TOTAL DEBT OF EL PASO TAXING ENTITIES TO SURPASS $11.5 BILLION

We are the only media source that reports the total debt of our local taxing entities.

On March 28 we shared statistics from the Texas Bond Review Board showing that the total principal and interest owed by all taxing entities within El Paso County, including the nine school districts, stood at $10,304,259,673.

Since that time, the figure has dropped to $10,009,329,565, a decrease of $294,930,108 or 2.86%. That is because there have been no major debt issues, with the exception of Canutillo ISD.

In fact, Canutillo ISD was the only taxing entity in the last 10 months to increase its debt load, which shot up from $100,621,365 to $297,037,913, thanks to the bloated $387 million GO bond approved by the voters in May.

CITY, COUNTY, AND UMC DEBT TO RISE SHARPLY

Of course, the nearly $295 million decrease in our total community debt is only temporary. In November, the voters approved $551,025,000 in general obligation bonds: $396,600,000 for University Medical Center and $155,025,000 for County infrastructure and pork spending. That debt will be issued over the next several fiscal years.

In addition, the City must issue approximately $472 million in general obligation bonds between now and FY 2029 because of the voter-approved Public Safety Bond of 2019 and Community Progress Bond of 2022. That figure would have been $600 million but thankfully the cancellation of the downtown MPC reduced it by $128 million.

It will be interesting to watch Mayor Johnson break his campaign promise to lower our property tax when this coming August the City blows past the no-new-revenue tax rate for FY 2026 and struggles to stay below the rollover tax rate. The state limit on property tax revenue increases is 3.5% but can be averaged over the previous three years, and debt servicing costs are not subject to that limit.

Thus, the City, County, and UMC will issue about $1 billion in debt over the next several years so that our total community debt, with principal and interest, will exceed $11.5 billion (about $13,200 for every man, woman, and child).

If you are anxious about the impact on our property tax, you have very good reason, and don’t look to the latest crop of City or County leaders to do anything other than borrow and spend more.