Yesterday the voters of El Paso approved all three propositions of the Community Progress Bond for a total of $272,480,000 in new borrowing.
In addition, there are hundreds of millions of dollars worth of general obligation bonds and certificates of obligation that have been authorized by City Council but not yet sold, since the City issues debt from large bonds incrementally. This includes the $96,000,000 CO authorized August 24, 2021 as well as more than $100,000,000 in QOL funds for the arena.
In addition, UMC will likely put a GO bond on the ballot for next May for over $300,000,000 since their attempt to issue debt as a CO was killed by citizen petition.
In addition, we just learned that El Paso County may soon issue a certificate of obligation in the amount of $100 million in order to fund about 150 projects.
Conservatively, the City, UMC and County could add well over $1 billion of new debt, significantly increasing our property tax, which will significantly increase rents for the most vulnerable El Pasoans.
Because of very high interest rates, the cost of servicing the new debt will be extraordinarily high, somewhere between a half-billion and a billion dollars over the life of the bonds and certificates.
Property owners will not feel the pain until the inevitable property tax hike in FY 2023-2024, long after this election is over.Welcome to El Paso.