Robert Cortinas is the CFO of the City of El Paso and at the Council Work session this coming Monday he will report his budget projections for FY 2027-2031.
Based upon current assumptions, the City’s budget gap will reach $12M in FY 2027, $22.6M in FY 2028, $41.3M in FY 2029, $54.2M in FY 2030, and $74.5M in FY 2031, for a total of $204.6M over those five fiscal years!
Much of the gap stems from hundreds of millions in voter-approved debt from the 2019 Public Safety Bond and 2022 Community Progress Bond that still must be issued.
And these figures do not include any taxpayer funding for the Debt Plaza, which we are convinced would run into the hundreds of millions if the project moves forward.
MAYOR WILL NEVER KEEP HIS PROMISE TO LOWER OUR PROPERTY TAX
Let us remember that Mayor Renard Johnson campaigned emphatically on lowering our property tax while his opponent, Brian Kennedy, was honest and direct about the financial challenges on the horizon.
As we saw, our City Council voted unanimously to increase our City property tax by 4.3% last August, with the Mayor and his allies trying desperately to hide that figure with dishonest math.
In December, the Mayor “revised” his campaign promise by stating what he really meant was that the City property tax would be lowered after new business comes to El Paso.
But look at the multi-year financial outlook by the CFO!
There is no way in hell the Mayor will keep his campaign promise.
Will he next tell us that what he really meant is that our property tax will be lower when new business comes to El Paso after the year 2031?
Perhaps he should admit he just plain lied in order to get elected.
