see us there. We also have a drop box if they're already there. We started putting the drop box in October, the moment that tax bills go out. So if a taxpayer is already at the appraisal district, they can drop off their payment. They don't have to drive downtown or to another location. Our next program is customer service, and this is the program that educates and informs the community regarding statutory and legislative changes, helping them understand their property tax bill. They also issue payment agreements such as escrow or delinquent payment agreements to our taxpayers in need. And our last program is Office of the Director. This program will assist entities with the truth in taxation calculations as previously discussed by Mr. Cortines. So we actually initiate the tax bill process and we provide support for the rest of the team. So how do we align to the strategic plan? So our priorities fall under the good governance pillar. Our priorities are to provide accessible and responsible taxpayer support in person, over the phone, through email, And we also provide community education and outreach. Just last week, we joined District three and their community meeting, and we have another event coming this weekend. So we are here to educate the community and make sure they have the understand their bill. We also even though we do not handle exemptions, you know, we are there to ensure that they have the exemptions that they are entitled to. This concludes my presentation. Any questions?

Very good. Representative Rocha.

Thank you, Maria. And yes, you were hit a couple of weeks ago at one of the community meetings that I hosted. And I believe that that might be a location that you may be adding to your outreach. If anybody has an opportunity to invite Maria, she is a wealth of information. There were so many questions from so many different people asking for information regarding the tax collection, and it really is just a great way to inform the public on what your bill looks like, what you should be looking out for, and really the ease of making payments and trying not to make it so scary when it comes to taxes. So I do appreciate the presentation a couple of weeks ago, Maria, thank you. Look forward to seeing you on Saturday.

You're welcome. Our pleasure.

Any more questions for Maria? Maria, thank you.

Thank you so much. And next is Gary with the Sioux Department.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Gary.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. I'm Gary Lunsford of the El Paso Zoo where we celebrate the value of animals and natural resources and create opportunities for people to rediscover their connection with nature. The zoo's intention for 2027 is we're mainly focused on maintenance and recovery. We're requesting a static budget from the previous year with no substantial changes to operations or to staffing levels. The variance reflected is exclusively a reference to increases to base pay and benefits. Now when it comes to our programs, the zoo is broken down from the program perspective, nine programs that we provide to the community. Those are basically both financially and programmatically split just about 50-50 between investing in zoo animal care and investing in an excellent experience for the community and our visitors. So as mentioned before, we're in maintenance mode, so the focus for 2027 will be maintenance and infrastructure, as well as process improvement, reclaiming our accreditation by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, and setting ourself up for a spectacular rebound for community engagement. Thank you. Any questions?

That's it?

That's it. Like I said, keep it simple.

Representative Limon.

I know. Representative Fierro's like anxious for us to kind of finish, but.

I want to go to the zoo.

I do. I want to share with you that I had the chance to do the behind the scenes tour last year. The El Paso Zoo is a beautiful, beautiful facility. We're on the stage of rebuilding, restructuring, reconnecting with it, but I can tell you that every summer while my children were young, two to three times a summer session we spent out at the zoo. It is a beautiful place, lots of trees, and you have some really outstanding employees out there. There's two that I'm going to mention. One is James Martinez, who does great work with marketing. And the other one is a new arrival to your department, Eddie Rascón.

Yes.

Both of those are I I met any through master Gardner. You've got some really fabulous people out there and I know that you're going to this is going to flourish and continuing to be that one beautiful spot in our desert area so keep up the great work.

Thank you thank you say excited to see what he does represent fear.

Thank you mayor, you have a great team. Thank you have fabulous every time you go there. It's wonderful that that your Halloween event is the the Boo-brew is amazing. Boo-brew. But you have a wonderful volunteer in the summers for the school programs. My daughter absolutely loves it. I wish she could spend the night there. But yes, thank you. Thank you.

Gary, thank you. That's it. Thank you so much. Keep up the good work. And who are you introducing? JULIA, WE'LL INTRODUCE YOU. THIS IS HOW WE DO IT. WALK UP.

WALK UP, YEAH. ALL RIGHT. SO JULIA BALDEN-UNIOS, AND I WILL BE SHARING A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE CITY MANAGER DEPARTMENT. SO YOU HEARD FROM 32 DEPARTMENTS, FOUR DIVISIONS, 283 PROGRAMS, RIGHT, CAPTURED IN OUR WONDERFUL 500 PAGE PLUS BUDGET BOOK, BUT ALSO 200 PRIORITY ACTIONS. AND WHY THAT'S IMPORTANT IS WE WENT THROUGH A DELIBERATE PROCESS TO NOT JUST DO STRATEGIC PLANNING, BUT WHEN WE SAY STRATEGIC PLANNING, WE KNOW THAT'S DEVELOPMENT, IMPLEMENTATION, AND EVALUATION. SO AS WE LOOK AT THE CITY MANAGER DEPARTMENT, IT REALLY IS COMPRISED OF THREE THINGS THAT ANCHOR OPERATIONAL LEADERSHIP. IT'S OUR BUDGETING, SO SHOUT OUT TO OUR BUDGET TEAM. AND SASHA, THAT'S PART OF CITY MANAGER AGAIN. for their work it's also the strategic planning component which is amy and i in the administrative aspect our leadership and then lastly you have community driven innovation led by rome by roman and so ensuring ensuring that all of those three components come together and you have that synthesizing of information services and operational leadership so specific to budget and the variance that you see noted here it's really the transfer of two positions. So it's not an addition of roles or function, it's a repurposing. So everything connected to CR process, you all are familiar. We heard resoundingly from you that that was the number one area we really needed to look at improving from a communication engagement standpoint. So, you all may have recently been briefed by Jasmine Flores and Denise about the changes that are coming to see our process. So, this is, again, that repurposing of those two positions that now live within community-driven innovation. And, of course, as shared by all of my colleagues, you also see reflected here the increases to salaries and wages as part of that adjustment for the upcoming fiscal year. So snapshot, very excited to then incorporate here the seven programs that are reflected by the three different areas that I just mentioned. 38% of that is reflected in terms of our OMB work that's led. It's not just the development, it is the monitoring and ensuring that those fiscal opportunities, right? So in our good governance pillar, there's three primary strategies. that you all adopted and led us to focus on. It is ensuring that we provide accessible communication pathways, that we share visible progress, and that we ensure fiscal opportunities are front and center. And so that's reflected in the work that OMB does with that third strategy. And as we move into these additional four programs under community-driven innovation, that puts communication pathways front and center. Visible progress, and I remember specifically Mayor Pro Temp Many meaningful wins along the way. How do we make progress feel visible? Those are the priority actions that I'm gonna spotlight in just a minute, but it's ensuring also that we have a strategic data alignment. What we mean by that is this will be the first time that we have a formalized data governance plan through the strategic data alignment team and our new chief data administrator. That's critical because we heard throughout the presentations and a lot of the priority actions that when we're looking at improvements, when we're looking at dashboards, when we're looking to talk about how we're improving, we need to ensure that we do so with quality data. And quality means reliable and valid, right? Mary, we heard that resoundingly through the Bloomberg Harvard Leadership Initiative. We need to focus on quality. and ensuring that that's synchronized. So that's a big call out here in terms of the programs coming up. And then we'll step into the final priority actions that we'll be spotlighting today before I turn it back over to our city manager. So from a budget standpoint, it's that continuity and consistency because we know that hard conversations and hard things occur when you're looking to balance a budget in an organization that's as complex as ours, but we understand that they provide that stewardship in those conversations. From a community insight perspective, I'll add an element to this. We talked about resident-centered community engagement. What does that look like? What is that visible component? In the coming year, led by Roman and team, they're going to be developing a community hub. And so what does that mean? It's a physical space and platform in conjunction with the IT website revamp and in working with our departments where residents can go and get information that's specific to their area, the topics that are important to them. Because if there's one thing that we continue to learn is that district two priorities may look and feel differently. The topics that keep surfacing may be different. And so we need something that's dynamic enough with each of your districts events near them that can share that information in a way that feels visible, easy to find. And we also heard resoundingly through the process of the strategic planning development that there was a lot of neutral, right? So when we would ask about a service or a program, we would get almost a third consistently on several key questions that were neutral because there wasn't an overall awareness. so you all were very quick to say during the course strategies but what about our existing community offerings how are we ensuring that that's front and center i remember rep limon that was one of the refinements that you made in the plan so the work ahead for the year ahead is really bringing all of that into focus in a different way it's a new communication strategy But the team is ready to tackle that. And as we know, lastly, from a strategic planning perspective and our placemat, we're now moving into implementation, right? It was fiscal year 27 through 28, two-year planning horizon. How do we share the progress that's being made? How do we ensure that we share it in a way that focuses in on our key performance indicators and the things that matter most to all of you? So with that, that's a snapshot of the year ahead, how we're going to synthesize everything that you've heard over the last two days and that we'll continue to hear the development of this process. But I'll end with that, turn it back over to you, and then anything I may have missed, turn it back over to our city manager.

Ms. Mack, you coming up? I'm wrapping up. Please come on up. Come on up. Wrapping up, coming up. Coming up.

Any questions? Yes. Strategy?

OK. No, we're going to celebrate you. But Representative Lamont. I'll come after. OK. After we celebrate her?

We're close.

OK. Do you have, do you?

I actually just wanted to offer some closing remarks as we're wrapping this piece up.

We'll go with Representative Lamont first.

I'm sorry. Then I will go first. So thank you, Julie. It's exciting, the energy that you bring. The focus everything that that that you do My question actually is for the city manager so we've now gone through all of the budgets in that big old binder that Rep. Canales showed us on the very very first day There's one Department missing or there's one area that's missing that we have not seen and that is mayor and council budget and so I And my question is, can that be presented at the June 9th meeting? I can bring it back on the 22nd. I know you all have the sheets, and I apologize.

We didn't even do city manager last year.

Actually, I don't think we've ever done that. But you're talking about 22nd as in? That's our next meeting.

We have another budget meeting. Our next major budget meeting is going to be on the 22nd, and that will be the focus. And so we posted this as action, so if there's any items and elements or follow-up presentations that you all want, my team is taking note of that, and we will ensure that either that information is uploaded to the SharePoint, which we've started with already, or we'll bring back any of those questions and comments on the 22nd. Um, I just want to thank you all for this process and your diligence in getting us to this point. You know, I know that media is very confused by what it is that we're doing because our preliminary budget is typically, you know, which is a draft is only in place for about two weeks typically. And so from my perspective, I have provided you a draft opportunity and it gives council, you know, almost two months to edit. And so I'm excited that we've been able to go through this process that you have sat with us for a day and a half and taken a deep dive to ask the questions, to go through the 533 some odd pages, to get to know the operations and where we're aligning the resources. It's my job to bring forward to you a balanced budget. It is now your opportunity in the next couple of months to help us to refine in a way that helps us to be responsible, continue to provide these programs, but to do so with the input of our community. And so, as you know, next week, starting on the 1st, we will be with Representative Fierro at his community meetings. We will be going through a slightly abbreviated version of the overview. We will then have our teams walk the community through our budget simulator process. And then we will be gathering notes and feedback from the community from the 1st to the 11th. Concurrent to that, we have opened our council budget adjustment process. So you have the links to that. So you'll have the opportunity if you see room for adjustments or improvements to the things that we have developed, we ask you to have those forms to us no later than the 14th. We will then take all of the community feedback that we receive. You will also be able to see everything that is being submitted through the budget simulation form in a rolled up presentation. We will bring all of that back to you for some decision making on the 22nd. That's not something that we've ever done as an organization. So really utilizing that time to do a roll up of everything that we have in the budget adjustment forms and the things that we're hearing from community to really refine the budget as presented today before we actually publish what is called a proposed budget on July 17. And so it's giving ourselves the time to really do that level of refinement from our perspective, the proposed budget is really kind of like the real budget. And that's when that that's what gets filed with the city clerk. So I really appreciate you know, all the time and effort and the thoughtfulness that have gone into this and know that these adjustments are because you wanted us to be better. We're committed to continuous improvement. There's always things that we can do to make these processes better. We will learn through this process this year and make it even better next year. But we really appreciate all the feedback and all the opportunity to make all these processes and help the community understand that we're here for them. And the things that we're collecting, whether it's taxes or fees, are an investment in the good work of this organization. So I thank you all for your time and effort. And we have so much more to do.

All right, we've got a few more comments, Ms. Mack. Representative Nino.

Thank you, Mayor. And I want to start off by thanking Ms. Mack, Robert, Sasho, the entire team, 32 departments that worked on this preliminary budget. And I'm glad that it's the draft. And I'm glad that there's an opportunity for us to either further engage and really analyze the entire budget. and how is it that we want to advocate, right? And it's important, again, for the committee to know that this is our first time reviewing the budget or the preliminary budget as a body. This is the start of us having the opportunity as a body to share some of our points of views and possible strategies on how is it that we want to continue advocating. I had two questions really quick. In analyzing the entire budget book, I wanted to see if you could kind of just mention or explain to us a little bit more about every department has materials and supplies as a line item. And there's a 4% increase in that specific line item. What kind of expenditures are done under materials and supplies? I think it's such a broad language that someone might fund something differently. Can you kind of?

It's like absolutely everything. Um, that's actually about publications. It's absolutely everything that we're doing as an organization. And so you're seeing inflation, everything that we buy. Um, a lot of those contracts come before you in terms of what we're buying in terms of supplies or Randy talked about the things that he purchased. So it is very broad. So I can get the team to kind of give us some samples of the things that they're seeing, but I think. it's probably not gonna be like huge contracts that we'll be talking about outside of the really big departments, but I can get that broken down.

Okay, and that also falls under marketplace ordering any supplies online that I previously?

Some, some, and so some of those are contracts as well.

You got a breakdown?

Because nobody wants to go to lunch.

It's a long list of accounts. Oh, gee, that's a long list. Office supplies, computer supplies.

So you've got library books. Oh, library books. You've got uniforms. You've got recreational supplies at the parks, land maintenance supplies, clinical supplies for public health. So there is a variety.

And what would be the difference?

So the biggest ones, though, I mean, some of the big barriers I'm seeing is uniforms and apparel. And then you've seen some of those contracts come forward. I think you had an airport come recently. Publications is another big one here. We actually added 100,000 to the library's book budget this year. When we started our enhanced library card, our formula for accreditation changed. And so we want to make sure that we can ensure that we're aligned and can get reaccredited next year. So we added 100,000 for that. So that line is showing 179.

Question for you. And so what is the difference between outside contracts and materials and supplies? And the reason I ask that is because, like, for example, council has outside contracts, but we're able to order materials and supplies. So can we get some clarification on that specific verbatim?

Yeah, so the contracts, obviously, you're going to have some type of agreement. There's a contract in place. Materials and supplies, you're not going to have a three-year contract in place for these type of expenditures. And so, like Ms. Mack mentioned, it's library books is one of the big increases. Uniforms for public safety departments is the other big increase. vehicle maintenance supplies, recreational supplies. So these are type of things that are just purchased throughout the year, but there's not a contract for a three or five year time period. It's usually a one time purchase for that particular given year. The council's a little bit different. So yes, you get your annual general fund allocation. We put it all in that one account and you spend out of there. Typically that's used for just the daily or operating type expenses that you need. we do that just to keep it kind of generic for the council you all get the same amount your general fund the same amount your discretionary funds we don't say district six you get two thousand in this account it just it's much simpler just to be standardized for each of the council members districts okay no thank you for clarifying that and i know that we're chasing challenges as an organization with rising costs and that's why i was asking that question right because i'm trying to understand

even when it comes, I know I mentioned previously on Marketplace, and when we're making any expenditure, I think it's important for us as an organization to really analyze how taxpayers expect that every public dollar be spent responsibly, efficiently, and with strong accountability. As the City of El Paso continues to evaluate this fiscal year 2027 preliminary budget, I truly believe that it's important that we continue not only analyzing major contracts, but also everyday operational spending where even small inefficiencies across large budget categories can result in millions of dollars in taxpayer dollars being saved. I've mentioned before that if we save even one dollar in a single transaction, And if we repeat that across thousands of transactions or expenditures citywide, those savings can quickly add up. I was analyzing how some of the departments had major cuts on their materials and supplies, and then some had added more in the materials and supplies. And it's an additional, it's a 4% increase, right? So it's $50.6 million in materials and supplies expenditures that were that's part of this preliminary budget. Additionally, we have $154 million in outside contracts, 97.1 in professional services, which is totaling about 250 million in contracted or professional service-related spending citywide. And where I'm getting to is I really would like to see further advocacy and analyzing how we could potentially reduce even more cost savings. I know that I've talked to Ms. Cody and she had a departmental meeting yesterday of really analyzing how we can potentially look at the marketplace and any expenditure that takes place, right? Because again, even if it's $1, 10,000 transactions is $10,000. And public safety infrastructure, parks, libraries, streets, and neighborhood services are critical priorities for our residents. And I truly believe that there may be further opportunities to improve operational efficiency, identify potential taxpayer savings while continue to protect the services that our residents rely on. And again, I'm extremely grateful for all the work that has taken place over the last few months. I'm very grateful for all the departments to continue analyzing this. And again, this is the preliminary budget. and this is our role to advocate and have that advocacy of what is it that we want to see and how can we strategize even further, right? Investing in our workforce is extremely important and that's why I think if we could potentially look at analyzing the operational savings of those materials and supplies of outside contracts is extremely important to me because at the end of the day, the taxpayers expect us to continue to evaluate how our government operates, identify opportunities to improve efficiency, eliminate spending where possible. and that every dollar that we spend delivers a value back to our community. And so I know this item is posted for action and I wanted to offer direction directing the city manager to conduct a further wide city wide operational efficiency review focus on materials and supplies, outside contracts, and professional services expenditures as part of the fiscal year 2027 budget evaluation process, including analyzing and seeking opportunities for reasonable operational cost savings while maintaining essential frontline services.

Okay, there's a motion.

Second. Ms. Prine, I just sent over the language to you.

OK forward to Council.

Yeah and again miss Mack I'm very grateful. I just wanted to really advocate where we could potentially continue to analyze that cost savings and I truly believe that if we are able to even save a couple of dollars in analyzing that we could reach further advocacy for all passwords. So thank you for all your hard work.

Discussion on this one. Representative Canales.

Thank you. Ms. Mack, is this type of analysis something that you always carry out?

So I know that this year the teams look very carefully at a lot of the contracts. And so I think we might just need to pull that work together. Just some of the initial feedback I got from Sasha was that the teams really were making reductions in key areas, really looking at a lot of the contracts closely. We spent a lot of time this year on our larger contracts, particularly in IT and others. And so I think we can at least start with some of those pieces. I think it's going to kind of be two parts. thinking about how we move forward with an evaluation of new contracts, and then looking at what the staff may have done with renegotiation of things that we have right now. And then I think the day-to-day operations in terms of things we might purchase through the marketplace. We may just have a better way of sort of looking at how we ensure that there are some checklists of things that we've thought about before we purchase.

At least that's how I'm interpreting it. The drivers here, typically, like you said, it's the larger contracts. And those are contracts that the council sees on a regular basis as contracts expire. They go through a procurement and the council is typically voting to approve those those contracts. Is that correct.

Mostly but I want to confirm because I think that as Robert said when we talk about materials and supplies it generally isn't the contractual stuff but there's a couple items. I mean definitely the library contracts a big contract and definitely uniforms is a big contract. So I'll go back and make sure we're confirming those and we'll we'll have something to report back to you next time. And if there's further work we'll we'll move from there.

OK, I think it's worth pointing out for the public that the consumer price index inflation this year is 3.8%. And our increase in materials and supplies is pretty much exactly that. And so I don't think we're seeing anything in excess of just the price increase that everybody is realizing across the materials and supplies they buy for their personal use or for their private businesses. And we're not immune from that. As the city as the price of goods goes up. We also pay more for those goods And again, I don't think we've seen an increase that outpaces that general inflation that that everybody feels. Thank you Thanks, thank you Chavez

Thank you Mayor and thank you Ms. Mack and to the entire team for these last three days. I know that we've taken all of you away from other work so we're happy to just be able to have this opportunity six weeks earlier than we did last year. I know that families across our community are making difficult financial decisions every day. We've talked about utility rate increases that people are facing. You know gas prices groceries, you know, this is a reality that our community faces Even through the CFT team that I'm a part of we've talked about housing affordability and opportunity for our community that is why we adopted economic mobility as one of our strategic pillars because we want to make sure that people can afford the community that they live in and They stay here and they have a full quality of life and I don't think it should go unnoticed by us as a city to really think how we can look into our own budget and see if there is an opportunity to save some money. I know that all the departments have already done that because like you just mentioned, you've been working on this for months. And I see all of you, when I look out into this room, bright people, intelligent people, experts with a lot of institutional knowledge, much more than I will ever have in any one of your departments. And I almost feel like this budget is like a dissertation. If you were all PhD students, this is your dissertation. And then you're handing it to us as a council, and we go out to the community and defend it, right? Talk about it and defend it. And I want to have all the tools and power I can to do that. And when Representative Nino offered this amendment, I'm thinking, why not have the opportunity to see if there's other savings? Just so we could tell the community, yes, we are in the ring with you. We are in your corner. And this is what we've done. And this is our best offer. I also look at outside contracts, professional services. And many times I think we should question ourselves and say, could we do this internally? Potentially, right? Maybe we can, maybe we can't. Is there an opportunity to evaluate more competitive contracts through other means? Are we measuring results? Are we having proper oversight on services that we're that we're hiring. I think that there's always opportunity. I know that all of us do it personally, at a personal level, and I think this is a great chance for us, again, to defend your dissertation, your budget, in front of our constituents and say, we've made the best effort possible to try to save you money. And if you come back with something, that would be wonderful. And if you come back and say, this is our best foot forward, this is our final offer, then so be it. But at least we tried. Thank you, Ms. Mack.