During the last two fiscal years, the total principal and interest on our City’s CO debt declined from a peak of $852 million to $721 million. This is because our previous City Council refused to issue any non-voter-approved debt. In fact, they refused to issue any new debt at all.
Still, El Paso has the highest per-capita CO debt of the six largest Texas cities as well as the highest CO debt as a percentage of total debt obligations.
By contrast, Houston has not held more than $16 million in CO debt since FY 2017 and this year is the first major Texas city to extinguish its CO debt completely.
That’s right. Houston owes $0 in CO debt because their leaders believe that non-voter-approved debt should be issued only for the most dire emergencies.
Meanwhile, the City of El Paso issues CO debt for items that should be paid for from our General Fund and for cost overruns on public bond projects, like the Children’s Museum. During the Tommy Gonzalez years, our City Council voted to issue eight COs between 2014 and 2021.
And now our County wants a piece of the action. The Commissioners Court voted to issue $59 million in CO debt in 2023 and another $54 million just last month.
Under the direction of Mayor Johnson and County Judge Samaniego, we fear our City and County will issue even more debt without voter permission.