City Council - Regular Meeting

Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to City Council Chambers. Ms. Pryor, I think we're ready to go to work.

Good morning, Mayor. good morning and welcome to the presentation of the mayor's recognitions and proclamations we begin this morning with a pledge of allegiance and leading us our students from harmony science academy and harmony school of excellence at the invitation of city representative lily limon we have draven williams dexter williams and serena williams

States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you you may take your seats.

I want to say first thank you to the El Paso Fire Department pipes and drums for helping us begin today's performance remembrance. Today we pause to honor the 23 lives taken from us on August 3rd, 2019. We also hold close their families and loved ones, the survivors, our first responders, and all those who continue to carry the pain with them every day. United Way of El Paso County produced a special video presentation bringing together community leaders to honor the 23 lives we lost. The video aired yesterday across our community at exactly 1038 a.m., the time that the first 911 call was received on August 3rd, 2019. Many community partners shared the video at the same time, including across all city of El Paso social media accounts, creating a unified moment of remembrance. We will now share the video and the reading of the names. Seven years ago, El Paso experienced a tragedy that changed our community forever.

Today, we honor the 23 lives lost

We read their names with remembrance, respect, and gratitude.

And we stand together, united in resilience and hope.

Andre Anchondo. Jordan Anchondo. Arturo Benavides. Jorge Galvio Garcia. Leonardo Campos Jr. Adolfo Cerros Hernandez.

Angelina Silva Anglesby.

Maria Munoz Flores. Raul Estrada Flores.

Guillermo Memo Garcia.

Maribel Hernandez Loya.

Gerhard Alexander Hoffman.

David Alva Johnson.

Luis Alfonso Juarez. Maria Eugenia Legarreta Roth. Ivan Manzano. Gloria Irma Marquez.

Elsa Mendoza.

Sara Esther Regalado Monreal.

Margie Record.

Javier Amir Rodriguez.

Teresa Trinidad Sanchez Guerra.

Juan De Dios Velazquez.

I would like it to ask everyone that is able to stand to please join us in a moment of silence.

Ooh. Thank you.

Thank you. Please be seated. While today is a time to remember, it is also important to recognize that healing continues and that support remains available for those who need it. United Way of El Paso leads the Center for Resiliency, which connects individuals and families with trauma, informed care, behavioral health services, housing assistance, and other resources. I believe, there we are, I believe Georgina Hernandez, the president of the United Way CEO is here to share more about the Center of Resilience with us. Good morning.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. First of all, I want to say thank you so much for your participation, Mayor Johnson, during the video, as well as I want to thank the city's communications department for helping us distribute this message. It really helped bring awareness about the healing journey that our community has gone through since 2019. The United Way of El Paso County created the Center for Resiliency after the mass casualty event of 2019 in response to the community's need for healing after the tragedy. What began as a response to collective trauma has grown into a community resource focused on hope, healing, and resilience. Since 2019 we've served over 5,000 individuals about 20% of those are first responders and just in the last year we served 473 individuals. We have about 200 participants that have been with us since the 2019 tragedy and continue to be with us and continue to receive the resources. We've also done a lot of collaboration with the city in terms of spreading awareness for mental health through the El Paso Heals events when they happen in July. And just this past May, we provided over 40 community events, and again, in an effort to be able to bring awareness about the importance of mental health and trauma recovery. Our goal really is to broaden the support that we have because currently we are supporting those that were affected directly and indirectly by the mass casualty event. But our hope really is to broaden that to support victims of crimes in our community. as we have through the National Mass Violence Center survey or research done in a few years ago, El Paso has 5.5 more probability, people in El Paso have 5.5 more probability of having PTSD. So it's really important for us to be able to provide the services that we do within the community and help in the healing journey outside of just those being affected by the mass casualty event. Looking ahead, we try to evolve as our community needs evolve, and we try to stay current. But hopefully, eventually, the long-term goal is to have the trauma become our first trauma recovery center. I want to thank you all for your time. Thank you for helping us distribute the message and for the support and your partnership. Thank you.

yeah well thank you georgina and thank you in the united way for all the support you provide the el paso community and and provided us a path forward to healing so thank you guys for all that you do thank you I'd also like to thank the El Paso Fire Department for joining us today and everyone else that has joined us as we honor the 23 lives and remember the August 3rd, 2019 tragedy that hit the city of El Paso. As another way to honor their memory through service and compassion, we invite the community to also donate blood at today's blood drive here at City Hall from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. So again, we've extended it from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., which is good. So anyone that is willing to donate blood, please join us here at City Hall to do that. because donating blood is a meaningful way to help save lives and show our continued love and support for one another. So may we continue to honor the 23 through remembrance, compassion, and service to others. Thank everyone for being here today for our ceremony. And Ms. Prime, I believe we're ready for proclamations.

Yes, sir. That brings us to the mayor's proclamations. The first proclamation is Super City AI Day, District 7.

Representative Limon.

Good morning. And I think we have a connection through IT. This is a proclamation, ,, whereas SuperCity is an AI-powered platform founded in 2024 that makes navigating local government services and systems effortless for residents. offering chat-based assistance, bill payment, issue reporting, and access to city news and resources in one application. And whereas SuperCity was co-founded by Miguel Ramiño Jr., an El Paso native and technology leader with over 20 years of experience in government and the private sector. including service as chief information officer for the city of El Paso, the city and county of San Francisco, and the city of New York. And whereas Super Force and Workforce Solutions hosted Super Hour with Super Force on May 21st, 2026, introducing the community to six AI apprentices made up of local college students, and military transitioning service members. The event highlighted workforce innovation, emerging technology, and new career pathways in the region with special guests including Texas Workforce Commissioner Brent Connett and local elected leaders. And where a super city through super force programs reflects El Paso's continued role as a hub for innovation and technology, demonstrating how homegrown ideas and leadership can produce solutions with the potential to benefit cities and residents nationwide. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Mayor and Council of the City of El Paso that August 4th, 2026 shall be known as Superforce AI Day, signed by the Honorable Mayor, Renard Johnson.

Good morning.

Good morning, Mayor and Council. Layla Melendez, CEO of Workforce Solutions Borderplex. It's an honor to be here. And thank you so much for this recognition and proclamation. Your workforce board is hard at work in creating and designing solutions. There's no accident that solutions is our middle name. Solutions for our next force, the next generation of our workforce. And in collaboration and in partnership with companies and organizations like Super City, we designed a very customized regional need-based program for AI apprenticeships. And we were very thankful to have found some great local talent that went through several weeks of a customized training and employer work-based learning program. And now they are ready for the workforce in a very high demand high-skilled, high-wage occupation. So we're really proud of this partnership. Thank you for the recognition, and I'd like to give the floor over to our partners to talk a little bit about the impact. Thank you. Perfect.

Good morning. Good morning. Ms. Walker.

Mr. Mayor and council. First, it's an honor to be here. I love El Paso. Anyone that knows me knows that. I will tell you I've been watching a lot of the debate for the AI data centers. I have my opinion. But what I do know is AI will not go away. And what I also do know is we need to get our workforce ready. And any of you that know me know I'm pretty passionate about workforce. So here we are. Super City created Super Force to create basically a pipeline of AI-ready skilled people. And it's a proven model. Layla can give you all the stats. Sorry, I'm recovering from a croaky throat, what I call croaky throat. And some of the students you'll meet in a minute. It's an amazing program. The corporations are going to sort out how to do workforce with AI. They're going to figure it out. Rick, you're here. Is that true? Yes, they're already working on it, El Paso Electric. And I'm worried about the small businesses and the nonprofits. They all need IT. They all need AI probably more than anyone. And what I want to do is recognize the fact that First Light Credit Union, I'm kind of schizophrenic today, First Light Credit Union took advantage of this program, embedded three students there to work through the program, to work out the model, and now they've hired two of them. So my call to action for you guys is let's get it together. AI won't go away. The data centers will do what they're going to do. But we need to help our small businesses and our nonprofits, right? Adelante.

Thank you, Barbara. Everyone's being shy. Come on up.

Hi. Good morning. Good morning, Mr. Mayor. My name is Jessica Barlow. I'm one of the apprentice graduates. And I was a part of the program for 12 weeks. And I've done, you know, I just graduated with my degree. And I have spent many years in school, but I have not learned more than what I have in the past 12 weeks working with the Superforce program. It really has been... life-changing in a way and gotten me to a point where I can go from just having some basic programming skills to developing apps, including one of the major projects I worked on was trying to get access for people with disabilities in the workforce and an app to help them navigate that. So as Barbara said, you know, There are pluses and minuses to AI as anything, but it can be used for good and for nonprofits. And I am excited to continue the work to help make the community a better place by using AI technology.

Thank you. Miguel, come on up. You got to come up and say something. We're going to give you some time.

i i said i wasn't going to come to the podium today um this is uh memories yeah you've been here i've been here before and i just want to thank you representative limon and the city in general for the support and the partnership i hope that this will inspire that partnership to grow because everything said that's why i wanted them to talk This really isn't about us and what we're doing or what we think. It's the impact that we're having on the community in a very intentional way. So I hope that lands. I hope that sinks in a little bit. And I hope that that will spur some interest in expanding the relationship.

And Miguel, you've got some others there with you. Can they introduce themselves? Let's do it.

Hello, guys. Good morning. My name is Richard Hernandez. I'm currently a student at the University of Texas at El Paso. I'll be graduating in December. But similar to Jess, I don't come from a family with a lot of connections or college graduates. But because of the Super Force program, You know, I feel like I'm ahead now. And usually when you're in tech, you have to leave El Paso to go make an impact and you go work for bigger companies. But I feel like when you love your community, you want to impact it here. And through them, I feel like I'm ready now. And if we have more programs like these, we could have students like myself because there's talent here that could be used to help our SMBs. which would eventually help our economic overall goals and retain talent here and eventually maybe even become a tech hub. So all AI isn't bad, and we could use it to really make an impact for nonprofits. you know education whatever it is that there's benefits to it as well so i i just feel like if like myself and jess and daphne rico and dna martinez and samuel tolbert and those are all the apprentices um they'd probably tell you the same thing um so thank you guys and i just hope you guys keep that in mind that you know programs like these could have an impact on el paso very good go minor go minors

Good morning.

Good morning. My name is Dr. Laura Trevino and I'm an assistant professor of information systems at the University of Texas at El Paso. I'm very proud to be celebrating my 30th year there this year. And now I currently work in the provost office with the entering student experience, which is all the freshmen that are coming into the university. So it's critical that we address these issues of how AI is gonna be used and how our young people are gonna use AI. I don't know any more than anybody else about how it's going to be used in the future. But I know that my students today need to know about it. They need to know how it's used, how it's used properly, and how it's not used properly. Those are the very basics that we need to get across to them. So this opportunity came to work with Superforce. It came because once upon a time, long, long ago, I was Miguel's professor at UTEP. So I got to work with the seven of the most incredible students I've ever worked for or with before. And I'm so excited about this program and so excited about the support that we have gotten from everybody, organizations, all of you, It's been just really an incredible experience that I hope I get to participate more in and get to do more things like this. So thank you so much for your recognition of Miguel Superforce and the whole group that had to do with this project. Thank you so much.

You're very welcome. All right, I see a couple other faces that haven't come up. Thank you, guys. These are my daughters. Well, come introduce them, Miguel, please. Ah, hi. Good morning. That's all they got? Well, congratulations, guys, on Super Force AI Day. Congratulations. Well done.

While we're walking up, he forgot to recognize mom. Mom is very cool.

Thanks, guys. All right.

Congratulations.

Ms. Bryant.

Yes, sir, and the next proclamation is First Light Community Foundation 11th Anniversary Celebration.

Representative Chavez.

Thank you, Mayor. I'll give them a few minutes to come up, and I'll start reading the proclamation. Whereas The 11th anniversary of First Light Community Foundation will be celebrated on August 24th, and whereas the First Light Community Foundation positively impacts the borderplex region by providing opportunities for community members to achieve increased financial wellness through education, home affordability initiatives, small business resources, and scholarships to local graduating seniors. And whereas the first light Community foundation supports the future of our region by recognizing hard work, providing second opportunities and creating pathways to upward mobility that might not otherwise be available. And whereas the first light Community foundation is committed to supporting people throughout border plex to improve their lives. and achieve their dreams regardless of age, income, and background. And whereas the First Light Community Foundation has awarded over $200,000 in scholarships, conducted over 600 financial educational workshops, and provided over $80,000 in matching funds to assist with down payment support. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Mayor and Council of the City of El Paso that August 24th shall be known as First Light Community Foundation Day. Congratulations.

Good morning, Margie.

honored representatives, community partners, and guests. On behalf of the First Light Community Foundation, thank you for the opportunity to be here today and for this incredible recognition. My name is Margie Salazar. I have the privilege of serving as a proud board member of our community foundation, the charitable arm of First Light Federal Credit Union, where I serve as president and CEO. Since our founding in 2015, our mission has always remained the same, to improve lives by investing in the people and communities we serve so that they can achieve their dreams. Today, we are deeply humbled to accept this proclamation, recognizing the impact of our foundation and the collective efforts that have made it possible. Our work is rooted in four core pillars, bilingual financial education, scholarships, home affordability and access, and introduced this year, small business development. Together, these initiatives represent our commitment to creating opportunities that empower individuals and strengthen our community. We also launched a new initiative this year for small business development. We recognize that small businesses are the backbone of our local economy. This is especially meaningful to me as my parents have had several small businesses throughout the year right here in our region. Today, we share this proclamation with our dedicated staff, our volunteer board members, our community partners, and every volunteer who generously give their time and talents. More importantly, it belongs to the families, the students, the homeowners, and the small business owners who inspire us every day with their resilience and their determination. On behalf of First Light Community Foundation, we gratefully accept this proclamation, and we also extend an invitation to every member of our community to learn more about the programs and resources available to you and your family. Together, we can continue building stronger families, stronger businesses, and a stronger El Paso. Thank you.

Well, Margie, you have a team behind you. Can they come up and at least say hello and introduce themselves? Good morning.

Good morning. My name is Joshua Roscoe, chairman of the First Light Federal Credit Union. Thank you.

Good morning.

Good morning. I'm Jim Huff. I'm the chief retail officer of First Light and the interim executive director of the foundation.

Good morning.

Me again. I'm Barbara Walker, and actually I'm with Cisco, so I'm a little schizophrenic today. But Jim, you can ask Jim about Superforce, okay? I've just got to cross-market here. And thank you all for all you do. I know the times are not easy. I know some of you. Cynthia, I don't know some of you. But thanks for all you do.

Good morning.

Good morning. Rick Bernal, currently vice chair on the board of First Light Federal Credit Union.

Good morning.

Good morning, mayor and council. I'm Mika Short, and I have the honor of serving on the First Light Community Foundation board.

Good morning.

Good morning, Major and Honorable Members of the Council. My name is Miguel, and I'm here to remind you, okay, I'm a member of the First Light Community Foundation, and I'm very humbled and honored, okay, to advise all of the young students that are here, okay, that are going to college that please, you know, make an application to our community foundation. You know, I like to say, okay, I might be an example. Okay, I was an orphan when I was 11 years old. Okay, I came to this country and I didn't know My knowledge of the language was from zero all the way to nothing. So if I can make it okay, yes, everybody here can make it. Thank you very much, appreciate it. And please, make an application for those of you younger people in the audience and those of you who have younger people that are aspiring to go to college, make an application. Go to every one of our branches. or get online okay first like communityfoundation.com and and and apply for it okay if like everything else if you don't apply who knows you know but you know please go ahead and apply thank you very much thank you

That's it. Well, Margie, thank you guys for all that you do. And I've been able to see the great work firsthand at some of the scholarship recipient award ceremonies that I was able to take part in. But I love one simple mission, to do more and give back to underserved communities. So thank the foundation, and thank you guys for all that you do for the El Paso community. I do have one last question, though. What high school did you go to?

Best high school in the Northeast, Irvin High School.

I know. Thank you for your support. You got it, my friend. And it's good to see you again.

I should pop you, I'm sorry. No, it's okay.

K miss Frank, the final proclamation is raise federal credit union 90th anniversary represent me know.

Thank you mayor if I could have the honorees make the well way to the podium. So thank you mayor for allowing me to read this proclamation. Proclamation for the city of El Paso, Texas. Whereas Raiz Federal Credit Union, originally established as El Paso Teachers Federal Credit Union on May 26, 1936, by local educators, has served the El Paso community for 90 years, evolving from handwritten transactions and small branch offices into a modern, high-tech financial institution serving multiple generations of families across the region and more than 78,000 members while remaining rooted in its mission of service, accessibility, and community. And whereas Raiz Federal Credit Union's commitment to people helping people is reflected in its member-focused approach, providing accessible, innovative financial services and fostering a welcoming environment for all. The credit union has grown from four to ten branches, expanding its reach through strategic meters, including its lead of teachers, Federal Credit Union, Medical Arts Federal Credit Union, and the acquisition of El Paso's Federal Credit Union portfolio, and the Golden Key Federal Credit Union. And whereas RAIZ has demonstrated an ongoing investment in its community for decades through educational initiatives and outreach, awarding scholarships, professional development grants, and community grants to countless individuals, and providing financial education to tens of thousands across the region, its staff has dedicated thousands of volunteer hours over the years reinforcing the organization's steadfast commitment to our borderland. And whereas Riley Spirit Debit Card Program donates .05 cents for every non-PIN transaction, directly benefiting local high schools and community partners such as the El Paso Rhinos, the El Paso Children's Hospital, FC Juarez, benefiting the Paso Norte Community Foundation, and the majority of high schools from every major district in El Paso County. Since 2019, this initiative has generated over $215,000 in donations with all contributions provided directly by RAIZ. And whereas the RAIZ Federal Credit Union is recognized as a certified community development financial institution, reflecting its dedication and financial inclusion and service to underserved communities. The organization has also led innovation in credit union sector by implementing financial hubs, an award-winning digital banking, a new core system, an upgraded website, and an improved email platform to ensure high-touch, high-tech service. And while RAIZ is deeply invested in its personal and professional growth of its team, offering advancement and development opportunities that allow employees to move from entry-level to leadership roles. Thereby fostering talent and encouraging professionals to build their careers in El Paso, Raiz strengthens both its own organization and the wider community. And whereas for 90 years, Raiz Federal Credit Union has partnered with local school districts, hospitals, youth organizations, and nonprofits, including the underserved community foundation, Junior Achievement, La Nube, Casa del Paso, the YMCA, United Way, and many more, demonstrating an enduring commitment to enhancing the quality of life of El Paso. And now, therefore, it be proclaimed by the Mayor and the Council of the City of El Paso that August 4th, 2026 shall be known as Raiz's 90th Anniversary Day. Congratulations, signed by the Honorable Mayor, Renard Johnson.

Good morning, Max.

Good morning. How are you, Mayor? I'm doing well. Good to see you guys. It's really absolutely our pleasure. Thank you for having us. My name is Max Villaronga, President and CEO at Rise Federal Credit Union. On behalf of all of us at RISE, I want to express our heartfelt gratitude to you, Mayor Johnson, and the entire City Council for this extraordinary honor and for joining us as we celebrate a remarkable milestone in our journey, the 90th anniversary of RISE Federal Credit Union. Rice Federal Credit Union was founded in 1936 as El Paso Teachers Federal Credit Union by seven educators who sought financial well-being and stability during those challenging times. Since then, Rise has proudly served the El Paso community for nine decades, extending its financial services to all within the city of El Paso. From its humble beginnings, Rise has grown significantly, expanding its reach through those strategic mergers and acquisitions that Councilman Nino so kindly went through. Thank you for doing that. At the heart of our mission is the philosophy of people helping people. This commitment is evident in the accessible, innovative financial services we provide to our members, all within a welcoming environment. We understand that financial security is crucial for all El Paso families, and our services reflect our deep dedication to helping our community thrive. But we are more than just a financial institution. We actively invest in the community, awarding scholarships to students, offering professional development grants to educators, and delivering financial education to tens of thousands of individuals. Our staff also volunteer thousands of hours each year supporting a wide range of causes that strengthen the Borderland community. One particularly impactful initiative I'd like to highlight today is the Community Spirit Debit Card Program, which raises funds for local schools and community partners such as El Paso Children's Hospital. Since 2019, this program has raised more than $215,000 directly benefiting education, youth programs, and medical care and equipment for the most vulnerable in our area. Our commitment to financial inclusion is further demonstrated by our certification as a community development financial institution, ensuring that underserved members of our community have access to the resources they need to build a better future. As we continue to grow, innovation is a cornerstone of our work. We provide award-winning digital solutions and upgraded technology platforms, making banking more convenient and accessible than ever before. We don't just stop there. We prioritize our own people by supporting staff development, growth, and advancement from entry level through our leadership roles this not only strengthens our credit union but also helps develop and retain talent within our local workforce for 90 years we have proudly partnered with schools hospitals non-profits and youth organizations to help enhance the quality of life in el paso Being recognized today by our mayor and city council is a tremendous honor that reaffirms our mission and the values that guided us since our founding. We are grateful for the trust and support from our members and the entire community. On behalf of our board, staff and all those we serve at rise thank you for this meaningful proclamation we remain committed to serving el paso with passion integrity and a spirit of collaboration now and for generations to come thank you so much

Well Max it's good to see you guys again and last time I was with you we were renaming the operation center in honor of Claudia Green so it's good to see you guys again but there's so many familiar faces behind you we've got a little bit of time so you mind letting them introduce themselves?

Absolutely we'd love to.

She needs no introduction here. Good morning.

It's my pleasure Mayor Johnson. Lillian Crouch chairman of the board.

Good morning my friend. Good morning.

Good morning. Armando Navua, board of directors. Good morning, everyone.

Good morning. Richard Perez, vice chair of the board.

Good morning. Thank you for having us. I really appreciate being here. Eber Moya, board of director.

Good morning. Good morning.

Hi, good morning. My name is Ruby Aguayo. I am a member of the supervisory committee. I've been for a couple of years now. And I just want to thank you all for making this space to recognize CDFIs like Raiz. To me, it's really about social determinants of health and how we support those organizations that are creating access to education and financial resources. So thank you.

Good morning.

Hi, good morning. Michael Morales, Executive Vice President of Member Experience.

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning. Eliana Avila, Vice President of Human Resources. Good morning.

Ruby Alvarez, Vice President of Growth and Service Operations. Good morning. Good morning.

Good morning, Amy Crossacoff, Vice President of Digital Experience.

Good morning. Traffic down there.

Well, if I didn't get to the microphone. Yeah, good morning. Good morning, everybody. My name is Abraham Rodarte. I am the Brand Experience Coordinator.

Good morning.

Good morning, everyone. Alonso Garcia, VP of Information Technology.

Good morning.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Carlos Orozco, Vice President of Facilities and Purchasing.

Good morning. Good morning, everyone. Alejandro Yu, Vice President of Marketing. Good morning. Good morning.

Good morning. My name's Melissa Kern, Quality Assurance Supervisor.

Good morning.

Hello, good morning. My name's Carolina Perez. I am the branch manager for Horizon City.

Good morning.

Good morning. I'm Natalia Rios, and I'm marketing and communications at Rice.

Good morning.

Good morning, everybody. My name is Christopher Montoya. I'm the compliance manager.

Good morning. Good morning. My name is Rafael Gallardo. I'm the safety and security manager. Good morning.

Good morning. I'm Christina Villarreal, marketing and communications coordinator.

Good morning.

Good morning. My name is Alejandra Loaiza.

I'm the marketing manager at Rise, and I just want to thank you all for your support today.

Good morning.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Stephanie Rodriguez, and I am the community impact manager.

Good morning.

Good morning, Mayor and Council. My name is Carla Cuburu, and I'm the community engagement officer.

Good morning.

Good morning. Alan Banuelos, community engagement officer.

Good morning.

Good morning. My name is Ana Torres. I am the digital marketing manager. And that beautiful lady there is Samantha Cortes. She is my digital marketing strategist.

Good morning. Thank you. Wow. Well, you guys show up strong, I can tell you that. Wow. But celebrating your 90th anniversary, you should show up strong. And congratulations to each and every one of you. We know how much work went into getting the rise to where you guys are today. And you do such a good job in our community supporting so many organizations and scholarships and all of the great things that you do. congratulations on 90 years it's good to see you guys again and I look forward to seeing you at the next event that you have but congratulations on 90 years let's do another let's do another 90 all right congratulations

I can't do the camera just in case I drop it, but what I can do is I can have you come right here and then I can let them know to point to you.

Thank you.

I didn't know

See you later. Have a good day.

Kim is trying to believe already.

Yes, sir, good morning. This is a meeting with the El Paso City Council for Tuesday August 4th 2026. Mayor Johnson is president presiding in Council chambers along with the airport and Travis representative us middle representative for a 3 call representative Nino alternate mayor put in Seattle representative limon and representative canada's it is 10 o'clock am. Will everyone please silence your electronic devices so as not to disturb the meeting and rise for the invocation delivered by El Paso Police Senior Chaplain David Mayfield.

Mayor Johnson, Council.

Good morning.

It is always a privilege to be able to come before this council and publicly pray for our city and for the members of this council. And today's invocation will be delivered in light of yesterday's anniversary. So I invite all present to join me as I pray. Almighty and gracious God, we gather this morning with thankful hearts for the privilege of serving this community. but we also gather with memories that are not easily forgotten. As we remember the lives taken in the tragedy that forever marked our city, we pause to honor them, not as numbers or headlines, but as men and women, parents and children, friends and neighbors, each bearing your image and each deeply loved. We pray for those who continue to carry the weight of that day, for families whose loss remains present, for those who survived, for first responders, medical personnel, counselors, investigators, and all who have walked alongside others in the years since. We ask that you grant them strength for today, peace for their hearts and the assurance that they are never alone. We thank you for the compassion you stirred throughout our community. In the midst of fear, people chose courage. In the midst of hatred, they chose kindness. In the midst of overwhelming need, they showed up for one another. May that same spirit continue to define El Paso. As this council conducts the people's business this morning, grant these elected leaders wisdom, humility, integrity, and a sincere desire to seek the common good Help all who serve this city to remember that every decision ultimately touches the lives of people who are created in your image. And Lord, make us a community that refuses to become hardened by grief or divided by fear. Teach us instead to be people of compassion, justice, mercy, and above all, hope. May we honor those we remember today, not only with our words, but with the way that we care for one another in the days ahead. And we ask all of these things in your holy name. Amen. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, Ms. Bryan.

Yes sir, that brings us to public comment on agenda items. And this morning we have three members of the public that signed up to speak. The first person is Sherry Medellin. Ms. Medellin signed up to speak on item 19, which is the presentation submission of appraisal roll certified anticipated collection rate for the current year, the no new revenue tax rate and voter approval tax rate for FY 2026, 2027 taxes. Good morning, you have three minutes.

Good morning.

Good morning. I feel the need to speak. anything that impacts the community as an entire and its entirety and that would include myself and my two boys so I believe that I do believe that we need to somehow balance out the deficit to the budget however I I have this sincere belief that if we raise property taxes again, our citizens are already suffering as it is, the low income, the small businesses. And so there's a disparity between those who have money and those who are on the low income. There's no middle class anymore. So I feel as if those who have a higher income will not be impacted as those of us who are on the lower income. So it results in higher rents, higher electricity bills, higher water. Everything's impacted when you raise a property tax. And that's what I had to say on that. And then... I know it's on agenda number 19, but I'm also, the Walmart shooting, I drove in that day. And so I just wanna also say that for the families who were impacted, my deepest condolences. And really grateful for all of our law enforcement responders who attended that day. So I have a reason I have a hard time speaking today because yesterday was a hard time as well for myself and my family. But I would really reconsider the property taxes and maybe there has to be another answer. The small businesses are going to be out the window. They're already affected by our construction on the west side, our highways on the east side, everything that's going up and around. And our local businesses are small businesses over a corporation. We support, my friend and I both support small businesses. We like small businesses and what they offer and bring to our community. And to lose those people who mean so much to us would be devastating. So I hope you would reconsider the raising property taxes, thank you.

Thank you.

The next speaker is John Martin. Mr. Martin signed up to speak on item 20, which is the presentation, discussion, and action on the FY 2026-2027 proposed budget. And he will be followed by Michael Flores. Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning, everybody. In all honesty, I signed up for public comment just so that you know I'm here and I can answer any questions that you might have. I want to say that I'm incredibly grateful to each and every one of you. I've met with each of you, including the mayor at this point. I'm also very pleased to see representatives from the El Paso Coalition for the Homeless here as well, because a homeless issue within our communities distinctly needs to be addressed going forward. But I'm here to answer any questions that you might have and go forward from there. Thank you much.

Thank you, John.

The next speaker is Michael Flores. Also speaking on the budget. Good morning.

Good morning. Good morning, Mayor, City Council, Michael Flores. I am with the Palisades Coalition for the Homeless. So thank you again for having us this morning. Mr. Martin is here. One of the items on the agenda is number 20 about the budget, and we're talking about the Welcome Center. I'm sure that's on everyone's mind. But the El Paso Coalition for the Homeless, in a nutshell, is an organization, an umbrella organization for all the homeless service providers out in our community. And we try to provide those services with using services like cordial entry, HMIS, into our system. This is not about the Welcome Center funding. This is about a community need in a broader picture. When you had this item a couple of weeks ago about the monies for the Welcome Center, we talked about for one, shelter to provide and leave those doors open. But there are many other shelters in our community that do excellent work. But the El Paso Coalition for the Homeless is here to answer any questions in regards to any funding that is available besides CDBG, ESG, HOME, all these other projects that you all kindly give funding to these shelters. But let's be clear. These one-time deals, one-time monies that are coming to our community that ARPA did for our community, those infusions, we were surprised that we didn't see the big picture. One of the things that many years ago, I had envisioned a one-stop shop. something similar to what we had in San Antonio that was created. It's everybody coming together, not living in silos, but all under one roof. And so I envisioned something like that here in El Paso. And I want to be part of that conversation with you, the city, the coalition, and all the other member agencies. So I extend our olive branch to you all that we are here. And we are all excited that you can visit our office so you can see firsthand of what we do at the Coalition for the Homeless. Mayor, city council, thank you. Thank you so much.

And for the record, Representative Malonado Rocha joined the meeting at 10.04 a.m. That brings us to call to the public. The El Paso City Council is a local government body charged with serving all of the citizens, and the meetings must be focused on the meeting at charge. The City Council meetings are public meetings under the Texas Open Meetings Act. Public comment is an accommodation and not a requirement of City Council. All persons in attendance are expected to display civility and decorum that is respectful to other persons without the use of insulting, profane, threatening, or abusive language. Public comment will not be used for personal attacks, nor may any member of the public use this form for political statements or campaigning. Please note that during call to the public, the city council may not deliberate or decide any subject that is not on the agenda. However, council may propose that a topic commented on be posted on a future agenda.

OK, so public comment is now open. Each speaker will have the time allotted under the rules of order. Please keep your remarks within the permitted time and maintain civility and decorum as required by our public conduct policy. Ms. Bryant.

Thank you, Mayor. This morning, we have nine members of the public that signed up to speak. The first person is Ms. Elizabeth Crawford. Her topic is the mindset of the abortionists. Ms. Crawford, good morning. You have three minutes.

Good morning. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. The other day, I had the privilege of visiting the Esmeralda Park Memorial and being there for the memorial service. I grieve with the community. I really feel in many ways it was like the 9-11 of El Paso. And little by little, I'm just learning about what happened on that horrific day. I would like to speak briefly about the progression of events and then tie it to another scenario in our nation. The date was August 3rd, 2019. He got ready, got into his car. He already knew what he would use to carry out the mass murder. He had been indoctrinated online long ago with a sick ideology that his victims weren't worthy to live because their very existence was a supposed inconvenience. for the rest of us who deserve to exist. He was prepared for his act of violence, drove to the site where these supposedly inconvenient beings would be, and carried out his horrific massacre. It was absolutely horrific beyond words, and there are many witnesses who still struggle with what they saw. Of course, almost any past one will know what I'm speaking of, the Walmart shooter. My heart breaks when I read and reread the story posted at the Eastside Transit Center of the plaque there with the life of Arturo Benavides. That was a progression of events of the Walmart shooter, August 3rd, 2019. And also, that was a progression of events of countless abortionists across our nation on the same morning of August 3rd, 2019, and many other weekday mornings. I've had the opportunity to interact quite a bit with the abortionists and abortion workers in New Jersey at the front door of the Englewood New Jersey Abortion Center as it opens right onto the sidewalk. As we pray for the repentance and salvation of Patrick Cousius, so also we pray for the repentance and salvation of those people who are involved in legalized senseless murder every single day. Many who have spent time involved in pro-life sidewalk ministry have heard the named John Barrow. John Barrow was a beloved elderly man, a disabled Vietnam veteran who spent day after day after day saving babies from abortion outside the Orlando Abortion Center. The beauty is that God used him not only to save baby after baby, but to share the gospel with workers and see some exit the abortion industry. When I was first in Orlando, my friends on the sidewalk showed me the mark that had been left by the crutches of John Barrow, who is disabled and every day served out there. The call to Patrick Cruz is identical to the call to the abortion.

Thank you, Ms. Crawford. Thank you, ma'am. You've reached the three minutes. The next speaker is Victoria Quinola. Her topic is expansion of raw milk sales at food cooperatives and farms in the El Paso area. She will be followed by Ron Como and Barbara Valencia.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning, everyone. Hello, Mayor and Council. I'll just go straight to business. Also, shout out to LeMond, who's my district leader. Hello. So we talked about lactoferrin, lactoperoxidase, white blood cells, vitamins A, D3, C, K, K1 and K2, B12, glutathione, and glycine. Before I go into the science more, I wanted to clarify some inquiries that people have in regards to milk in general. Number one and two, so number one, the genes of the cow may affect the quality of the milk. So big brand milk corporations have been known to inbreed their animals, and that may affect the quality and nutrient density of the milk. in regards to A1 and A2 milk and potentially other A forms of milk with more research. And number two, some people do ask why drink another mammal's milk. We're the only species that does that. Some children were only raised with formula from hospitals, and that formula maybe will have a different nutrient density than mother's milk, leading to deficiencies of all sorts of types of deficiencies. Even our own mother's diet and lifestyle may have affected the nutrient quality of our milk for those who were breastfed. And the question is, do you trust your mom's diet back when she was pregnant with you? And if you don't necessarily trust your mother's diet when she was pregnant with you, then that may be a need to have good quality milk. Like cows, goats, sheep, and other animals, the human's diet, lifestyle, vaccine schedule, living environment, genes, and et cetera will have an impact on the quality and nutrient density of the milk. So glutathione has glycine, cysteine, and glutamate. Cysteine initiates antioxidant activity. Glutamate strengthens amino acids present in the milk and synthesizes antioxidants. Raw milk is likely to have a greater density of amino acids than pasteurized milk due to the strength of the milk before pasteurization, as milk is extremely sensitive to heat. For example, tryptophan converts into serotonin and melatonin to regulate mood and sleep. Leucine triggers muscle protein synthesis and repairs muscle tissue. Lysine builds collagen and elastin for skin, bones, and connective tissue. Oh, 20 seconds, okay. Phenylalanine converts into brain chemicals like dopamine. Sorry if I don't pronounce it correctly. As you may be able to tell, these amino acids have life-giving functions as they help the body grow and feel happier and healthier. Another extended analysis shows 35 asthmatic and 49 non-asthmatic children from the Pasteur study. Okay, we'll continue this another time. But yeah, thank you for listening.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Ron Como. His topic is Exercising His Constitutional Rights to the Rescue 1983 Animal Services. He'll be followed by Barbara Valencia and Richard Mattersdorf.

Good morning. Good morning, Ron. How's everybody doing today? Good. So let's discuss some things that are interesting to me anyways. When our shelter plan was put into place, we had a meeting and they gave us the processes of what it was and what to expect in the plan. Oscar got excited and went, let's vote on it. Let's get it done. Someone told him because of policy and procedures that couldn't happen. The plan was as you produce the plan, you discuss the plan, and then you come back for a meeting to vote on it. When was Haas voted on? When was it proposed? Is that okay? We violated policy and procedures. El Paso Animal Services violated Texas state law 826033. Open intake is mandatory. It is not well worth full. Sorry, that's not how it works. All strays must be impounded. 826002, stray means roaming with no physical restraint beyond the animal's owner because we had a problem with the previous person kept saying everything was an owned dog so it wouldn't fall under this rule. They failed to impound strays after attacks. Failed to impound dogs abandoned by owners. The shelter failed to intake strays, leaving them on the streets in violation of Title VII. El Paso Animal Services falsified shelter reports, tampered with, too, and altered live release rates. Against Texas Penal Code 37.10. Signed NDAs, the best friends, violating the rights of employees and volunteers. Told ASAC, kind of followers, Robert's rules for city meetings is not really followed by ASAC. Bottom line, time to stop violating city policy, Texas laws, and the rules for meetings in Title VII. We need to get back in line. Why is the entire city violating laws, policies, and procedures when it comes to animal services? Do they have a get out of jail free card? Hardly. We need to hold them accountable, yet we're not. Why? Why are we not paying attention to the rules, regulations, policies and procedures and laws of the state of Texas? Because it's not convenient? That's not how this works. State of Texas laws are and have to be put in place. They have to be abided by. City does not overrule state, period. Thank you. Thank you.

The next speaker is Barbara Valencia. Her topic is animal services for the love of Rosie. She will be followed by Richard Mattersdorf and Pierre Andre Buzarraga. Yes, I too need the elbow, please.

Good morning.

Okay, thank you. In January 2026, you approved in addition to the city's title seven animal ordinance aimed at protecting residents and their pets. The additional ordinance defines what qualifies an aggressive dog and a vicious dog and outlines responsibilities for owners whose dogs are menacing, aggressive or cause serious injuries or death to another person's pet while running loose. Mayor and city council members, you celebrated the decision, praising yourselves for making the community safer. But in reality, the community is not safer and no one is being held accountable. On July 24th, 2026, a dog named Whiskey that's up there was running loose on Tohoku Avenue, came into a neighbor's garage where their cat Rosie was sleeping. and viciously grabbed the cat by the head, resulting in fatally injuring the cat. Shortly after the attack, another neighbor on Tohoka secured the dog. The dog owner picked up his dog and admitted his dog had gotten out on two previous occasions. Sadly, the third confirmed time the dog was running loose on the streets proved deadly.

That is Rosie.

Rosie's owners tried to report the vicious attack so the dog owner would be held accountable under the new ordinance, but were told there's no law against a dog killing a pet. When they spoke up about the new ordinance passed by city council in January, they were told it only applies if an animal control officer witnesses the incident. Photos, videos, and eyewitnesses didn't count, so no report would be filed. despite this dog's history of roaming freely and now having a confirmed kill. With multiple attempts within a four day period to file a report, Rosie's owners were shut down at every turn. And this is a pattern with you members of City Council. You present these shiny objects to deceive us, bringing forth and voting to approve ordinances under the guise of betterment for our community, just like the required litter permits and illegal sales of puppies ordinances that are not being enforced. The enhanced public and animal safety ordinance is another ordinance that was put on the books but not meant to be enforced. It's just a shiny object. How many more people in our community have faced the heartbreak of losing a beloved pet due to a dog running loose on the streets, only to be silenced when trying to report the attack? How many were brushed off when they tried to follow the ordinance of filing a report and eventually giving up on reporting it altogether? You approved this new ordinance, so it is your responsibility to address and fix this failure right away, to keep your promise of making the community safer for both residents and their pets. Rest in peace, Sweet Rosie. And Representative Rocha, this happened in your district. Thank you.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Richard Mattersdorf. Mr. Mattersdorf, if you're in the queue, star six please to unmute your telephone. Richard Mattersdorf, star six please. I don't see his phone number in the queue. We'll move on to Pierre Andre Uzaraga. He will be followed by Claudia Contreras Siller. Mr. Uzaraga's topic is Republican President Donald John Trump Senior. Again, a reminder that this is not the forum for political statements or campaigning.

Good morning.

Starting now?

Good morning.

Good morning. Good morning. Just a reminder, I am a federal government official, approved via the Federal Election Commission. And some intel before I get started. All any and every statement spoken up here at this podium, whether it be by me or by any one of the other members of public, are all considered legally and constitutionally a political statement. So just a reminder and for the record, I am running for president and commander in chief in 2028. And getting to my topic, and I'm looking at the time, let you know. Republican President Donald John Trump Sr. I know a lot of Republicans and Democrats are concerned with his fashions of running this nation. And so I'm here today to speak to you all to let you know that if you want someone in 2028, 2029 to hold that man accountable, liable and responsible, for his incompetences, I'm your man.

Sir, that's campaigning.

Yes, that's your first warning. Go ahead.

That's all I need to say for today. God Almighty bless you all, El Paso, the city of El Paso, Texas, my dear fellow Americans.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Claudia Contreras Siller. Ms. Siller, star six, if you're in the queue. Claudia Contreras Siller, star six, please. I don't see her. Oh, there she, I think she's, are you there, Ms. Siller? Hello, good morning. Good morning. Her topic is El Paso Strong. Go ahead, ma'am, you have three minutes.

Thank you so much for letting me get in the queue, and I want to give my most sincere condolences to all of the affected, the families, and everybody that loved the victims from Walmart. And that is something that affected all of us, especially the ones that saw everything that took place, our first responders. And I just want to say that they deserve all of our appreciation and honor. And let us not forget that El Paso Strong, it has a very profound meaning. And it's not just some words. But it has like a spiritual meaning and everything that has to do with our essence. And we need to have that in our hearts every single day. Also, I want to give a huge shout out to the communications for keeping us informed, especially feedback. I want to invite everybody to go to the Azcárate Pavilion, the 6th, at 6 p.m. to defend the Doctrine. There is a lot of things going on. And I want for people to speak up because it's against the public meetings act to refrain people to speak. And that part belongs to absolutely everybody in El Paso. And the clear, you know, like example is that the Memorial is there. People from all over the city are defending the duck pond. And I want to request for more backup because I spoke with Josie Caram, our only Second Chance Wildlife Rescue. She's the director, and she has been multiple times at City Hall. She told me that the ducks, most of the ducks are domestic, and they don't know how to fly. So if animal services takes over, they're going to euthanize them. So the community has spoken several times. We want to keep the duck pond, and that's practically the most important thing going on over there. And also I want to request again a proclamation for animal services and for our animal cruelty unit and for you all to back us up with a county. Thank you.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Sherry Medellin. Her topic is El Paso electric rates and flock cameras, and she will be followed by Jessie Romero.

Good morning.

Morning again morning. So I just reiterate anything that affects. My family personally and directly. I feel the need to speak. So, um, as y'all can tell, there is quite a bit of pushback with the El Paso Electric. I think you know. I don't know about you guys, but when I go out into maybe to Walmart to make a purchase or I have to go pay a bill, I always hear the enormous amount of bills that are being paid, three, $400 bills. bills and it just uh breaks my heart it really breaks my heart because you know where people it's like well pay electric bill but then i can't buy as much groceries as much food that i would like for for my family and i think that's a decision that people should not have to be making um when it comes to food or their electricity. I think if we remember the young man that came and spoke the last time a couple weeks back about his father and how a couple of fans here and there and I have a 15 year old that is on the spectrum and since we have a swamp cooler and it's not cool enough we've had to make accommodations with other cooling and I'm really worried about the light bill coming you know and I pray all the time, like, God, help me today. How am I going to feed my kids? How am I going to feed my boys? My 20-year-old son is not able to drive. He's working. But it comes to the point then, to what point are we going to have to accommodate for our families because our electric bills are out of control? And then recently with the flat cameras, I'm not sure that I'm not sure why the flock cameras were made. I know that there are talks about security and why not, it just seems that anything that's made for good in some term is used for not so good, for evil purposes, and I think that we need to keep them in check and make sure that they are being used to keep our community secure and not for people's personal uses. I do see where, not necessarily here in El Paso, but where law enforcement law enforcement officers have been fired for using them for personal use. So the more our technology grows at the same time, I think we need to find a balance in between El Paso Electric, I'm not sure what to say except that it is out of control. Thank you, have a good day.

Thank you.

The final speaker is Jesse Romero. Mr. Romero's topic is allocation of city resources.

Good morning, Mayor. Good morning. Good morning, city council members. I'm a security officer, which means I work throughout the city at the Beast, at Tornillo with Customs, at the airport. And what I've seen, I've seen a lot of things that I'm not really happy with. First of all, It took me about two years. I requested a speed bump in front of my street, and I got it two years after I requested it. Once I got approval for it, they went out there and they said, okay, there's what it's going to be. Next week, we'll just draw the lines. All right. After that, another week, they cut the lines where the speed bump's going to be. And after that, half of it was cut. They had a big truck. It was out there in the morning, 7 o'clock, and he would just wait until the other people got there, workers, at 9 o'clock, and they started, you know, cutting. They took off that much for half of the street, and then they filled it up and said, okay, we'll be back next week or the next day to do the other part, and they cut that much, and they put the cement, and they said, why are you putting... Or you're cutting it when the sheet's already fine. Oh, no, no, we got to do it again. I said, OK. And then finally, they put the speed bump. It took about six weeks. And guess where they put it? Right in front of my driveway. So if I want to get out, I have to get over the speed bump. And when I come in, it's around the speed bump. And I said, my gosh. But I've also seen at the airport, I did security, housekeeping also, and I saw people with a clipboard walking around, and they're saying, what are they doing? I asked them, what are you doing? Well, you've got to make sure all the fire extinguishers are valid. Every day, yeah, every day they change people, and they go out there and check the fire extinguishers. Those things are good for a year, but that's their job. I was working at Placita. Guess what? People were blowing off the leaves. I said, wait, the leaves are coming down. It's winter. And the leaves are coming down. I said, hey, guy, give me a break. It's called job security. And I thought, OK. And how many people were there? 10. And who was picking up the trash? A contractor. I mean, we have a lot of resources. But my biggest question is, we're going to get a lot of money from MEDA, which is good. Where's the money going to go to? A bigger budget for the city? Are we going to pay taxes? Are we going to reduce our taxes? That's my biggest question. You've got a lot of money coming in. Where are we going to allocate it? That's my biggest question. Are we going to use any of it to pay off our residential taxes? Jesse Romero, glad to meet you, glad to be here. But I do get frustrated. And I was going to go into a trash bin, but I'll forget about that part. OK, I'll say it. Tell you what, I've got 30 seconds. On my water bill, it says, let me see, one great trash bin, fee $21.50 a month. That's what we're paying. Guess what? If you want to replace it, it's $59. Is there a way we can actually buy the trash bin and not pay that $21 or the $21 every month times 12? That's about $260 times 10. We're talking $2,500 for a trash bin that has not been replaced in 10 years. Who's in charge of that? You guys are.

OK.

Thank you. Good day.

Thank you.

That concludes call to the public. Council, per the rules of order, no use of personal cellular devices nor personal communication should take place on the dais while the meeting is in session. Once you obtain the floor from the mayor, you will have up to 10 minutes for debate and may speak twice per debatable motion. Please speak into the microphone and refrain from side conversations at the dais while the meeting is in session. For those of you joining virtually, please mute your microphones to reduce any background noise. That brings us to the consent agenda. All matters listed under the consent agenda will be considered by city council to be routine and will be enacted by one motion unless separate discussion is requested by council members. Prior to the vote, members of the audience may ask questions regarding items on the consent agenda. When the vote has been taken, if an item has not been called out for separate discussion, the item has been approved. Council may, however, reconsider any item at any time during the meeting. Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Ms. Prine. I move, I make a motion to approve the consent agenda without any revisions. Second.

Okay, there's a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda. Ms. Prine?

Yes, there's a motion made by Mayor Pro Tem Chavez, seconded by alternate Mayor Pro Tem Fierro to approve the consent agenda as posted. On that motion, call for the vote. Aye. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. And the voting session? And that motion passes unanimously. We now turn to page number five. These are the first reading of ordinances, items 12 to 17. I make a motion to move on the first reading of the ordinances, Mayor.

There's a motion. Is there a second? Second. There's a motion and a second. Ms. Frey?

There's a motion made by Representative Limon, seconded by Representative Nino, and this is to approve the first reading of ordinances, items 12 to 17. On that motion, call for the vote. And the voting session, and that motion passes unanimously.

Okay, I believe that brings us to item number 18 on the regular agenda.

Yes, I didn't 18 is a public hearing of an ordinance authorizing the conveyance of real property owned by the city of El Paso to Carlos see beta but the for the purchase price of $80,300 the property legally described as lots went into block 25 Parkdale addition unit for in addition to the city of El Paso El Paso County, Texas.

Good morning, Mary look.

Good morning, mayor and council, Mary Lewis be no software, the record for the real estate division.

Can we see your presentation? I move to approve. OK, there's a motion to approve. Is there a second? Second. That's OK. There you go, Mary Lou.

IT, this is not real estate's presentation. This is for item 18, please. Thank you. This item is for the property sale of Fonseca and Mainzer, PID 27238. This property was brought before council in February of 2026, where you vetted the property for surplus property and approved its listing in accordance with the Texas local government code 253014. It was listed via marketed and marketed via broker for at least those 30 days on that multi-listing service. The cross streets for this property are Fonseca and Mainzer. It's approximately 0.25 acres in size. It's zoned R5SC, residential special contract. It was listed on February 9th. The proposed buyer is Carlos Silveira Padilla. The appraised value is $78,500, and the purchase price is $80,300 plus closing costs. There are two offers, and we are recommending that we sell this property to the highest offer.

Okay, very good. Any questions for Mary Lou on item number 18? Okay, Ms. Pryor.

The motion was made by Representative Acevedo, seconded by Representative Canales, and this is to adopt the ordinance on item 18. There's no public comment on that motion. Call for the vote. in the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. Alternate Mayor Pro Tem Piero not present.

Okay, let's take item number 19, please.

Did you want me to read all three together?

We can take them one by one. When we get to the second item, item 20, when we get to the action part, I'll let you know.

OK.

Item 19 is presentation and submission of appraisal roll certified anticipated collection rate for the current year, the no new revenue tax rate and voter approval tax rate for FY 2026, 2027 taxes. Good morning.

Good morning, Mayor and City Council. Robert Cortina, City Manager's Office. So as Ms. Prime mentioned, we have three items that I'll be covering, the first of which we will go through the appraisal roll, which we received from the Central Appraisal District on July the 24th, show you the tax rates that are required to be presented, the no new revenue, the voter approval rate, and the certified collection rate. The second presentation on item 20 and 21 will lead into additional discussion in relation to this particular item and then the recommended tax rate that we will be recommending for approval on August the 18th. But as I mentioned, this presentation will cover the overall certified appraisal role for the FY 2027 budget and, again, those calculations on the tax rates. so as you all are aware we've been discussing budget now for the fy 2027 budget development process going back to may the 27th even further than that with some of the initial briefings that we've done and presentations built into the budget that we presented on may the 27th to the public and to you all We had an estimate built in on what we thought those certified values were going to come in at. So you'll see on the slide here what was built in was estimated $57.5 billion. $57.5 billion. The actual certified amount we received from the appraisal district on July the 24th came in at $57.1 billion. So a difference of about four hundred and fifteen million dollars of taxable value or a difference from our projection of less than one percent So point seven percent so a little bit less than one percent difference So as we get into item number 20, we'll cover what that impact means on the general fund But one of the things it's important to point out we're talking about a large amount to to try to forecast and estimate what? Those values are going to come in at Particularly because we're dealing with limited data. And so again I mentioned that The budget office begins developing the budget in March, actually in February, but really in March is when we start working in really solidifying revenue projections. That's prior to even receiving the preliminary values that we received from the appraisal district. So this slide shows one piece of information. I covered this when I did the briefing with you all last week. One of the pieces of information that we use, not only for the development process for that given year, but looking into the future, is we compare the preliminary value reports that we received from the Peel's district in April compared to the actual certified or final valuation reports that we received at the end of July. So that really just kind of helps provide a guide on what that fluctuation or what that change looks like by the time all of the protests are settled. And so this slide shows you the last several years, going back to 2016, and the number of that percentage change really does fluctuate year over year. You'll see for tax year 2026, which is fiscal year 2027, that reduction came in at 6.23%. A little bit higher than we estimated again. But again, that percentage is much higher than what we've seen even in the last three or five years when you look at the three and five year average. So again, when we're doing these projections, it's utilizing these preliminary reports, but then also all of the historic data that we have as well. So again, a little bit challenging. We're not perfect, but to be off by less than 1%, pretty good job by the budget office in coming up with the estimate for the overall property values. So this shows you the appraised, and it'll walk you through the different items to get to the taxable property value change. So the appraised property value, you'll see at the top there, increasing from 75.9 billion up to 77.7. The homestead cap, you'll see actually decrease from 3.3 billion down to 1.9 billion. That homestead cap is all of the property valuation that exceeds the 10% on those homesteads in a given year. So homesteads can only increase by 10% in a given year, and so this value reflects that amount that exceeds. The 23.231 cap, that's the circuit breaker. This is the amount on commercial businesses that exceeds 20%. And so that was approved by the state legislative session a few sessions ago. And so you'll see that amount decreasing as well from $639 million to $611 million. And then that gets to the assessed property values. And so you take the assessed and then you minus all of the exemptions. And we've had a lot of discussion about exemptions. And I'll show you some information on the presentation in item number 20. But you'll see the exemptions amount increasing from $16 billion up to $18 billion. That's a $2 billion in the exemption value, and a big portion of that is coming from the impact of the business personal property tax exemption, which will go into effect this year. So once you subtract that, you get to the total property taxable value there, increasing from $55.9 up to $57.1 billion. This next slide shows you the changes in certified property values going back to 2018, so for the last 10 years. And you will see that in the last couple of years, we've seen that amount start to decrease. We are all well aware the significant impacts or the significant increases that homeowners are facing in the valuation of their homes. And so you see 2023, 24, and 25, we saw almost double-digit growth in each of those years. In the last couple of years, we've seen those values really start to kind of taper off the overall taxable value. So one of the things that's important to note on this slide, you all may remember back in February, we do that five-year forecast every year. And one of the things that plays an important role in that five-year forecast is this projection, looking out into the future. And so as we're talking about the budget in a given year, again, we're always, again, focused on the impact in this particular given year, but then also looking ahead. And so this will probably be a trend that we'll see for the next few years of property values as far as the growth being very, very flat. So probably around 2% to 3% over the next few years. This slide just shows you the overall change in the actual amount, again, of the certified taxable values. So again, increasing from the 55.9 up to the 57.1. Really the point of this slide, when you look from 2018 to 2022, pretty flat as far as the growth. Again, averaging around 2.5% to 3%. And then as I mentioned, we saw in 2023, 24, and 25, those almost double-digit increases every year. And then now we, again, start to see that kind of tapering off of the overall change. The next few slides are breaking down the major categories of the overall taxable value. So looking at the single family component of the overall tax base, increasing from $35 billion up to $36.7 billion. which represents about 63% of the overall tax base. And then on the right hand side, you'll see the year to year change. So from last year to this year, that represents an increase of 4.8%. And again, just what I mentioned here, you'll see that amount begin to decrease year over year as more and more homeowners now are seeing their valuations begin to stabilize. As we look to the multifamily category, again, a small component of the overall tax base. But we do provide you all an update with where these values stand. And so again, pretty flat, only increasing by a little bit less than $100 million, from $3.2 to $3.3 billion. And then that percentage change you'll see is just a little bit around 2% compared to the prior year. I broke down commercial property into two slides. So you have the real commercial property on this slide, and I'll show you the personal property on the next slide. Breaking these out so you all can really see and really highlight one of the things that we've talked a lot about, again, the impact of the business personal property tax exemption. So as we look to the real property for commercial businesses, you'll see the increase from 10.3 to 10.4 billion, or that represents about a 1.4% increase from the prior year on the real commercial property. And so this is one that we've had a lot of discussion about over the last several months, and we'll have a little bit more of a discussion here on the next presentation when we get to item number 20. But as we look to the commercial personal property valuation, you'll see that decrease from 3.2 down to 2.4 billion. So a little over $800 million loss of taxable value on the personal commercial property. Or on the right-hand slide, you'll see that graph showing a decrease of about 26%. So that over $800 million represented about a 26% decrease on the personal commercial property valuation. This is another slide that we talked a lot about going back to, again, almost 10 weeks ago when we presented the budget publicly for the FY2027 budget. So the average taxable value home, this is the information provided by Cadigan on July the 24th. The change from 2026, so last year to this year, is about $2,088. So going from 230,581 up to 232,669. So a little bit less, again. So that's, again, one of the things that we're working to factor in. So we presented on May the 27th what that estimated impact was going to be on the average homeowner. That amount will change. So this average impact is a little bit less than what we had anticipated, which is good. Again, property value stabilizing, as I mentioned. But that'll have a little bit of an impact on the discussion that we will discuss when we get into item number 20. And then the last slide for this presentation, again, we are required to present this information to you all. And so the tax assessor collector, Ms. Maria Pacias, bless her, her and her team does a fantastic job because she does the calculations not only for the city of El Paso, but for all of the taxing entities. And so they've been extremely busy the last few weeks. All of the worksheets are posted to the backup to show those calculations that are done by her and her team. And for the City of El Paso for FY2027, the no new revenue rate calculated at the 747490, and the voter approval rate calculated at .809487. And then we're also required to present the certified collection rate, and that's based on the average of the last three years. And so the, again, Tax Assessor Collector has certified the 98.27 collection rate. So there's no action on this item. It's just again a presentation on the overall appraisal that we received from the appraisal district and the information that you see on slide number 13.

Representative Rocha.

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Robert, for the information. I know there was a question earlier about how small businesses are going to be, you know, we're all negatively affected right now by electric bills and utility bills. Can you just explain a little bit more about what the businesses, the small businesses are getting in result of the change that took place at the state level?

Absolutely. Thank you. IT will bring that presentation back up. So there's actually two things that businesses receive as far as a reduction in their property tax bill. So I'm going to go back to the opening slide, one of the opening slides. So on this one, so that 23.231 cap, So the state a few sessions ago passed something very similar to what homeowners have. So homeowners have that protection in place that right now prevents their home value, the appraised value, increasing by more than 10% in a given year. That's really so a homeowner, if they see a huge increase in their home value, don't get hit with a huge increase because of the value change. And so the state passed something very similar and placed a 20% cap. So a small business or business in general, property value can't increase right now by more than 20% in a given year. So that's one. And then the second one is in the exemptions, which we'll talk a little bit more, and I have the actual property tax impact, is the business personal property tax exemption, which the state passed in the session last year and was ultimately approved by the voters in November of this past year as well. And so what that exemption does, there's about 22,000 of those right now that have filed with CAD so far. So anybody can go and file, just like all of the other exemptions that are provided. file to receive that exemption amount. And so what that does is it gives essentially a reduction on their personal property, so not on the personal property, up to $125,000. So whatever that value is on their personal property, you reduce $125,000, and then they would pay taxes on whatever amount is left. pretty significant actually for businesses. And so if you have a small business, they may not be at that 425,000, but they would get up to. So basically it would be saving on all of their personal property.

And that's up from what right now, Robert?

$2,500.

So it was $2,500 previously, and now it's going to $125,000.

And so the property tax revenue impact, I'll just jump ahead since we're having that discussion, is about $7 million a year. And so that's important because as we get into the next presentation, and so that's important because the $125,000 exemption currently, you may or may not remember in the state legislative session last year, that the bills that were being pushed at the time were actually pushing to make that $250,000 exemption. So more than double what was ultimately voted and approved by the voters. And so as we get into discussions again on this next particular item, those are things that we know are going to happen in this next legislative session. You all have already set your state agenda for next session on the things that are important to you all. But that's something, again, that we continue to monitor and that we have an eye on is we know that right now the push is to continue to provide tax relief, whether it's for homeowners or businesses, which ultimately, in the case of this particular budget, which we'll discuss in a minute, does have an impact on the property tax revenue that the city is able to generate.

Thank you for that. And is there any information from the CAD at this point as to how many homeowners went and protested their property values by any chance?

I don't have it right now. But yes, they will be able to provide me that information, and we can get that out to them.

Yeah, no problem. It was just a question. Thank you, Robert.

You're welcome.

Representative Canales.

Thank you, Robert. Just want to ask a quick clarifying question because several people have asked me. I think someone who doesn't run a business or doesn't have experience running a business doesn't necessarily understand business personal property tax. The name isn't very descriptive. I know you called it commercial personal property as well in the presentation. Can you talk a little bit about what exactly is being exempted?

So it's all of the components inside the building. So it's computers or whatever it takes to actually run your business. That's all personal property. So it's not the land or the building. It's everything inside. So if you have a large manufacturing business or any type of manufacturing business, it's the equipment, the machines, all of that type of items. Plus inventory, right?

It's movable, income-generating property within the business. correct okay and so any business is now exempted up to 125 000 in value on that income generating property yeah i think people get confused by the word personal there as if it's like owned by a single person it is the business's uh property that is income generating okay just wanted to be clear because i think again a lot of people have asked me what that means and i think it's important that we explain thank you

And Robert, I know you're not the central appraisal district, but does the county or the city set the property tax values?

ROBERT MILLARD JR.: No, sir. So that is done by the central appraisal district, who does the valuations for all of the tax entities. And the city pays for that service. And so they are state regulated. The city right now pays about 25% of the appraisal district budget. So that $7.8 million for this coming fiscal year that the city of El Paso will pay the appraisal district to provide those services.

OK. So we don't set those values?

No, sir.

OK. All right. Any further questions on this particular item, number 19? We have a public comment?

Yes, sir. We have Mr. .

Oh, I'm sorry. Representative Chavez.

Thank you, Mayor. I apologize. Just one question real quick, Robert, on slide number 6, where you describe property tax valuations in the last few years. Am I correct to say that property valuations increased by 2.2% and the last time we saw that low of an increase was 2020? Yes. Do you know why the market fluctuated so much between 2020 and 2027's valuations? We see some spikes there in 2023, a big jump to 13%.

It was the housing demand. And so we saw housing prices rise dramatically like never seen before in El Paso. And so we saw the average value home. And they didn't go back that far. But when we look at the average value home, if I were to go all the way back, I mean, at one point, those homes were around $130,000 was the average value for almost a decade in the city of El Paso.

And I think from what I know and what I've had conversations with people that do real estate, that was happening nationwide really after the pandemic. There was a large surge in demand for homes and the market was trying to reestablish itself for some time there. So is it safe to say that we think that valuations are now a little bit more under control, a little more stable at this time?

Yes. Yes, the market has definitely stabilized. And you see that from these different graphs, whether it's the change in the average single-family home or you see that slide I showed you 2.2% it's a little misleading because again that's the big impact is a result of that business personal property tax exemption amount so that brought that overall change down a little bit but you'll see essentially getting back to where we were prior to this housing boom right that 2023 housing boom getting back to that two to three percent average in our average taxable value.

Right, and we talk a lot about affordability and the opportunities that people want in order to purchase a home. And so, you know, these big spikes in home prices make it a little bit more difficult for people to enter into the housing market. But in addition to that, I think it's important for people to know that if you do own your home, then hopefully you have a little bit more, a bigger asset there when you do come to sell it. Thank you, Robert.

Thank you, Robert. Ms. Frey, we have public comment on this item?

Yes, sir. We have Mr. Sam Armijo.

Good morning. Good morning, Mayor Johnson and district representatives. Good morning. I will be brief. Today you are evaluating what tax rate to set for the next fiscal year. I believe the most important tax rate to the citizens of El Paso is the no new revenue tax rate. As you know, this is the only option that can keep El Paso's homeowners' property taxes at the same levels as the current year. This option was selected by the previous city council led by Mayor Leaser District 1 representative, and I believe the CFO, Mr. Cortinez. This resulted in a budget that was adequate. It protected taxpayers and provided adequate funding for all essential services of the city. I urge you to select the no new revenue tax rate as you finalize and adopt next year's budget. Thank you.

Thank you.

That concludes public comment. We go to item 20, and this is presentation, discussion, and action on the FY 2026-2027 proposed budget.

OK. Is there a motion to approve this item?

Can we see the presentation?

Sure. Let's see it first.

Yeah. So on this particular item, as we get to the end, I'll let you all know what I'm going to recommend as far as the actions that will be requested for on this item and the next item, item 21. So this presentation is going to cover several items. So one, we wanted to take the opportunity, especially since we have media here covering today, we will do essentially a recap on the budget development timeline. We'll go through some of the things that we talked about going back through, again, that May timeline when we did the public presentations at the end of May. We'll go through some of the budget highlights, some of the things really driving and incorporating into the budget for next year. And then we'll get into the discussion about the proposed budget and what we're recommending moving forward for the next two weeks. So this is, again, a timeline of what we've gone through. So as I mentioned, it's been about 10 weeks now that we've been discussing publicly the budget. But really, this goes back to beginning of this calendar year in January when we started doing budget presentations beginning in January. So you got to see a couple of different presentations related to revenue. You got to see a presentation related to our five-year forecast. We did the presentation on ARPA and some other challenges that we were planning to experience into this fiscal year. And you'll see where we are currently today. So again, today we are doing the introduction of the tax rate, which will be item 21. THAT'S GOING TO BE AN IMPORTANT STEP BECAUSE THAT SETS FORTH THE REQUIREMENT FOR US TO DO THE PUBLICATIONS IN THE NEWSPAPER, WE'LL PUBLISH ON CITY TV, WE'LL PUBLISH ON THE CITY'S WEBSITE TO NOTIFY THE PUBLIC WHEN THOSE PUBLIC HEARINGS WILL BE. AND THEN TWO WEEKS FROM TODAY WILL BE THE ADOPTION OF THE BUDGET AND THE TAX RATE FOR THE FY2027 BUDGET. So as we talk about the budget development for FY2027, again, really the focus, as Ms. Mack has mentioned several, several times, and you all have mentioned as well publicly, is really taking care of what we have. This budget does not expand or add additional programs. It does not bring new things into the budget for next year. There is no funding for the deck plaza built into the budget for 2027. And so it really is about focusing on the core city services that we provide and so One of the big changes that we implemented in this budget process was the change to the program-based budgeting and so anybody Can go on the city website access the proposed budget and it's a much much user-friendly Document than it had been in the past So you can actually look at all of the various programs for each of the city departments. You have a summary that explains what those different programs are. It shows you the dollars associated with those different programs. Much, much easier to read. But a lot of those programs, and you got to hear from the 30-plus department heads that presented it, again, those May 27th and 28th presentations, everything from police and fire, streets and maintenance, parks, libraries, public health, animal services, all of the different programs that the city provides. Second bullet point about the long-term financial sustainability Essentially again you hear this hear us say this over and over and over whether it's the city manager or myself is that The decisions and the recommendations that we present to you all will have an impact either positively or negatively into the future So past decisions, past actions can and will have an impact on future budgets. And so as we get into a little bit further in this budget and at this presentation, and you'll see the recommendation, you'll see really the thought behind why the city is recommending what we're recommending. And so again, the ultimate goal is to ensure that long-term financial sustainability. It's our jobs to make sure that we are looking into the future so that we go into this eyes wide open and we fully understand the impacts of the decision today and what that may have as far as an impact into the future. We just talked a little bit about the impact from the loss of property tax revenue from the business personal property tax exemption. We have increasing public safety costs, which we'll talk about here in just a few minutes as well. We also have an increase of about $5 million in our debt service. And so this is to fund the capital projects approved by the voters for the public safety bond projects, as well as the community progress bonds as well. And so we do have an increase in our debt service for next year. And then finally, the last bullet point on there, which is a very, very important one, is that this budget that you all have been hearing about for the last 10 weeks now, enough for your consideration to be adopted in two weeks, does not, and I'll say it again, does not include the use of fund balance. And so this will be the first budget in the last three years that we have developed a financially sustainable budget that relies upon reoccurring revenue to fund reoccurring expenses. So this budget, again, does not include any use of fund balance or one-time revenue to essentially plug the gap and fill the hole to balance the budget. So very, very important point to make there. As we talk about what has the city done, You all hear, we hear comments that are made. The city needs to look at reducing the budget. They need to eliminate waste. And we do that. We have a very thorough, very extensive process to make sure that we are identifying any potential savings, identifying any potential reductions that could be made or implemented into our city departments. And you all got to hear again from over 30 departments that presented to you all what they provide as far as services. But then also we talked a lot about their vacant positions and what that impact may or may not have on their operations into the future. And so as part of this budget, again, we have either eliminated or unfunded about three quarters of the overall vacancies. We've identified some additional funding and other sources to be able to offset some impacts related to our IT cost that we have for next year. We do a full thorough and really looking at some of the larger departments of looking at line items and making reductions, aligning those budgets to the actual expenditures in the last few years. That's the job of the budget office. That's what Sasha and his team get to do in March and April as we're leading up to developing the budget is they work very closely with the departments to ensure that we're taking those adjustments everywhere we can to make sure that we really are developing the best budget possible for our community. As we look to some of the highlights that are built into the budget, I talked a little bit about the program-based budgeting. So again, really just ultimately about how do we make things easier for the public to understand what is really built into the budget. And so that shift to the program-based budgeting first year that we did the full implementation. Last year, we did a pilot project and started with a few departments. But this year, we have shifted every city department. Obviously, we're going to get better. We're going to go back next year and identify how we can make it even better. But again, that document is much easier to read now than it had been in the past. Additionally, there are some items in the budget for next year that are fixed costs and that we don't have an option whether or not we fund. So, for example, we have the election in this coming November. The county is the one that administrates the elections. The city has to pay essentially what the county says is our portion for the election. And for next year or for this election, it's going to be about $1.5 million. That's a fixed cost. That's a cost that we have to build into the budget, unfortunately, for FY 2027. As we move to our economic mobility pillar, a lot of discussion about our city staff. And I talked just a minute ago about those vacancies and what we've done to, again, lower as much as we can those personnel costs related to our workforce by unfunding or deleting those vacant positions. But it really is about making sure we're taking care of our existing staff and the staff that we do have And so in the budget for next year, we have an increase of 50 cents to the city's minimum wage So going from 1575 up to 16 dollars and 25 cents or at least a two and a half percent So every civilian non-uniform employee will receive at least two and a half percent pay increase Which will become effective on September 20th 2026 And again, this was a City Council item that you all took action to attempt to get to that living wage. We will not be at that living wage. The living wage for one adult and no children right now is $18.54. Or for two adults with one child, it's just under $18 an hour. And so the city will still be well below that. Additionally, for our city employees, we have no increase in their health care contributions built in for next year as well. And this will be the ninth consecutive year that we've done that. So again, really making sure that we're taking care of our existing workforce that are the ones doing the day-to-day providing of those city services. As we look to public safety, again, there's a lot of information on this slide. Some of the key things related to our public safety departments, again, are the wage and benefits that are built into those departments. And again, those are aligned to the collective bargaining agreements for those respective departments. We have, again, the $9.4 million in annual pay-go funding. So we have essentially cash built into the budget to replace vehicles for both our police and fire departments. We have multiple academies planned for both departments. So we have three academies planned for the police department. So the next graduation will be in September. And so Chief Pacilla, they make it very easy for us to remember when those graduations are going to be. It's 9-1-5, so September, January, and May. And so there will be three academies next year. We have two academies for the fire department. One of the big impacts on the budget for next year as well related to public safety is we're shifting about 37 positions from police and fire out of non-general funds, whether it's grants or some other restricted funding. And because of that funding no longer being available, we are now shifting those costs into the general fund. So that's about 37 additional positions. And then one of the things that we talked a lot about as well, one of the big drivers is the increase in our information technology contracts. So we have between our P25 public radio, public safety radio system, And the contract increase for the crisis intervention team that we have with the Emergency Health Network, that's about a $2.5 million increase. Now, thanks to Mayor Johnson and City Council, you all did approve, and we did apply for some grants to help offset these costs a little bit. You'll see the COPS grant and the SAFER grant there. Again, those are grants that will be over a three-year time period, so 18 officers over three years for the COPS, and then the SAFER grant as well for our fire departments. On the infrastructure pillar, so we still do have in the budget for next year, the $10 million of annual funding for street resurfacing projects. We have our $4.9 million for citywide facility maintenance, which you all saw that presentation from Randy Garcia here recently. Our streets and maintenance departments are responsible for maintaining over 300 city facilities. And the scary figure that he presented to you, over 60% of those buildings are more than 30 years old. And so we have, again, only $4.9 million to maintain over 300 city facilities. And so they do the best they can to ensure that those buildings are fully operational and that we don't run into impacts of having to shut those buildings down. So whether it's replacing roofs, looking at the HVAC systems, everything that we need to keep those facilities up and running for our community to take advantage of. As we look to the quality of life, just some of the points here. Again, all of these presentations are posted publicly. And so there was much, much more thorough information presented on May 27th and 28th. But we still have the pay go funding for park amenity replacements. We have an increase from the general fund to animal services of about $1.5 million increase next year. Ms. Mack and I were talking the other day and looking at the general fund allocation for animal services has increased by 92% in the last five years. So in the last five years, the general fund allocation has gone from $9 million a year up to $17.4 million in this coming fiscal year. So a 92% increase from the general fund to help fund our animal services department. So that's significant investment in maintaining our animal services operational cost. One of the slides that we presented during the community meeting presentations that we did on June the 1st through June the 11th, and a lot of our community residents were very surprised to see the slide. And when we walked them through, the largest expense for the city general fund is our public safety departments, our police and fire departments. For the proposed budget, just over 371 million. That's about 56% of the overall proposed budget. When you look to the right-hand side, our largest revenue source is property taxes. Equates for just about 50% of the overall revenue for the general fund. And so when you look at those two largest, revenues versus the expenses, our property taxes revenue does not even fully fund our two largest city departments. So we bring in about $328 million for, again, this is the proposed budget, $328 million in revenue, and those two departments are around $371 million. Lot of people were very surprised to hear that that property taxes does not even fully fund those two departments And so it really does highlight some of the the budget challenges that I mentioned and that we'll discuss here in just a minute So as a recap on the overall process, again, I mentioned that May 27th and 28th, you all got to hear, I think it was 33 or 34 different presentations from all of our departments. Ms. Mack and myself and the budget team and some of the other senior leaders, we did all of the community meetings June the 1st through the 11th. We came back on June 23rd. I remember that marathon meeting. We went until 10 o'clock that night. We did another round of budget workshops with you all. We ran through the community feedback. We talked about the council budget request. And then this will lead me into the next couple of slides here. So we did have some discussion in the Welcome Center. So as a follow-up to some of that discussion and I apologize, it's a little small on the screen here But again, this is posted in the backup as well. But overall the city does have in the 2027 budget and through some other sources that extend beyond 2027 that's actually three years of funding but overall for homelessness and the response the city has about 3.1 million in federal funding and And you'll see the list here that it's multiple nonprofits that the city does partner with to provide these types of services. But again, about $3.1 million towards these services right now. When it comes to the Welcome Center, again, and I believe you all have been briefed, I know that city staff and I believe Mr. Martin have been reaching out to each of you all. And this was the request that came through. And so again, up for consideration is a request for $380,000, which covered the time period from September of 2026 through February of 2027. And again, this would allow them to maintain the Welcome Center at 24-7 access point. And so again the monthly amount raised a little bit just depending upon but it's a little over 60,000 a month So the requests be for three hundred and eighty thousand which we could find again as they briefed on June 23rd. We do have Available ARPA funding that we have generated through the investment interest on that ARPA funding to the tune of about four hundred and thirty thousand and so that would be more than enough to be able to cover this request of three hundred and eighty thousand And so if Council does want to make a motion on this item, once we get to the end of everything, I would ask that we make a separate motion on this particular item, since this would come from the ARPA funding and not directly from the 2027 adopted budget. Still would be incorporated, but it would come from the ARPA funding. So it'd be cleaner if we just do separate motions for that item. So as I mentioned, again, in that first presentation, when we received the certified values on July 24, the overall change from what we had built into the budget was about less than 1% of a difference. Talked about the change in the overall taxable growth and the change in the average value home. Again, that $230,000 up to $232,000 on the single family home. And then on this slide, showing the impact of the state and local tax exemptions. And so you see that business personal property, about $7 million of essentially lost property tax revenue that the city will collect in the 2027 budget as a result of that tax relief for our businesses. You'll see the other exemptions as well. So overall about a thirteen point five million dollar increase Essentially in tax relief for these groups Which means that that's thirteen and a half million dollars less that the city will collect as far as taxable revenue for the city We talked about these different groups, and so we talked about what's on the state legislative agenda. So we're going to work really, really hard to go to the state next year and attempt to get them to provide more reimbursements on those disabled veteran exemptions and the impact that it has on the city. So we'll work on that for this next legislative agenda. But you'll see overall over $58 million of property tax relief for an increase of about $13.5 million. So as I mentioned, the certified values that we received did come in slightly lower. So you see the overall change from what was built into the budget that we presented back on May the 27th. On the general fund portion, you'll see about a $5.2 million decrease. So we have a recommendation for how to make that up. And then on the debt service, which is actually good, our debt service amount went down based on the refunding and based on the amount we need to fund our debt service for next year. And we'll get into the recommendations on on this particular item in here in just a minute. But really what I wanted to talk about, and we've talked a lot about this, not only as part of this budget process, but last budget process. And we've had a lot of discussion about, again, looking at the budget not as a standalone year, but as we're looking to, especially with our collective bargaining agreement. So these are four-year agreements. We are currently in negotiations with our fire union. our local 51 to come to an agreement on their new collective bargaining agreement but these are going to be four-year commitments and so one of the things this mac can make sure that we are going into this eyes wide open and we're fully aware of is that we need to be able to fund this agreement not only this fiscal year but as we look to the future as well we have our police collective bargaining agreement which expires next year The preservation of fund balance. I just spoke a minute ago about the importance of this budget and how we've developed this budget with no use of fund balance. So we are not having to use that one-time revenue to balance the budget. We are using reoccurring revenue to fund reoccurring expenses, which sounds simple, but the city for three years, going back to not only this past fiscal year, but the two years prior in the years in which the city adopted the no new revenue rate, and we just heard a gentleman make that comment about the no new revenue rate. The no new revenue rate became a very popular term. And I think we all understand the importance of lowering taxes as much as possible. And I told you all this when we briefed you all. The city manager, myself, we do not take these recommendations lightly. We do not take them lightly. So using that one-time revenue to get to the no new revenue rate those two years, the city used fund balance to essentially achieve that no new revenue rate. It was the direction at the time, but it has ramifications. As I mentioned, every decision that the city makes will have either a positive or negative impact on the following year or years. So essentially what happened those two years is yes, the city kept the Didn't keep the tax rate the same because we actually decreased the tax rate But we did that no new revenue rate, but essentially what that did Was we took one-time revenue to balance the budget we deferred investment in our facilities and our equipment We didn't give a pay raise as high as we're giving now. It was a little bit lower of a pay raise We actually split the play raise over multiple Did half and then half at the end of the fiscal year So there was a lot of sort of one-time adjustments that made that happen That's not sustainable We made it happen. That was direction. We made it happen It wasn't ideal, but that was what it took to get that budget passed And so now we're dealing with that we're dealing with how do we make it the revenue to fund the city services without? having a major impact on the day-to-day services that the city provides and We all went through the impact of COVID. Coming out of COVID, we heard a lot of our community saying they wanted their recreation centers, they wanted their senior centers opened. All of these services play an important role in the daily lives of our community. Whether they're relying upon police or fire, they're relying upon our streets being fixed, the libraries, our parks, 236 programs the city provides. So there's a lot at play. I'll give you sort of a long-winded dialogue there, but I think that it's important that, again, we go back to keeping that in the back of our mind is that decisions we make today will have an impact on the future. The preservation of fund balance is critical. So in the last year, we've seen a decrease of about $15 million in our fund balance. $7 million of that was a part of the FY 2025 adopted budget. I just mentioned that no new revenue rate. $7 million of that was from that fiscal year, which was included as part of the adopted budget. $7 million to balance the budget. Our fund balance decreased by $7 million that year. We had the recent litigation settlement of another $8 million. So within the last year, our fund balance has now decreased by $15 million. We are still in a very healthy situation financially with our fund balance, though. We are still projected right now to finish this fiscal year and start FY2027 at about 65 operating days, so still above that 60-day target. But our concern, again, as we're looking to the future, is we were at 88 operating days three years ago. And we're now projected to be at 65. As we talk about state legislative actions, I want to just mention a little bit about that and what the state was looking at as far as that business personal property tax exemption that was ultimately approved at $125,000 was originally slated to be $250,000, would have had double the impact. So instead of $7 million, it would have been over $14 million potentially. Other items that we continue to monitor, different committee meetings that are going on now looking at different revenue sources, we don't know what the future holds. The thing that we have to think about though is what position do we want the city to be in next year if something does happen? And that's the thing we need to keep in the back of our mind is if the city does lose revenue next year or has an impact on revenue generating ability next year, what position do we want the city to be in? And so I talked about the public safety and the collective bargaining agreements, and that is one of the big ones because, again, those are four-year commitments. We'll talk about more of that in just a minute. So the recommendation. The recommendation is to add an additional 2.6 cents on top of what we presented on May the 27th. So originally, the recommendation was to increase the property tax rate by 2.3 cents. So this would add an additional 2.6 cents, so a total of 4.9 cents increase on the tax rate. So 0.9, or just under 1 cent of that amount, would go to make up that impact on the lower than anticipated certified property values. So that would make up that 5.2 million to account for the amount that was in the proposed budget for FY27. Additionally, we're recommending to add an additional 1.7 cents that will generate an additional $9.7 million in property tax revenue. i'm going to get to the recommendation and how we would allocate that funding here in just a second so this would be the change in the overall property tax rate from the current 2026 adopted up to this recommended rate you'll see on the far right hand column there the overall change is that 4.9 cents that i just mentioned a small portion of that coming from the debt service and majority of that coming from the change or the increase in the operating the maintenance component of the tax rate To put it in a different way of what I just showed you all on the impact of some of these items, if you were to take these voter-approved items here, whether it's the business personal property tax exemption, the increase from last year to this year, a loss of property tax revenue on the disabled veteran exemption, and then the impact from the voter-approved bonds that we just issued this past June, that equates to almost $0.03 out of that $0.05 just on these three items. So about, again, approximately $0.03 out of the overall $0.05 increase from those particular items. On this slide, taking into account the change in that single family home that I showed you all, taking into account that change in the property tax rate that I just showed you, this would be the annual impact. So on homestead, so for families that are homestead primary residents, the city has just over 141,000 homestead exemptions. The annual impact would be $132 a year or $11 a month. For our seniors and our disabled that have the exemption, we have almost 60,000 homeowners that have one of those exemptions, the impact would be $110. On the average disabled veteran exemption, which we have over 28,000 of those exemptions, the annual impact on average, and again, their exemption amount varies depending upon the disability ranking, but if you just take the total, total value and the total number, the average value would be $5 a year. And so this would be the recommendation on how these funds would be allocated. If the city council is in agreement with the recommendation on this $9.7 million, once we get to the actual action items, we would actually ask that we take action on item number 21 to introduce the tax rate first, because then that sets forth the actual, we actually have the $9.7 million to actually allocate based on that tax rate. And so the allocation for this $9.7 million, and we have a slide for each of these items, but we're recommending $700,000 towards street light and park light illumination program, $1 million for animal services vehicles, and then the remaining $8 million to be placed into our contingency account to ensure that we're able to fund into the future again, public safety commitments, additional council priorities that may come about, ensure that we're preserving fund balance or other unknown impacts that the city may face over the next year. On the street and park lighting maintenance program, The request is for $700,000 for a couple of additional positions. This would allow them to purchase two additional trucks and then the materials and supplies needed to repair street lights or park lights. I do want to clarify something that I briefed you on. And so I've been meeting with Randy over the last couple of days. You'll see that faster response to 24 to 48 hours for safety issues. So this is for park lights And so right now there's a backlog of about 32 park lights that are down This would allow us to have a dedicated staff that would handle the park light replacements. And so this would again Improve that response time the street light repair time Right now it kind of fluctuates. I believe it's about a 78 day turnaround time right now and so again, they would monitor that and They would have their street maintenance team to be able to dedicate their efforts towards street lights and have the park team dedicated towards the park light programs, really focusing on, again, those safety issues. So again, this would add two additional positions, the purchase of two vehicles, and then all of the materials and supplies for that program. For Animal Services, so again, we had a little bit of discussion about the facilities, but the vehicles is the same situation, whether it's vehicles or heavy equipment. The Animal Services Department has a total of 35 vehicles, 23 of which are more than 10 years old. Pretty much have reached their end of their useful life. And so what the request is to allocate an additional $1 million towards the purchase of six vehicles. for animal protection officers, and then the replacement of the adoption and the multipurpose bus, so this would purchase a new bus that could go out to different community events throughout the year. Unfortunately, in the past year, they've had to decline invitations to 30 different programs or events throughout the community because the bus is always broken, the air conditioning doesn't work, so they're not able to take that vehicle out, again, to enhance and increase the number of adoptions that are done in the community. So the recommendation on here, Again, $1 million for six new trucks and then the replacement of the adoption bus. On the fire collective bargaining status, and so I mentioned again that $8 million that would go into the city's contingency account. The city has been negotiating with the local 51 fire union since April, so a little over three months now, about three and a half months. We don't have an agreement. For the most part, we have an agreement on a lot of items, just not a final agreement yet. The city made an offer Almost two weeks ago. Our last offer was about 43 million dollars over that four year time period Year one impact of that right now is estimated at seven point seven million and Then you'll see in years two three and four that that annual increase increases from seven point seven up to eleven point seven million dollars a year a pretty sizable increase once we get into year two of the agreement and and so what we've done essentially from city staff's perspective is try to delay the implementation of some of the incentives and have those incentive increases or different items phased in over multiple years but you'll see it's a pretty sizable increase from year one to years two three and four so when i mentioned a few minutes ago about Adopting a budget that's going to find only that given year but also as we look to the future as well Once we come to an agreement, which I'm confident we will come to an agreement It's going to be a four-year commitment that the city will be legally obligated to fulfill for that four-year time period And so right now, we're currently reviewing their proposal, working on coming back. We need to schedule another meeting, a follow up to hopefully get to an agreement with the fire union to get that settled because we have the police agreement, which is going to expire next August. And so we'll need to begin the negotiations with the police union soon after. So the next steps, as I mentioned, we will have public hearings for the budget and the tax rate on August the 17th. As I mentioned, after today's meeting, we will begin working with the newspaper. We were going to publish on, it's coming Friday. So we'll do the publication in the newspaper. It'll be running on city TV. It'll be running on the internet as well, notifying the public of when those public hearings will be. And then on August 18th will be the adoption and the budget, adoption of the budget and the tax rate on August 18th. And so with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Great presentation, Robert. So in this budget, there's no new programs? It's just maintaining the existing programs? Is that what you said earlier? Yes, sir. OK. And if we looked at slide 17, basically the property tax relief and state and local tax exemptions of about $13 million. And you were very clear today, and I thank you for that, on the no new revenue rate that was done prior to this council taking over and the use of a fund balance. I've asked you this before, so when should you ever use your fund balance or your savings account?

Never. Unless, I say never. is if you are at 100 days operating days of fund balance, then at that point, or 90 days, you may strategically use on a one-time expense. But preservation of fund balance, to me, is critical, because you never know what any given year you're going to face. Whether it's a worldwide pandemic, which nobody expected, which we're very fortunate that the federal government provided a substantial amount of money, but had they not, would have drained the city's reserves. I'll give you another example, and I believe I mentioned this to one of the council members. It really highlights sort of the position the city was in back in 2014. So in 2014, in the city's unrestricted fund balance, the city had $9 million of fund balance, in the unrestricted fund balance, $9 million. We recently just had a litigation settlement that was $8 million. That one litigation settlement in 2014 would have wiped out almost the entire amount of unrestricted fund balance for the city. So therefore, again, it's important, especially right now at the position that the city is in. I just mentioned $15 million decrease in fund balance. We're at 65 days, projected to be at 65 days. We are rapidly approaching the 60 days, which is best practice. So one of the things we've talked about, we've talked about it with FOAC, we've talked about it with the council. We currently do not have a fund balance policy. We have it mentioned in our annual comprehensive financial report. There's a section in there that references it is the city's goal and our intention and our target to maintain 60 days of unrestricted fund balance. But there's no formal policy adopted by the city council. So we've developed the policy. We're ready to bring it to FOLAC and back to council. But in that policy, and the reason for that policy is it really outlines exactly what you just asked me. That policy outlines When would it be okay to use fund balance? At what point? But it also outlines and addresses situations. What is the city going to do to ensure you maintain that 60 days? Or if you fall below that 60 days, what is the city's going to do? What actions is the city going to take? And that's really what not only the city council should be thoughtful about, but our investors, our bond raters, that's what they're looking at as well, is what actions is the city going to take to ensure you maintain that level of fund balance? If you say that's important or you say that's what you want to achieve, show us what actions and what steps you're going to take to make that happen.

so basically never we should be dipping into the savings unless we really really had to so if we were to adopt a a no new revenue rate the the expenses that some were you know caused by the state on the business personal property of about seven million dollars that are out of our budget and the maintenance that we would need on our buildings and and to do things in the city in order to do that where would the money come from

I'll throw a scary number out to you. So that no new revenue rate, if the city were to even consider going to the no new revenue rate, would mean we would need to reduce $25.4 million out of the proposed budget. $25.4 million reduction.

OK. All right, questions for Robert on this particular item? Representative Canales? No?

Mayor, I think he said he wanted to take your item 21 first and take action.

Is that correct? Yes, I would recommend. Or we can do the welcome center. If there's a motion on the welcome center, you can do that now as well. But I would recommend before the $9.7 million allocation, we do the introduction of the tax rate, which is item 21. And then we'll come back and take action on item 20.

OK, let's do it.

Item 21. Item 21. OK, item 21 is.

But Ms. Pryor, we have public comment on 20, right? That's correct. OK. Did you want to take public comment?

Let's take public comment, please. OK, Mr. Samarmijo?

OK, I'd like to put a graphic on the screen.

What did you need, sir?

The Elmo.

IT will need the Elmo, please.

How do I do it? Can everyone see it? Okay.

IT will bring it up.

Well, my problem is, oh, here it is, just back up. First, I really appreciate the work that Mr. Cortinas and the staff did. The budget is much, much easier to follow as a result of their efforts. But I still think there's opportunities to reduce costs and reduce in an amount that can fund, justify the use of the no new revenue tax rate. I've sent each of the members of the city council a detailed policy brief yesterday, and I know that's a very short time, but what we've identified, me and my other people who are very worried about property taxes, we've identified what I would call low-hanging fruit. These are parts of the budget which can be deferred with no problem really affecting their ability to function. And the reductions and deferments that I've recommended include specific actions as well as the reasons why these actions are reasonable. As you can see on the graphic, El Paso's voters are going to have to bear a significant, in my opinion, non-sustainable rate in property tax growth. so what are we going to do about it well we went through the budget and we identified a number of of areas where things in the depth of the budget the details of the budget things can be cut without affecting anything i have very limited time But I can just give you an example of some of these things. Let's look at the item called Destination El Paso. Now, what is Destination El Paso? This is a part of the budget that has $24,640,000, which includes an increase in the budget of $1.794 million. And it includes venue management, destination marketing, water parks operation, destination El Paso. I think the tourism focus is less important than property tax. And we propose to trim that by about $5 million. That won't put them out of business. They'll still be able to function, but they won't be able to spend as much money in wherever they want to find that $5 million they can certainly afford it.

Ms. Pryor, let's give them at least another minute. Continue. Yes, sir. Go ahead and continue.

Should I continue? Yeah, continue. All right. The next one, and this is one that gets me, but these recommendations don't attack salaries, don't attack employment, don't attack safety, public safety. They are the things that any businessman facing the same kind of challenges that the city council has. And I've been one. You have to cut out the stuff that you can do without. You may not like it, but you can do without. And take a look at airport. This thing is labeled, it's called passenger experience. And it's to improve, it's a number of, it's got a budget of $78.3 million. And passenger experience, one of the items includes beautification of the airport itself. I've gone through the airport many times. It's a beautiful little airport. It's not a mongo airport. It's nice, it's clean, and the artwork is great. So let's just cut out, you know, one and a half million. The airport will still keep flying. Passengers will still keep coming in. And their experience may not be as nice as some people would like, but their experience is less important to the citizens of El Paso and the impact on their tax rate. I know I don't have much time, but I'm just urging the city council to really consider These proposals you may not have enough time. I know I just sent it to you last night But it's it's worth considering. I I would like to maybe get that to your Mr. Cortina's I think he would either find that these Recommendations are really foolish. I doubt it. He's he's a very smart guy but it's important that the City Council take cost reduction seriously and not just keep doing the same thing and increasing spending on the same categories that just we can't afford.

Thank you, Mr. Armijo for your presentation. Thank you. Representative Fierro.

Thank you, Mayor. Ms. Mack, how many times did you direct staff, either by your own or under the mayor's leadership, and I know that Representative Nino put something on the agenda a few months ago, to go back and revisit the budget with a fine-tooth comb and cut everything we could?

Mayor, I think that was the... The spirit of how we entered this whole process, I think we heard that from each and every council member. We've been talking about, even as we were looking at the utilities for the entire year, what it meant for our community, and I heard from each of you. I do want to take the opportunity, because I think that it is confusing for many in the public, non-general fund versus general fund and what we'll be voting on and so I'm going to ask Robert to bring back up slide 11 because many of the items that Mr. Armijo had up there were non-general fund I just think the public should be very clear about what we'll be asking you to adopt which excludes I think the majority the print was pretty small but I think the majority what was there Robert

So I'm going to try to remember what was on his slide. So the destination El Paso, that's a non-general fund. That's funded by hotel occupancy taxes and revenue generated by the events that take place at the convention center and the other facilities, not funded by property taxes. So that wouldn't have an impact on the property tax rate. The economic development, primarily funded, the programs you mentioned, primarily funded by the restricted economic development funding we receive from the franchise agreement with El Paso Electric. So again, non-general fund dollars not funded through property taxes. The only portion of the zoo is funded by the general plan for all of the positions. And so any reduction to the zoo would impact positions at the zoo. I'm trying to remember the others. Airport. Aviation. The airport is an enterprise fund. It's a non-general fund. Their budget is funded by all of the revenue they collect through passenger fees, all the different airline fees they collect. Not funded by property taxes, so that obviously would have no impact on property tax rate as well.

Okay. Representative Pierre. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Cortina, I have a couple questions for you. In regards to the $25.4 million that we would have to use reserves for, how many days of reserves would we need for the $25.4 to get a no new revenue tax rate? I guess it's fine. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry I didn't ask you earlier. More than 12 days.

So 12 days. Right now, we are at 65 days. Correct. And we need to be at a minimum of 60 days.

Is that correct? 60 days is best practice. That should be the target for the city.

So we would be at 52 days? Well below the 60 days. Correct. OK. Thank you, Mayor. OK. Representative Nino.

Mayor, I'm sorry. Just a quick point of order. I think we need a motion before we have debate and discussion.

Representative Nino. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to also make a comment and thank Ms. Mack and Robert Sasho, the entire team. I know that we're going into the third month of having these conversations. And Representative Fierro mentioned briefly about a motion that the council had taken in regards of trying to find further savings, operational cost savings, citywide operational efficiency review focused on the materials and supplies, outside contracts, professional services, expenditures as part of this fiscal year budget. I know that they had also done a lot of that work, so I just wanted to thank the staff for really analyzing and seeking opportunities for reasonable operational cost savings. I know that they've worked hard on this budget, and at the end of the day, our priority is to really provide essential services all across the board. YOU KNOW, I KNOW FAMILIES ARE STRUGGLING AND RISING COSTS AND THE CITY IS ALSO HAVING RISING COSTS, UTILITY COSTS THAT HAVE ALSO INCREASED. BUT I JUST WANTED TO GIVE THANKS TO THE ENTIRE STAFF FOR REALLY WORKING ON EVEN THAT DIRECTION OF THE COUNCIL ASKING FOR FURTHER OPERATIONAL REVIEW AND COST SAVINGS. SO THANK YOU, MS. MACK AND ROBERT AND SASHA AND THE ENTIRE TEAM FOR ALL YOUR WORK. I JUST WANTED TO SHARE THAT COMMENT, MAYOR.

Thank you, Mayor. I have a question, Robert. And Ms. Mack, when you all were doing the budget presentations at the different districts, I wasn't able to attend because that's when we had our late meeting. and I know you all have this interactive tool where residents can see what could what could be traded right what were the responses of our residents when they were able to use that interactive tool so we had and yes we covered that on June 23rd and we sent all of you your summary for each of your different districts we had very limited turnout on that budget simulator of actual submissions

But a lot of it, yeah, my memory is not as good as it used to be. But we have very limited. And so we've already talked about how we're going to make it better for next year. The tool was new. It was something different. You actually had to commit to actually completing the exercise of actually balancing the budget. So my takeaway was people saw that it was very challenging and very difficult to balance the budget because you either generate additional revenue or you have to find which programs you want to reduce. And so we actually saw some actually recommended to increase property taxes, some recommended to increase fees. On the expenditure side, the biggest reductions, again, and this wasn't a scientific experiment. This was you could go in and do whatever you wanted, basically. So we had a couple of people that went in there and basically defunded the police. Not realistic, not allowable, illegal in the state of Texas to defund the police. some work that we need to do to try to make that tool a little bit better into next year. It was, I think, a good concept, but we just need to tweak a few things next year to make it a little bit better.

To be able to have others just show them how to use the tool. And so they got a feel of this challenge that the city is facing and us as a council. You know, all the programs and services that the city offers are very, very important, whether it's quality of life in our parks and recreation, maintenance of all the facilities, public safety as well, PD, fire. It's a very, very difficult decision. I have a question on the slide 24 and these bullet points. Were these included in the proposed budget?

No. No, these were not.

How were these identified later?

So once we received certified values, that's where we sat down with city manager, and that's where we formulated the recommendation on what we want to actually introduce the tax rate at. Given some of the situations that I talked about, whether it be ongoing discussions with the fire union, as I mentioned during our briefings last week with each of you, we don't have an agreement in place. We don't know where that agreement is going to end up. We're optimistic we will reach an agreement here, hopefully in the very, very near future. But we don't know what that impact is going to look like right now. The the lighting program is something that we really wanted to incorporate into the budget when we did the proposed budget We continue to hear safety be one of the biggest issues having a dedicated team that will take care of the park lights There's great benefit. There's great value in adding that and to the budget our animal services It's difficult situation. We're adding 1.5 million dollars of additional general fund dollars already We have all of the staffing, and if they don't have the vehicles to do their job, what's the point in having these people that don't have the equipment or the vehicles or the resources they need to do their job? And so the recommendations were really formulated based on this recommendation. It would add some additional funding into the fleet replacement, as I mentioned, the street light and park light. And then, again, the big portion of it is that contingency. It's the unknown of what our collective bargaining agreements are going to bring.

Other potential council priorities into the into the next year as well or again preservation of fund balance into the future as well Robert these additional Items that were identified how much more does that increase the tax rate? What does it look like for the ratepayer dollar wise I

So it would equate, so right now we're at $132 on the average home. If you back out that $9.7 million, it takes it down to $92, the average impact.

OK.

Thank you. Those are the questions that I have. Thank you.

Representative Acevedo.

Thank you, Mayor. I know you've been hard at work on this for months and there's a lot of math going on here. I wanted to look at slide 27 specifically. This one is really concerning me for the future of our budgets. You know, this is really important that police and fire go through the negotiations and bargaining and stuff. But I worry that we might have a budget crisis in the coming years in terms of our city budget. You know, we From what I'm seeing here, we're struggling to find this proposed $43 million that's not set in stone, and we haven't even gotten started with police. So how are we going to be proactive in that sense to make sure that we're not going to our fund balance next year when we have both on the books? Because $7 million for this first year, I think we could figure that out. But then after that, it's $11.7 million, and we still haven't got into police. So just generally speaking there, what are your forecasts for the next few years in that sense?

The idea here is that the rate covers the four years. We cannot bring something forward to you that we can't figure out how to fund over time. And so this is really looking at, although we're still in negotiations, we know it's beyond what we have. ensuring that as we're going into the final, it is a negotiation. We know that that will continue, but that we can't bring something back to you that we know is not in the budget or we have identified funds to be able to do. We know that we will be moving into the police negotiation. We're really looking at this, as Robert said, not as a one year. The dollars that we will be looking at here and putting aside would help us to be able to at least fund partly what we're talking about moving forward. This is not unusual in terms of what we've seen for you know, our fire and police negotiations over time. I think that what we have seen in previous negotiations is that we didn't have a tax cap. And so when we, you know, prior to 2019, you know, contracts got negotiated, the tax rate just got adjusted to whatever was required to be able to cover those negotiations, but that's no longer the case. And so we're really trying to make sure that we're being proactive, that we're thinking about it, that we have the dollars, that it doesn't sacrifice other things. As you know, we've already cut a lot on the staffing side. There just isn't any place else to go without sacrificing service. And so we're making the recommendation that we set those dollars aside as we're looking at those contracts moving forward. But that would allow us to have a base for that moving forward.

Okay. And for this next year, the tax cap would be the same, or what does that look like? Do you know yet?

For this year, we have a state-led session that will take place beginning of the next year. And so there's already been discussions every session since 2019. It's been looking at lowering the property tax cap, reviews on certain franchise fees. And so that is a real concern. It's something that we're going to have to closely monitor in this next session.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's important, and what I would also really like is I have been on the other end of management bargaining a contract, and we thought we would finish it in six months, and it took us about a year. So is there any way that we could start these negotiations earlier because you've been at it since – April. And ideally, I would hope that we could get to a deal by the time we adopt this budget because that gives me a little bit of anxiety in terms of what if we need more money, if we need a budget amendment coming up once we're in the fiscal year, it would be nice to start earlier if that's

So with the fire agreement, to your point, it's a requirement in the agreement that the fire union has to send their letter to the city manager that they're ready to negotiate. And so we were waiting to receive that letter from the fire union.

OK. So I guess, is it the same for police that we have to wait for them to give us their letter?

I'm not sure, but it's probably closed now.

Yeah, I mean, overall, ideally, I would hope that we could get those negotiations started. I think you have been doing a great job in terms of trying to get to the numbers and crunching them over the last few months. But if we have a little bit more runway, I think we have a better idea of what our budget outlook looks like for the coming year. The other question that I had for you, Robert, I believe you said that we were gonna understand the impact of BTS by July. Do we know that impact yet?

In a future update, yes. I'll show you the hotel occupancy tax continued to do really well. And so the hotel occupancy was over 80% that particular weekend. The average daily rate was much higher than the Coldplay event, which was a little bit surprising. The average daily rate was about $160, and I think it was $140 during Coldplay. So the impact was very, very positive from BTS.

Okay. And then I think one big thing to highlight here is we're losing $6.8 million because of the new business personal, what is it, tax exemption? It's a tax exemption for businesses. For their personal property. And this increase is about $3 million more than that. And so... we're kind of looking at really replacing that exemption because businesses now have that exemption that went from $2,500 to $125,000 and it made a hole in our budget that could have potentially been double that if it would have been at $250,000, right? And so we're kind of put in this position. And my worry is that the state continues to say, you know, there's some radical ideas out there that would get rid of property taxes completely. And I wonder what conversation we would have about public safety and Quality of life services that would be affected at that point But I think it's a way that the state comes to the people and say yeah you you're you're burdened by property taxes and We're gonna get rid of them but then there's no answer to the services and the state is not giving us more money at that point and I feel that Last year, you came up with this really nice chart where you said this is everything that we cut. This year, you've been doing the same thing to be as fiscally responsible as possible, because I think we do understand that people are hurting, whether it's utility bills, whether it's gas, whether it's property taxes. I feel that we're doing our due diligence, but then we're also kind of dealing with the state ramifications, right? And this business personal tax was something that the voters approved. And so I think that's important to also say that you have these things that go up before voters, and then they make a decision. And at that point, we have to implement whatever the voters say. And we're in this position, but we're trying to do the best that we can. So I just wanted to throw that out there and give you some kudos for that as well.

Representative Kanellis?

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, Robert, I had a couple of questions about some. We have a hot mic. A couple of questions about some different slides. I don't know if we can get the presentation back up, if we can go to slide five. It says 75% of vacant positions will be unfunded or deleted. I know that's a percentage. Do you happen to know how many positions that represents?

It was 358. 358 positions.

OK. So I just want that to be clear for the public. The city is reducing 358 positions out of the budget as a tool for balancing. Slide 8, you mentioned the proposal would transfer 18 police department positions and 19 fire department firefighters from non-general fund to general fund. What is the amount of money that represents in the general fund? Sorry, it's a very specific question, but I think it's important too for the public to understand this is something that the general fund has to take on. It's $2.5 million. $2.5 million. So that was previously funded using outside, mostly federal funds, and now is being absorbed into the general fund. So that's a pressure that we've had to absorb within the general fund. Slide nine, you mentioned $10 million for street maintenance. That's just the cash portion, just the pay go, correct? Correct. We don't only have $10 million for street funding in the overall budget. But this is the general fund portion. We have other we have bond funded and other funding sources Supporting streets maintenance. Is that is that right? Yes Do you have an idea of the total amount for for the fiscal year? I just again 20

20 million total street projects per year.

20 million, OK. Just wanted to make sure. I've heard from folks saying, how is it that we only have 10 million of streets? And it's not the case. That's just only the cash portion from the general fund, correct? Correct. and then uh slide 26 that proposal for the animal services vehicles um i just wanted to make sure like that that i think is a big priority they have deferred their vehicle's need for a long time and i have some figures they've spent this fiscal year an average of thirty thousand dollars a month on vehicle maintenance mostly fixing breakdowns, and $227,000 year-to-date. That's a huge expense to take care of really old vehicles, the newest of those.

Rep, what was that number again, per month?

Approximately $30,000 a month on vehicle maintenance, $227,000 year-to-date. And the newest of their animal protection officer vehicles is from 2017 so approaching 10 years old that's the newest of them. They get older than that. And so this is something that's been deferred out of some previous budgets, especially as as Robert was saying that the city adopted the revenue rate. But you can't defer those things forever the animal protection officers are out in the field every day and they they need to drive around. big expenditure per month. So for me, it's worth it to make that investment to provide them with the new vehicles, cut out all this maintenance spending. Like this isn't preventative maintenance. This is fixing broken down vehicles. And then last question, Robert, you talked about the budget tool. I'm trying to jog my memory of your presentation from last month, but I want to say more than a thousand people started the process, but less than a hundred actually submitted balanced budget at the end. Is that right? And so I think it just goes to show it's not an easy proposition. I wish that that tool, and again, I know it was a first year and I'm quite happy with using it for a first year, but I think in future years I'll be happy to see it in front of more people so they can understand the challenge of balancing a budget when you have pressures on the revenue side and you have YOU HAVE PRESSURES FROM ALL SIDES, REALLY, BUT I THINK IT HELPS PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND A LITTLE BIT MORE ABOUT THE BUDGET AND WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE AND WHAT IT TAKES IN ORDER TO COME UP WITH SOMETHING THAT'S BALANCED AT THE END. MAYOR, WE HAVEN'T READ 21 INTO THE RECORD YET.

NO, AND WE MAY TAKE THE WELCOME CENTER. I'M NOT SURE HOW WE'RE GOING TO DO IT.

OK. I have a motion to make on the Welcome Center. So if we'd like to do that now, I think it's cleaner if we read 21 into the record. We can do it now.

We've got one other rep wants to make a few comments, and we'll do that. Representative Chavez.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm just wondering, are we still commenting on this? We're going to stay on this one. OK. 20. OK. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Robert, for the presentation. Thank you to the staff that helped put all of this information together for the public. I know we've had a lot of conversations in my office regarding the budget. And I want to thank you for the time you've dedicated to it, Robert. Some people in the community have not had that opportunity to speak with you face to face. So I'm just going to ask you a few questions here so that they have also a chance to listen directly from you. On slide 17, if we could go to that slide, please. I know we've talked at length about the business personal property exemption that came from the state. That is why there's a zero value in fiscal year 26 and that $6.7 million is new to fiscal year 27. When you go down this list on this chart, are all of these values pretty typical in terms of the way they've changed from last year to this next fiscal year?

They fluctuate year over year. So the disabled veteran has been increasing three and a half to $4 million a year. So this is a little bit higher than what we've seen in the last several years. But for the most part, yes, pretty standard for the amount of the increase.

So when you make projections, you pretty much estimate these values to increase the way they've done so again this year?

Yes.

And we spoke a little bit about some compensation we get from the state for these exemptions for veterans specifically. Could you talk a little bit more about what we receive in return?

Sure. So the state has a program called Local Governments Disproportionately Impacted by Disabled Veterans. So this is a state exemption. It's not just for the city of El Paso. This was approved by the state voters many years ago, this exemption. So the state has this program where they reimburse cities that are impacted by loss of property taxes from the disabled veteran exemption. So the total, and it's only for the 100% disabled veterans. So the city of El Paso is impacted to the tune of about $17 million a year from the disabled veterans that are 100% disabled. So it's about $17 million a year that we don't collect. So the state has a formula, a calculation that we use when we submit the reimbursement for our impact. So the state calculation takes that $17 million number, or whatever the number may be for that given year, and it reduces that amount by 1% of your general fund budget. So last year when we submitted, we reduced it by $6 million because that's the formula. So the city's request for reimbursement was just over $11 million. The actual reimbursement we received from the state was $1.4 million. So out of over $11 million request, we got back $1.4. And the reason being because the state of Texas only allocates $9.5 million for the entire state. And so they determine how much each city gets based on the number of applications they receive. And then they basically split the amount until they run out of that 9.5 million. So something that we've pushed for in past legislative agendas, something that we'll continue to work with our legislative team to partner with other communities. I was looking at a presentation the other day. The city of Killeen is another city that's heavily impacted. by Fort Cavazos they have a lot of the table veterans in their community as well so no different than them we continue to see that exemption amount go up every year and yet we're getting back less and less every year from the state on that program is there anything that our community can do to advocate for more funding to come from the state in that regard Robert So that's the plan is we're going to reach out to these other cities that are impacted similar to what City of El Paso is impacted by and really make a push to the state to allocate more money. $9.5 million for the entire state is a very low amount for a program as significant as taking care of their disabled veterans. So we just need to do a better job of making that push. And we'll do that with our legislative team for our state delegation as we move into this next session.

Absolutely, and we're happy to support our veterans always. Robert, in terms of page 24 or slide 24, the requested action here, you say there's $8 million for contingency. We were talking about our rainy day fund. And how much is our operating cost per day?

It's about $1.7 million.

1.7 million. And this $8 million for contingency, it does have fund balance in there as an option. I know there are other things listed on this as well. So are you thinking about adding some of that money into the fund balance?

Well, so the intention is that we would get through the next several months and into the this next calendar year, and hopefully by then we have our collective bargaining agreements wrapped up and we have a good understanding of where that lies, because that's gonna be, as we showed, pretty significant impact on the budget, not only for this coming year, but into the next four fiscal years. And so that would give us flexibility to, one, either essentially bank that money and not spend it and replenish our reserves and use it for the future, because it'll be built into the rate, or we may need a portion of that to help fund our public safety agreements. So until we get those kind of settled, which, again, the timing, and I appreciate Representative Acevedo's points about the timing, Yeah, the timing is not ideal. We would have hoped to have already had a deal in place by now, an agreement in place prior to the adoption of the budget. Unfortunately, we're in the position we're in, and we are about to adopt a budget in two weeks. And I don't foresee an agreement being done in time or prior to the budget being adopted. And so we just need to have that flexibility. And so this recommendation does that.

Okay, thank you for that. And the 2.3% that you had originally recommended was going to allocate how much additional money?

So it was 2.3 cents. Yeah, the 2.3 cents. So that increase was built into the overall proposed budget that we showed you all on May the 27th.

And how much of an increase was that in revenues? Do you remember? Like this one you say is 9.7 million. Is that just from the 2.6 cents or is that from the total?

The 9.7 million on that same slide. So the 2.6, out of the 2.6 cents, that 1.7 cents generates the $9.7 million.

Okay. And the additional generates how much? Do you know?

Which additional?

The... We're doing 4.9 cents, right? Correct. The 2.3 that was already built in? Yes, exactly.

So it'd be... 15 million roughly 15 million that's already built into the proposed budget That's already built into the proposed budget and this is just in addition to that, right?

Okay, and I know that we went through everything in a different presentation to go through each department and the program-based budgeting that we've already talked about and everything else Okay, thank you, Robert. I just think we need to say that this is a very difficult decision for the council to make. It's not an easy one, right? It's not like, oh, yeah, let's just adopt whatever is proposed. This is a process that has been ongoing for weeks now as we try to find efficiencies at the city, as we try to find cost savings at the city, because we know firsthand from conversations with our community members from our constituents that people are struggling at all different levels right now. Utility rate increases have impacted people's bottom lines greatly. Gas prices, inflation, groceries just everyday living for some has become a burden in our community and so we know that this decision is not one to take lightly as a council but we also have a fiscal responsibility to ensure that we are meeting the demands of our community and that we are meeting the needs of our community as well When I have conversations with constituents, many times they say, you know, when will you be resurfacing my street next? When can we improve certain park amenities to, you know, improve people's quality of life? When can we expect this development or this new thing to happen in our community, in our city. And I want to say yes to everything people ask me to do. And many times when I have conversations with people at my community meetings, I often tell them I wish I had a magic wand. get everything that you're requesting done there are a lot of things that we can do and that we do do very well and that we actually do quickly contrary to what some may believe we do do things quickly in some regards and other things other projects take more time but what everything takes at the end of the day everything we do with the city is money everything takes money and that is where the real challenge is for us as a council and as a city to meet the demands of the community. Of course, public safety is always first and foremost because with public safety, we do everything else. I've also many times spoken about how one decision impacts every other decision. One strategic pillar impacts another strategic pillar. And I think I might be out of time, Ms. Prine. I don't know if my clock is on, so I'll stop right there. Thank you, Robert.

Okay, Representative Rocha. And I'll remind everyone on council to keep your devices on. Yes, so sorry.

I was trying to silence everything. Sorry about that. No worries. I have a couple of questions, Robert, and thank you for the presentation. And I'm going to go slide by slide on the questions that I have, if that's okay. So if I go to slide my first question. Bear with me, Robert. It's going to be on slide 13. When we talk about the 3.1 million that's in federal funding that's been allocated and we go through each of the organizations that have received these CDBG grants, one thing that I actually was asked out in public just over the last week is where can they find the audits on the funds that we give to the homeless or to anything that comes out of CDBG? Are there audits that happen within CDBG for any of the funds that are provided to these organizations?

So I believe that we did one, our internal audit, not that long ago. We're in the process of doing one, but we also do as part of our annual external audit is they randomly select different programs to audit. And this is one program that may be included in any given year. And so all of those reports and audits are posted on the city's website.

So they're able to go onto the city website. And the conversation was more geared towards the Welcome Center. And I know that that's a new, it was ARPA funded. So there really wasn't an opportunity to be able to talk to them. I didn't have any of my information in front of me. And so I just wanted to make sure that I asked the question and it came up in today's presentation. So I'm very grateful that I was able to ask that.

and so one of the other things that we implemented going back to prior to arpa with the cares funding was the city received quite a bit of money from the federal government right during covid and so what the city did what we did because we received 119 million dollars in cares funding this is prior to arpa so we created a whole separate grant manual we created a whole separate process essentially for how we're going to track these different programs And so one of the big components of that was subrecipient monitoring. And so we really changed and revamped how we monitor our subrecipients because we were having pretty large agreements with... You see the list here, and so a lot of these nonprofits were the ones that... We did do ARPA programs with, and so not only with the community development staff, but our Office of the Comptroller would go in and do random spot checks on sub-recipient monitoring as well. And then all of those reports ultimately are submitted to, will be submitted ultimately to the Treasury Department, who will come back eventually and begin to audit those ARPA programs into the future. And so we've have not been audited by the Treasury Department yet, but we anticipate that coming in the near future, particularly as we wind down the ending of the ARPA funding.

Thank you, Robert. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. That was the one question. I have a second question, which maybe this is something that you'll be able to help with this. In your presentation, you said it would be $380,000 for six months of operational funding for the Welcome Center. And I'm still on slide 13. That's really where you said it. But back in June, the request was for $430,000, right? That was the request on the floor. And that was going to provide services through the end of December. So that would have been from the August to December timeframe. Is that correct? Yes. So that would have been five months, right? Is my math correct? Yes. Okay. So how did it go from $380,000 for six months this time around, but previously it was $430,000 for five months?

It was. The 430,000 was actually for 7 months from September to February. The welcome to the current has been until the end of August okay, so when we were asked to provide how much what 430,000 go we estimate that around 7 months, it's a little bit over 7 months. But we gave that 7 amount now is 380 is actually for a 6 month period. from september till february yes september to february february sixty thousand dollar average with the exception of one month if it's a three pay period month then it's eighty thousand dollars and let me ask you why the change from 4 30 to 380. um i would defer that question to uh city staff okay thank you

My understanding is that was the request from Mr. Barton, was the $380,000 to fund the operations from September through February.

So the request came to reduce it by $50,000, roughly, right? Yes. OK. And thank you, Robert. And then moving on to slide 19. you said that no new revenue meant that the city used fund balance that the city used the fund balance at the time to create the or I should say fund the difference of the gap right do you know how much previously was used in previous years I mean I know that This year, we can, you know, we used seven million, right, and 25. We used eight million for illegal sediment. That'll be this year. But you had previously said that it was in the last three years.

So we had budgeted prior to FY25, we had budgeted the use of fund balance to balance the budget. Fortunately, because revenues performed a little bit better than expected and we were able to control costs, we did not actually use fund balance prior to 2025.

So it was just the no new revenue tax rate. But fund balance was not used in the last three years? So it was only two?

Prior to FY 2025, correct. We did not use fund balance prior to 2025.

So fund balance has been used in 25 and 26. Correct. When was the last time that fund balance was used, Robert? Do you remember prior to 25?

2014. So the city actually saw use of fund balance in 2012, 13, and 14.

OK. And then, OK, that was that one. Thank you. And then on slide 23, when we're talking about the annual impact and what the monthly impact will be for the taxes, the average price of the home is what you provided in the backup. Is that what you're using? Yes, ma'am. So the $232,000 home? Yes, ma'am. OK. I just wanted to make sure that everyone knew that that's in the backup and you can find it in that area. The other thing, and I think it's the last, maybe the second to last question. It's the last question that I have. On slide 26, you said that animal services was not able to go to or declined 30 events last year or this year in regards to the bus not being functional, right? How many events, because I know there's a lot, how many events typically does Animal Services host or go to or attend? I know Michael's, yeah. Because I know it's a lot, but I just want it to... Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Michael Waksman, Interim Director, El Paso Animal Services. I don't have that exact number off the top of my head, but that 30 that we declined, that was just for this summer, so in the matter of four months.

Okay. Do you know how many you average, Michael, by any chance? Like per month?

Per month, I do not off the top of my head.

Okay, that's okay. Thank you so much, I appreciate it. Thank you, Robert.

Representative Kanellis?

Thank you, Mayor. I have a couple of motions to make. Okay. I'll do them one at a time. So first, referencing, let me find the slide.

Not yet.

Yeah, referencing slide 14, move to allocate $380,000 of ARPA investment interest to fund operations of the Welcome Center from September 2026 through February 2027, maintaining the Welcome Center as a 24-7 access point within the El Paso Help System for six months. Second.

There's a motion and a second. Discussion? Representative Fiore.

Thank you, Mayor. Robert, the $380,000 from September to February, what happens March? Are we back here with the same discussion?

So I believe that may be a question for Mr. Martin. So I believe between now and then he's going to work on identifying additional funding either through grants or other funding alternatives to be able to continue the operations.

Well, this was ARPA fund. And we knew that in August it was going to expire. Was there any plans to find additional funding between August to whenever?

Not within the last, well, up until the last month and a half or so.

The $380,000, if we don't award it to the Welcome Center, can we use it to pay down our tax rate?

We could use it for any municipal purpose, yes.

Thank you, Mayor.

Okay. Representative Rocha?

Oh, sorry. I believe Mr. Martin's here. Is it okay if I ask you a question? Absolutely. So also, I understood that there was a grant that was already applied for and not waiting to be applied for. So just want to confirm which of the two we're looking at. Has it been applied for already?

Well, I need to get clarification on which branch you're referring to. I've actually applied for several. But I believe the one that you're referring to is referred to through the state of Texas as the Healthy Community Collaborative. And that was a very large grant that we worked directly with community and human development. It was the city that actually applied for the funds. As we worked through that, it would have been a five-year funding opportunity. It would have taken the existing funded partners, which include United Way of El Paso County, Amistad, ourselves as the Opportunity Center for the Homeless. We were hoping to pull in Texas Tech University Health Science Center and Oliviani as we worked through that. Unfortunately, notification was received by the city that was forwarded to me just for reference. that the application did not progress at the state level and That's one of the items when I've had the opportunity to talk to each of you as we work through it I do believe our legislative affairs group should inquire as to why Because we did not get the level of detail indicating why it was declined at that point and I will reference the fact that we are the only major metropolitan area in the state of Texas that does not tap into those funds and

Thank you, Mr. Martin. And I'm sorry that you didn't get the grant, but that wasn't the one that I was actually referring to.

Okay, which one are you referring to?

When you spoke to me in my office, you had mentioned there's a grant that you had applied for that you would get notification for in December that would come with a 25% match.

OK. What you're referring to, and we did apply for that, that is to continuum care funds through HUD. However, this type of operation would not have been fully covered under the HUD COC funds. Right now, there's a strong focus under that funding source. And you've got representatives here with the Coalition for the Homeless that can refer that to you. They focus on transitional housing and permanent housing, along with supportive services. The Welcome Center is a very unique program. Now, there have been three other private funds that I've asked for funding from since you and I have talked at that point. And this goes back to the question that Mr. Fieto had, so that I can address that question as well at this point. One of my commitments to each of you, along with the mayor of El Paso, is that we will work collectively with community and human development to look at long-term sustainable funding options going forward. And I don't mean to quote the mayor in this respect, but it was in one of the three articles where we talked about Stitches versus Band-Aids. Well, the two need to go together, because if the program stops at that point, it's going to be more expensive to recreate it if we do have funding in the future. And so that commitment is there, and we've already acted on that commitment in this particular case with three separate private foundations that I have reached out to at this point to look at continuation funding beyond February. And it hasn't stopped. Even though my title is deputy director, I jokingly refer to myself as a chief professional baker. That's what we do for a living. But I do believe, because when you look at the annual budget, and I do want to comment on this, it shows 3.1 million. Two of those entities are receiving one-time funding for the next three years. And that includes Amistad and United Way. So if you take those numbers out, that's roughly 1.7 million. If you annualize those numbers over three years, that's about 584,000 a year. So the actual budget for what is to be done in the following year is actually closer to about 1.9 million, give or take. And forgive me, I'm doing the rounding in my head. When you relate those two one-time fundings for three years, those are home ARP funds. We don't qualify under home ARP because of the restrictions that are applied by the federal government. And that's the reason why you need to have a mix of funds to be able to do what's necessary within the community at this point. But if I take the home ARP funds out, that gets me down to about 1.3 million. And I think you need to look at that list that was provided on page 13 as we work through it. But in reality, on that list, you're only committing $635,000 to housing, $425,000 to shelter, and then approximately $300,000 for support services and outreach. $400,000 for shelter, and we're just one of the three large players in town, will allow us to care for 46 people a night if we have to stretch that out through the year. 46 people is the equivalent of what I have in just in one of five of our shelters The need is greater than what we can use to rely solely on federal funds And I'm making that request as we go forward but the reality of it is We've done some incredible things under El Paso helps two of the three are funded But one of the three which does the street outreach in the absence of the Welcome Center literally has a couple different choices hospital or jail And we as a community are not that type of community. We are a welcoming community. We are a humane community. And what we've seen through El Paso Helps at this point is a level of collaboration that I've expressed to each of you when I've had the opportunity to talk that I haven't seen in my 25 years of experience. And that's through the COC membership, which is the El Paso Coalition for the Homeless. That includes El Paso Helps. We've done something very exciting with that one-time investment. I don't want that investment to go to waste.

Thank you, and I'm still not done. I'll restate some of your time. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. So going back to the methods that you are using to get your funding after February of 27, you mentioned the Healthy Community Collaborative that you were advised that you were not going to progress. The Continued Care Funds through HUD, I'm unsure, is that still pending or is that already, you've already been notified?

No, that's in progress as we speak.

And that's the one that you will be notified in December?

No, actually, the one that I mentioned in December, believe it or not, is through the Open AI Fund, which is a private foundation because we're looking at how technology can improve what we do as a community, not as the Opportunity Center, but as a community.

And that one you'll be notified in December?

December 1st.

And that one comes with a 25% match you had mentioned?

No, that does not come with a 25% match. That comes with the COC funds.

Which is the one that you told me about then, Mr. Martin, that you said?

That was the HUD COC funds when you're referring to the 25% match.

So that's the one that's still in progress?

It's still in progress, but the Welcome Center would not qualify under that funding source.

So then which of the amounts or I guess the OpenAI fund is the only one that you've...

Right now I've asked for $125,000 through the El Paso Community Foundation. I've asked for $287,000 out of a private foundation out of California at this point. And then thirdly and most recently, I looked at approximately $215,000 through the OpenAI Foundation.

So the 215 is the one that really is the only one that's applicable at this time for the Welcome Center?

No, all three of those are specific to the Welcome Center.

But you just said, no, I know those three, but as far as the Continued Care Funds, that's not applicable to the Welcome Center you had mentioned.

It would not fall clearly underneath the objectives of what the COC through HUD, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, would do. There has been a distinct change at the federal level. There is a strong focus on what we refer to as transitional housing So if you look at the old system prior to 2010, it was a four-step process streets shelter transitional permanent Then with the changes that took place and came into effect in about 2012 2013 it was streets to housing Now we're going back and they want to see more of a focus on transitional housing. Okay.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

Not a problem

OK, Representative Chavez.

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, John. I know we've had the opportunity to meet twice in my office. THREE TIMES. WELL, SINCE THE LAST MEETING, I THINK IT'S BEEN VERY ACCESSIBLE. YOU'VE BEEN VERY ACCESSIBLE. YOU'VE ALWAYS COME QUICKLY. SO I APPRECIATE THAT. AND I DO WANT TO JUST GIVE A SHOUT OUT TO THE WEST SIDE REGIONAL COMMAND CENTER WHO PARTICIPATES IN THE HEART INITIATIVE WHO I KNOW WORKS VERY CLOSELY WITH YOU. SO I WANT TO THANK THEM FOR ALL THE WORK THAT THEY DO. WHEN WE SPOKE IN MY OFFICE, I ASKED YOU WHAT YOUR BIGGEST OPERATING COSTS WERE. And I believe you said it was wages and rent.

Obviously, with any program, typically about 60% of your program costs are going to tie into staff salaries, which includes fringes, benefits, and taxes as you work through it. What I was focused on in your office is our second highest cost, which is the lease of the current facility, which is located at 9th and Oregon. And that also includes the cost associated with occupancy, such as property, insurance, utilities, et cetera. All that sort of factors into that. We're very excited to tell you at this point, if this meets with your approval at this point, we are looking at ways to enhance what we're currently doing to make it better. And yes, we are looking at potentially a second different location so that we can avoid the lease payment.

Yes. And I was very happy to hear that because last time you were here, I asked about efficiencies, just as I'm asking the city staff and all of the departments to look into their operating costs as well. And I think you identified a significant cost savings if you were to transition into a different building. Is that right?

That is correct. OK. And like I said, we're having some discussions with our board of directors, one of which is with me today, which is Pamela Lawson that's sitting in the back. also along with our leadership and In fact, I wish each of you could have joined us in our leadership meeting yesterday because the focus is on how can we make it better? And then go forward from there and to keep the cost where they need to be So that we are doing that and the other question that was asked about the audits Everything that we do on a financial basis with the city is done on a reimbursement basis So we're actually analyzed on a month-to-month basis to make sure that those costs are eligible

And I know sometimes these conversations are difficult. We are dealing with very delicate issues in our community. the unhoused is a vulnerable population that we need to address but we thank you for the work that you're doing but i also want to thank you for really digging deep and finding those cost savings and being more efficient in your operation i think we owe it to our taxpayers to ensure that we're making the best use we want those discussions to continue in fact i encourage debate okay i want to see the discussion i want to see the debate And I also want to mention that I did get a list of other organizations that have requested funding as well. There are a lot of competing priorities in our community, a lot of people that are in need, and we're trying our best to meet those needs as best we can. So thank you, John.

Thank you very much. Representative Nino.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, John, also for meeting with me and the great conversation that we had. Just for clarification, I mean, previously in the last month's meeting when we talked about the Welcome Center, it was shared that the Welcome Center will come to close operations on August 1. However, we were having a discussion on a budget that starts on September 1. But can you clarify, you do have funding for the entire month of August, is that correct?

Currently, our contractual agreement with the city under the grant funds that we received under ARPA carries us through the 31st of August. There was confusion on that particular city council meeting. What we had indicated is that if there was no continuation funding, we would start winding down operations on the 1st of August, but it would remain operational until the 31st of August.

No, and thank you for clarifying that. I think it's important to have all those facts because, again, we're having a conversation of a fiscal year budget that starts on September 1, and I feel that this conversation is extremely important, and we have to continue these conversations. Even the questions that we were asking when I sat with you had numerous questions, and you were able to address a lot of them. Now, I have a request if possibly, I know that, I'm glad that you talked about the reimbursement process. Perhaps three months into the funding, maybe you could give us an update, maybe an email update of just telling us the current situation of any grants that you possibly have applied for. and or if they've been granted just that we also know what we have to kind of prepare for. Because again, you know, the last thing we want is come February, we're having this conversation and we don't have a strategy of how to possibly continue supporting if we don't have any funding. So I think it's important for me to really understand what the status would be maybe in three months in from the six months so that I know how to further have other further conversations. specifically because you know if we've all have different challenges of state grants federal grants being cut but come February 2027 if some of these grants don't get awarded then what happens next and I think it's important for us to really just get that ahead of time and No, I think you covered everything that I've been thinking about. And I'm grateful that I also had conversations with city staff, with Ms. Mack, of really ensuring that we all understand the big picture and that we're all, like Mayor Pro Tem Chavez said, there's a lot of need all across the city. There's a lot of organizations that have also reached out to my office. just talking about different opportunities because, again, everyone in the community is facing these challenges of federal grants, state grants being cut, and we want to ensure that we're able to provide services all across the city. So thank you.

Not a problem. And you have my commitment at whatever frequency you would like updates. I'll be more than happy to do so.

Okay. All right. We have a motion and a second to fund the Welcome Center for the $380,000 as shown on slide 14. Seeing no further discussion, Ms. Pryor?

And so the motion was made by representative canada seconded by representative limon and this is to fund. $380,000 from the arpa investment interest for the welcome center from September 2026 through February 2027 to keep it as a 24 7 access point within the El Paso help system. On that motion call for the vote. in the body's session and that motion passes unanimous.

Do you want to know. Yeah representing a lot.

Thank you Robert quick question so we had 430,000 and Harper interest savings so there's a remaining $50,000 there floating around do we have a plan for that.

So I have another response. You all asked for an ARPA update. We've been waiting. We just actually filed our most recent quarterly report at the end of July. It's posted on the city's website now. We've gone back and asked all of the departments to look at what they're expecting to actually spend out of the remaining amounts that we do have. We've identified a little bit of additional, so what I've been waiting for is to get a better idea on what exactly we may have in addition to that $50,000 on top of. So we may have a little bit of additional. It's not going to be millions, millions and millions of dollars, but it'll be a little bit more. And so if we want to sit down and put together a full plan and have a good understanding of what exactly we have as far as the total amount that we could reallocate.

And that includes all the other committed funds that we don't know. All of the existing programs.

Those existing committed funds are in specific categories, and any type of spending we do would need to stay within those categories, unlike the $60,000. So the $60,000 was just interest. So for example, if we find some additional dollars that are left in our economic development area, they would need to be within a category of economic development. So we just want to make sure it's very clear about what we look at with that. This program ends in December. So I was really trying to make sure that we didn't end up with any dollars that we owe to anybody at the end of this. And so we'll make sure we have that back to you so you can have an idea of where we are. It's like $4 million left, I think.

How much? $12 million?

$4 million.

$4 million.

THANK YOU FOR THAT. THANK YOU FOR THAT.

I THINK THAT BRINGS ME BETTER I THINK THAT BRINGS ME BETTER UNDERSTANDING AND I'M UNDERSTANDING AND I'M INTERESTED IN LEARNING FURTHER INTERESTED IN LEARNING FURTHER OF WHAT THOSE OPPORTUNITIES ARE OF WHAT THOSE OPPORTUNITIES ARE IN REGARDS OF OTHER FUNDING OR IN REGARDS OF OTHER FUNDING OR PRIORITIES THAT OTHER DEPARTMENTS PRIORITIES THAT OTHER DEPARTMENTS MIGHT HAVE THAT WE COULD MIGHT HAVE THAT WE COULD FIGURE OUT HOW TO BEST USE OF FIGURE OUT HOW TO BEST USE OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS.

TAXPAYER DOLLARS. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. I THINK WE'RE GOING TO TAKE I THINK WE'RE GOING TO

Yeah, I plan to make one additional motion. I'll remind council, you were provided a letter dated June 15th. It described that on June 10th, a few days earlier, the Animal Shelter Advisory Committee voted unanimously to make a recommendation to the council to provide additional funding for public free spay and neuter services. and for that programming to be included in the city budget. The letter further described an opportunity with Greater Good Charities that had been identified. They're a global charitable organization that travels to cities. In addition to many other things, they travel to cities across the world. and put on spay-neuter clinics. They bring in their own equipment, their own veterinarians. Basically, everything that is needed to hold this type of clinic, they do, and across a single clinic, they're able to carry out approximately 1,000 to 1,200 surgeries, significantly more than the city is able to do at our own spay-a-thon events, for example. They provided a budget per event cost at approximately $128,000 per event. Again, that per animal cost is significantly less than what we're able to do, and the volume is significantly higher. And so that is a recommendation that we have still in front of us from the Animal Shelter Advisory Committee. I also want to be careful not to promise other entities funds, but there is an opportunity on the table seemingly where if the city allocates the funding for one of these events, another entity is interested in stepping in to fund two additional of these events for El Paso. So our investment would be multiplied times three. So we're talking 3,000 to 3,600 surgeries for our expenditure of that $128,000, which is many, many years' worth of the current output of public spay-neuter that we're able to do right now. This is, I think, one of the top demands from the public. I hear it all the time that people want to spay-neuter their animals, but it's too expensive, it's too difficult. And so this is an opportunity for us to fund something that the public wants and that really will have, you know, we talk about investing in the future and looking toward our future budgets. This can have a huge impact on reducing the number of animals that comes into animal services in the long run if we're removing litters of puppies and kittens coming in in the future. So with that, I move to allocate the remaining balance of $50,000 in ARPA investment interest plus an additional $78,000 from the $8 million in proposed contingency funds for a total of $128,000 to fund additional public spay-neuter services as recommended to the City Council by the Animal Shelter Advisory Committee. That's the end of the motion. And I'll note one final note that the in-house, well, they're partially in-house. They're funded externally, grant-funded. Spay-a-thon events, the current public free spay-neuter events that we've done over the past couple of years have been highly successful, 100% occupied, like every spot occupied. Always people upset that they didn't hear about it in time or register fast enough. The demand absolutely is there to fill every single one of these spaces. So I think this is a worthwhile investment.

So there is a motion and a second. And Rep, let me just make sure I understand. You said there's the possibility for some matching funds to go with this?

Yes. And again, I don't want to speak for another entity and their funds. That seems to be the deal that's on the table. That's not a guarantee. And so I don't want to overpromise Council that that 100% will come through. But that seems to be where this is going. They indicated that with some city investment, this other entity would be interested in funding two of these.

Okay. Representative Fierro. Okay. Representative Chavez.

Thank you, Mayor. Ms. Mack, where would the, well, let me start here instead, sorry. I was looking at slide 11, Robert, okay? And I am a big animal lover. I have two dogs. I've mentioned all of my pets before. I think there's a big need in our community. I just said a few minutes ago, there's a lot of competing priorities at the city, right? And this is why these decisions are very difficult to have. But I just, I want to understand. I know that when we went through our whole budget cycle and we talked to each of the departments, One of the departments that said that they had lost a lot of grant money, and I think they had cut some positions, and Ms. Mack, please correct me if I'm wrong, was the Department of Public Health, because they had lost a lot of grant funding. Am I right?

Yes, that department is primarily grant funded.

Yeah. And I know, again, lots of needs in our community, lots of needs across our departments as well. But I do know animal services has received more funding than other departments in this budget cycle. Robert, am I right when I say that?

So up until this point, part of the action you all are about to take, we have an increase of about $1.5 million of the transfer from the general fund. So the general fund's allocation to the animal services department is going up by $1.5 million. We have the additional $1 million for animal services vehicles in this recommendation. So that would be $2.5 million increase in one year.

And just in comparison on slide 11, we can tell that animal services, in comparison, for example, to public health, which I think is extremely important, not that others are not, but just in comparison has $3 million more allocated to it than the Department of Public Health, a department which is receiving a lot less funding because of the loss of money in grants that we just discussed. Again, utility rate increases to our Community it's just a lot of competing priorities i'm not trying to. to say one thing is more important than another. But I think we've already gone through the process of how to allocate the funding for this next budget cycle depending on the needs that those specific departments have previously already identified, right? So when you identify to give animal services more funding, I'm assuming these conversations had already occurred regarding whatever they needed to use that funding for specifically.

Well, a lot of that increases their existing staffing. So it's not adding new programs or anything like that. It's just basically to fund the increases related to their staffing. And then, as we mentioned then, they do have a little bit of a decrease in the revenue they're collecting from the other entities through the interlocal agreements next year.

Okay. And the $2.5 million that you said were allocated to animal services, I mean, animal services does include spay and neuter program already?

That's one of the programs.

Yes, one of their programs already. Thank you, Robert. Okay.

Representative Rocha?

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Representative Canales, for bringing this forward. I'm thrilled to hear that there's an opportunity for future spay and neuter events. It's a conversation I've had several times with Ms. Mack over the last 18 months on to how to bring a spay and neuter, even something as far as a facility to El Paso, because it is the one thing that I get called so much about. And I have met with several advocates over the last year and a half who have been very honest and have told me, please bring a bond and let us vote on it because we will allocate money to animal services. And so this is one way to appease it, and I just wanted to make sure that I let them know, especially Mr. Corral, who I've met several times with, and he is one that has continuously asked for this service of spay and neutering. So thank you, Mayor.

Okay.

All right, so 50K, this would come from the ARPA interest funds, and then the 78, we'd have to, Ms. Mack would find that, right?

Yeah, the direction was for that to come from the proposed eight million for contingency from that 9.7 million.

Okay, Representative Trejo? Okay.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to go over the numbers again, if you can, Canales. So you said the spay and neuter program cost is $128,000? Is that correct?

$128,000 is correct.

OK. And then you're wanting to put the $50,000 plus another $78,000, right?

Yes, $50,000 from the investment interest plus $78,000 out of the contingency that's on that proposal slide.

OK. Mayor, if I may, real quickly, just so that we're all clear. And so if the motion could be clear that you're recommending to revise the recommendation. Because again, I would like to take the recommendation to have the introduction of the tax rate done first prior to the actual allocation of this $9.7 million. So essentially, we need the tax rate to be able to fund these items. And so you're basically asking to revise the recommendation

Sure. I tried to say that earlier.

You want to withdraw this one then do what he's asking? Do we need to withdraw this one? This motion?

No, I think it's okay. You're asking to revise the recommendation.

Okay. That's what we're asking for. Okay. Representative Nino, did you have a comment? I saw you and then you disappeared.

Yeah, I was just trying to think, Mayor, of... I think it's a great program. I do feel that a lot of individuals have asked about this. I think last year's budget I had done a request of trying to do some sort of spay and neuter event in the far east side of El Paso because I know that there's a large increase of lost pets in the far east side of El Paso specifically because we do have abutting areas within the county and I mean, I've called Ms. Mack on certain weekends and saying, Ms. Mack, there's 10 dogs in this corner. What do we do? And so I think it is important of trying to find the means of how do we continue to provide these services all across the community. I think I'm trying to understand more of like the, if this motion passes, how the program works. Is this a coordination with animal services? Is this something that happens within a city facility? I'm not familiar with the program, so I don't know if someone could talk about that. Again, I know that we've done spay and neuter events. Is it something that happens in one day? Is it multiple days? Is it something that could be done strategically where it could be in different areas of El Paso, not just central? I mean, I don't know.

Sure. Michael Waksman, interim director of El Paso Animal Services. So the biggest thing that we would need to do is just provide a facility for them. So that's kind of one of their bigger requirements. So staff-wise, all of that stuff is covered by them. And so currently, the conversation could be around the location of Morehead Middle School, so Westside Adoption Center, that we could potentially use that facility to do these. So when it comes to District 5, that would be a little bit of a challenge to get some District 5 constituents to the Westside. But yeah, that's the current conversation that could happen over there at the west side.

Okay. Yeah, that's what I'm asking, right? Because I want to ensure that if a resident in different areas of El Paso could also tap into such event and have that equity amongst the city. I mean, traveling from District 5 to the west side could take 40, 45 minutes, and that might deter an individual from participating in such program. So I think I'm trying to really ensure that it's something that we could essentially do that could benefit all of the community as a whole We've had programs that are been held on the east side I would say, you know from what I understand about this program and talking to the team.

It's much more efficient In terms of the way these organized we've had partners come in before but we've had to provide, you know some of our own staff and Along with that, to be able to do this program, and so it is per cost per per animal, much more efficient. My understanding is that they would like to hold it at 1 location so that you're not having to do the full setup again. I understand that there's a gym that we have at more ahead that would allow us to be able to have multiple stations much larger than we have can do 1 squirrel road. I think we've been having some events there. So in terms of funding and effectiveness, generally when we do these type of programs, they are sold out. They are completely booked and signed up. It is so needed within our community. And so I have no argument about that being efficient. I believe this organization is doing some work in Austin and some other municipalities, and they've seen a lot of success. again it's a one-time you know funding opportunity for us um i've i've not seen us have empty slots for even reduced um spade neuter events you know those things go really quickly you know for our organization and if we can have a partner who's going to bring two more sessions to be able to have three here in el paso um i think that would be you know very impactful for us over the year because as we know what's happening with us is the population issue we cannot adopt our way out of the issues that we have with animal services

Now question, would we, the other partner that possibly could be interested in funding two of these events, do we know when that determination might be made as to when they would decide to support this program?

Representative Canales?

Any chance?

Yes, within a short amount of time after. our budget.

Okay and I think that also gives a broader opportunity to where even if that organization wishes to support such program that they could also find means of doing it in another part of town and why not to get more.

I can clarify some of your other questions if you'll yield a little time. Sure.

Okay, Representative Canales.

Yes, definitely one of the considerations is that potentially you know we had spoken Myself and and the El Paso Community Foundation initial had initial conversations with greater good As they were working to provide us with a budget and things like that about locations and at that point We were only talking about the one event. So that was where the conversation about about Morehead middle school had happened Definitely with another entity they would be interested in some geographic diversity spreading spreading across Sorry, spreading across the city. And specifically, they talked about Far East. So I think that would definitely be something on the table. Do you mind if I just, there are a few clarifications that answer exactly the questions you were asking. This is directly from Greater Good. So Greater Good Charities to provide surgical team equipment and supplies and cover costs of travel and accommodations for the surgical team. El Paso Community Foundation factors into this as well. So El Paso Community Foundation to act as ground support team, utilization of city building for the venue clinic, a minimum of 25 capable local volunteers per day to be solicited by El Paso Community Foundation, not by us, to provide non-medical assistance on site, local marketing and advertising for the clinic to the public to be handled by El Paso Community Foundation, not by us. So that's not included in this part of the budget. And then lunches for Greater Good Charities staff on each of the four clinic days to be arranged and cost covered by El Paso Community Foundation. And so in addition to the investment we're making, most likely it's through Borderland Rescue Fund, the same partner on the pet pantries. El Paso Community Foundation would kick in these extra services that would be needed to help them. So as Michael said, essentially zero staff support from El Paso Animal Services would be needed. Okay, no, this is great.

Really just facility. That's kind of the need.

Yeah, and I think overall, I mean, if that other partner does come in, that would be an ask that we could do something east, far east. Because again, I know that we have a lot of, again, budding, properties that are within the county. And I know that that's been a challenge when it comes to just, you know, animal services, having more pets coming into our community. But thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Representative Trejo.

Thank you, Mayor.

Representative Canales, how are they determining the need or the location of where these clinics would take place?

I don't think it's exactly determined where they would take place. Their requirement, they said that the ideal for them, because of the amount of square footage that they need, is a school gym. And so I think when we were just talking about that one event, it became very easy to say, well, we have an animal services facility that coincidentally is a converted school and already has a school gym. that you could use. And it has sufficient parking. And it's a large enough space. We already handle animals there. It's already set up for animals. And so that was why that was discussed as, if this was a one-off event, why that might be the logical location. That's definitely not set in stone yet. And I think the other events could potentially happen at other locations. in other parts of the city.

I think it's important that you have the districts participate in that. Maybe they're providing demographics or something so that it can be considered across the city and make sure that that's equitable. It's just a recommendation here. There is a need citywide, and I'd hate for our district to not be included as well. There's a huge need in our district as well. So I just want to make sure there's equitable

Yeah, and if I could clarify, it would be citywide. Anybody in the city of El Paso would have access to the surgery. And as District 8 mentioned, this is about 1,200 animals per event. So yeah, it really just comes back down to a facility and having the means to potentially hold over 1,000 animals for these spay and neuter events. But yeah, it would be open to anybody.

I understand. In District 4, we have many seniors. A lot of them can't drive. So looking at the whole aspect when we're talking about equality. Sure. Thank you.

OK. Representative Canales, you want to repeat what we're voting on here so we'll have it clear for Ms. Prine?

I can. It was also emailed out to the council by Ms. Prine. I sent it to her. The motion is to allocate the remaining balance of $50,000 in ARPA investment interest plus an additional $78,000 from the $8 million in proposed contingency funds for a total of $128,000 to fund additional public spay-neuter services as recommended to the City Council by the Animal Shelter Advisory Committee.

OK. There was a motion and a second. Ms. Bryant?

Yes, the motion was made by Representative Canales, seconded by Representative Madonado-Rocha. And this is to approve that direction. On that motion, call for the vote. In the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously.

OK, Council, I know we went beyond our lunch hour.

I think we're almost done, Mayor. We can take item 21, introduce the tax rate, and then come back and take action on the allocation of the 9.7.

Sure, let's go.

This is item 21, and this is the introduction of an Ornish Living 2026-2027 taxes.

If IT will bring up that presentation, please. There's just one slide. So this is the recommendation, and this is what's attached as backup for this particular item. So again, the recommended property tax rate of 0.809487. And upon approval by the city council today, as I mentioned earlier, we will do the publication in the newspaper this coming Friday. We will be running this on city TV. There's a statement we'll be running. City TV and posted on the internet on our website for the public again notifying them that on August 17th on that Monday we will have the public hearings on both the budget and the tax rate.

Okay.

Representative Canales? I move to approve the introduction of the ordinance levying FY 2026-27 taxes with the public hearing to be held on August 17th, 2026. Okay.

Is there a second? Second. Okay. Ms. Bryant?

Yes, sir, the motion was made by representative.

Oh, representative. I'm sorry.

Just a point of clarification. Is this one OK, or do you want us to also say as revised?

No, this is fine. That one's OK. You're just introducing the tax rate on the next item. When we go back to item 20, you can make that comment.

OK, we'll go back. OK, perfect. Thank you.

OK. Ms. Bryant?

Yes, a motion was made by representative canada seconded by representative Maldonado rocha and this is to introduce an ordinance living FY 2026 2027 Texas on that motion call for the vote. in the voting session. And the motion passes 5-3. Representatives Acevedo, Rocha, Trejo, Fierro, Canales voting aye. Representatives Chavez, Nino, Limon voting nay. The motion does carry.

OK. Item number 20.

And so this is going back to get to the recommendation of that $9.7 million in the allocation, which would recommend or reflect the revision that you all just made with that $120,000 total, but only $78,000 reduction would come out of that $8 million amount as indicated on the slide.

OK. Representative Canales?

Is Robert finished? I don't want to cut him off. Go ahead. Move to approve the allocation as revised by the council.

Okay. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Ms. Pryor?

This motion was made by Representative Canales, seconded by Representative Madonado-Rocha, and this is to approve the recommendation as revised. On that motion, call for the vote. in the voting session, and that motion passes seven to one. Representative Limon voting nay, the remainder of council voting aye. The motion carries.

Okay. Thank you, Robert. Thank you. Council, let's convene some metro, then we'll take lunch.

Is there a motion to recess the regular city council meeting?

So moved.

There's a motion and a second to recess as regular city council meeting. All in favor?

Aye.

Anyone opposed? And the regular city council meeting is in recess at 1.10 p.m. Good morning.

No, good afternoon. This is a meeting of the El Paso Mass Transit Department Board for Tuesday, August 4th, 2026. It is 1.10 a.m. I mean p.m. And there is no... There is no public comment, sir. All matters listed under the consent agenda will be considered by Mass Transit to be a routine and will be enacted by one motion unless separate discussion is requested by board members. Prior to the vote, members of the audience may ask questions regarding items on the consent agenda. When the vote has been taken, if an item has not been called out for separate discussion, the item has been approved. The Mass Transit Department Board may, however, reconsider any item at any time during the meeting. we only have two items on the consent agenda that would be the minutes and there's a resolution authorizing a field test agreement with chevron overnight company llc and this is for a term this is to test oils on buses operated by sun metro and it's for a term beginning on the date of the agreement and execute and to end on september 1st 2029.

There's a motion. Is there a second? Second. Second. All right, Ms. Bryan. I mean, Ms. Nunez.

And we do have a motion to approve by Board Member Nino.

Fierro and seconded by Board Member Canales.

And this is to approve the consent agenda items one and two. Voting session is open. Voting session is closed and the item has been approved unanimously.

Okay, is there a motion to adjourn the meeting?

So moved.

Second.

Okay.

All those in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? And the master and city department board meeting for August 4th is adjourned at 1.12 p.m.

Okay, is there a motion to adjourn for lunch?

You're already on recess. What time would you like to return from lunch?

2.30?

2.30? Okay, the regular city council meeting will remain in recess until 2.30 p.m.

Thank you.

Okay, Ms. Bryan, I believe we're ready.

Yes, sir. Is there a motion to reconvene?

Second.