The El Paso City Council held a work session on July 21, 2025, from 9:02 AM to 4:20 PM, with a recess from 11:00 AM to 11:10 AM and an executive session from 12:29 PM to 4:12 PM. The meeting covered three major agenda items: the City's grants portfolio and federal legislative updates, an overview of the procurement sourcing policy and process, and an update on the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS). Council also took action on several executive session items, including claims and utility matters.
Well, good morning, everyone. We are going to call our work session meeting to order, and hopefully everyone is enjoying the beautiful rain outside. It's quite a nice change for El Paso. Ms. Prime. Yes, sir. Good morning. This is a work session of the El Paso City Council for Monday, July 21st, 2025. It is 9 02 AM. Mayor Johnson is present and presiding in Council Chambers, along with Mayor Pro Tem Chavez, Representative Acevedo, Representative Maldonado Rocha, Representative Nino, Alternate Mayor Pro Tempiero, Representative Limon, and Representative Canales. Mayor, we have a core. Thank you. Representative Rocha. And to the other nation under God. All right, Ms. Prime, agenda item number one. Yes, sir. Item number one is a presentation on the City of El Paso grants portfolio and federal legislative updates. Good morning. Good morning, Mayor Council. Can I T bring up the presentation, please? Do we have a presentation? It's up there. Oh, okay. All right. Well, good morning again. Um this presentation is um on the grants administration and federal updates. This I'm Elder Rodriguez Hefner, Office of the Comptroller Grants Administration Division. This is a combined effort with the strategic and legislative affairs department. And this item falls under goal six, setting the standard for sound governance and fiscal management. Our agenda today is going to cover um the results of single audits in 16, the citywide grants portfolio and grant awards by department. And then now I will pass it over to strategic and legislative affairs folks, and they will discuss the executive orders, the city response to the executive orders, and the one big beautiful bill, the rescinded and suspended grants, and uh our citywide grants strategy going forward, starting FY26. The grants administration's division's role is really we are the clearing house of the city's grants activity. So think about it as the one-stop shop. We take care of submitting applications, accepting awards, make sure making sure that we report that we conduct the reports and we are in compliance. You will see that on the web.1 billion dollars. That comes from the state. But this gives you an idea of how much we depend on the federal government for grants. They start at the federal level and go to the states, and the states pass it on to us. That's your tech stocks grants, your office of the governor grants, your uh Texas Department of State and Health Services grants. So there's a few. There's quite a few that that uh are passed through grants. And here is our very favorite slide. This table shows you the last uh six years, but I will make a uh point here that for the last nine consecutive years, the city has not had audit findings in the single audit. That's huge because as you can see, even our uh local partners have um they've done very well, but they have had findings. Uh, when we compare ourselves to other cities, um you can see that we are well ahead, and uh we're just very proud of that. Um that doesn't happen by luck or by chance, it comes with a lot of work. Our strong internal controls is what makes that happen. Uh the the work that the departments do at their level, their finance staff, um, their the strategic and legislative affairs folks, and certainly the grants administration office. Um I'm very proud of them, uh, and they're here this morning.