El Paso City Council Work Session Summary - November 17, 2025
El Paso City Council Work Session - November 17, 2025
The El Paso City Council convened for a work session to address critical internal audit reforms, develop a comprehensive housing strategy, and adjudicate a natural gas rate case. The session featured presentations on a needs assessment for the internal audit department, a detailed housing inventory and gaps analysis, and public commentary on utility rates. The Council unanimously denied Texas Gas Service's consolidation proposal and authorized outside counsel for related utility filings, while also approving a new cross-functional team to drive housing policy implementation.
Consent Calendar
- Adoption of Internal Audit Roadmap: The Council unanimously approved the final report and roadmap for the Internal Audit Department, accepting the recommendations provided by Weaver & Twell LLP to enhance department maturity from "repeatable" to "defined." Representative Acevedo moved to approve the report, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Chavez.
- Formation of Cross-Functional Housing Team: A resolution to formally establish a cross-functional team (representatives from districts 1, 3, 4, and 5) to oversee the implementation of the housing strategy was unanimously approved via motion by Representative Nino, seconded by Representative Canales.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Opposition to Consolidation: Multiple public speakers, including Gabriel Regalado, Francisco Tarin, and representatives from the Sembrando Esperanza Coalition, expressed strong opposition to the Texas Gas Service rate increase. Commenters argued that consolidating El Paso with the rest of the state would unfairly subsidize lower-rate regions while El Paso faces higher inflation. Specific concerns raised included the 10.4% return on equity request, the CEO's salary increases, and the disproportionate 27% rate hike impact on low-income households in El Paso.
- Housing & Economic Stress: Speakers highlighted the cyclical nature of school closures and neighborhood decline, emphasizing that families with children are leaving the city due to a lack of affordable housing and rising costs. Testimony stressed that the proposed utility increases, combined with rising electric and water rates, would push vulnerable families into energy insecurity.
Discussion Items
- Internal Audit Needs Assessment: Representatives from Weaver & Twell LLP presented a roadmap and 45 action items to mature the city's internal audit function. Speakers emphasized that governance, independence, and stakeholder coordination are "non-negotiables" for success. City Auditor Liz Delao reported that 14 internal process improvements have already been implemented, with 10 in progress. The Council discussed the need for technology upgrades, with estimated implementation costs between $45,000 and $85,000.
- Housing Needs Assessment (Envision El Paso): Matt Prosser of Economic and Planning Systems presented findings showing stagnant city population growth despite regional employment increases, a loss of 24,000 residents under age 20, and over 57% of residents aged 18-34 living with parents. The report identified a "catch-up" need for 18,300 units (addressing overcrowding and displacement) and a "keep-up" need for 17,000 new units over the next decade. Council members noted that housing production has shifted outside city limits due to regulatory differences and that the median income is insufficient for median home ownership.
- Texas Gas Service Rate Case: The Council heard from Assistant City Attorney Matt Marcus and Texas Gas Director Stacy McTaggart regarding the proposed consolidation of three service territories into one statewide system. City staff recommended denial, arguing that consolidation would force El Paso ratepayers to subsidize other areas. Texas Gas argued that consolidation is necessary for risk sharing and administrative efficiency, though they admitted El Paso would see the largest bill increase ($9.81-$13.23 monthly) while other regions see decreases. The State Delegation expressed concern that El Paso customers would fund corporate risk pools unrelated to local weather events.
Key Outcomes
- Internal Audit Action: The Council accepted the Weaver & Twell report and roadmap, directing the Internal Audit team to utilize the provided workbook for tracking the 45 action items.
- Housing Strategy Action: The Council unanimously passed a resolution to form a cross-functional team to develop policy recommendations, building and zoning code amendments, and economic incentives to increase housing supply and reduce costs.
- Texas Gas Service Decision: The Council unanimously approved a resolution to deny the Texas Gas Service rate increase request, specifically rejecting the consolidation proposal. The resolution states the rates are unreasonable and unjustified. The City is directed to reimburse itself for rate case expenses from TGS and to hire outside counsel to intervene in the pending Railroad Commission proceeding (EX5).
- Transportation Fee Item: A motion by Representative Limon to delete the Transportation User Fee presentation (Item 4) from the agenda passed by a 5-3 vote, denying the staff presentation despite objections from Council members who felt public engagement was necessary.
- Executive Session Actions: The Council resolved to hire outside counsel for the El Paso Electric Company docket (EX5) unanimously. No action was taken on the remaining executive session items (EX1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7) as they were informational or legal consultations requiring no immediate public vote.
Meeting Transcript
Ms. Prime, good morning. Good morning, Mayor. And good morning, everyone. This is a meeting of the El Paso City Council, and it's a work session for Monday, November 17th, 2025. It is 905 a.m. Mayor Johnson is present and presiding in Council Chambers along with Mayor Potem Chavez. Representative Acevedo, Representative Maldonado Rocha, Representative Boyatrejo, Representative Nino, Alternate Mayor Potem Piero, Representative Limon, and Representative Canales. Mayor, we have a quorum. Great. Representative Canales, would you lead us in the pledge, please? All right, we have a number of presentations today. We're going to get started with uh number one, Miss Bryant. Yes, sir. Item number one is discussion and action on the state of Al Pasos Internal Audit, current state, maturity and needs assessment prepared by Weaver and T well LLP. Good morning, guys. Good morning. All right. Getting it pulled up here. It'll eventually show up. There we go. There we go. Good morning, Mayor, representatives of council. It's our pleasure to be here today from representatives of Weaver that conducted this assessment. My name is Brandon Tannis, and the partner that led the engagement, joined by my colleague Holly Hart, director who led the day to day and interacted with all of you all as well. And so it's our pleasure to come back to this council meeting to really talk about the roadmap and the recommendations that we made in the really internal audit current state maturity and needs assessment. And so to take us back a little bit, we were back in front of you all on June 23rd, where we talked about the initial results of this assessment. And so we talked about the initial results, the recommendations. Following that, we met with the then city auditor and his uh his team to talk about those recommendations to get some additional feedback. And then from there, we built what we're going to kind of focus a lot more of our time today, talking about the roadmap. So the recommendations and the roadmap of how do you get uh to those next steps. And so I will click this. And so to remind the the council of our scope. And so the scope of engagement was to assess the current structure, the organization, the roles, responsibilities, and practices that were implemented by the city's internal audit department, and the coordinating activities to determine if they reflect the best practices and have the tools, resources, and capabilities really to address the city's needs. And so this review assessed the functions of effectiveness through the lens of independence, transparency, accountability, and alignment with stakeholder expectations, which is everyone here along with uh city management. And an emphasis on how internal audit delivers value to the city and its constituents accordance with two sets of standards. The first one is uh commonly referred to as the Red Book, so the Institute of Internal Auditors Global Internal Audit Standards, and then the yellow book, which is the GAO's government audit standards, uh, looking at those requirements and guidance as well. But to clarify, this was not a peer review. Um, would you also have a peer review in your internal audit department that does a deep dive into your work papers and quality control and things like that? This you know has many elements of that, but is not considered a peer review itself and really looks at best practices of the internal audit department. And so we assessed in our scope uh and used a customized maturity model. And so we'll talk about that here in a second a little bit more to really assess and have benchmarking for the current practices. Again, we had two sets of standards that we talked about also with the COSO integrated risk management framework and the capability maturity model integration and frameworks. And so when we did the system assessment, a lot of this was a focus on alignment with standards, the peer review that was being already performed, and focus on the current maturity level. And when we talk about maturity, is where do we want to be in the sense of you know having best practices, having new systems, and how do we approach the risk that impacts the city and looking at short and long-term improvement initiatives and how those are aligned with the city's strategic plans and risk and so forth. So a summary of our procedures, we did do a detailed analysis of the internal audit's policies, procedures, work papers, and the reporting. We also had interviews with stakeholders, including city management, the council, the FOAC, and we performed those in the in the beginning in February. And I'll turn here in a minute to our project timeline that gives a little bit more detail on that. We did also benchmarking against peer city practices, leading industry models, also an analysis of internal control charter, I mean the internal audit charter along with the hotline practices, an evaluation of the internal audit function against that maturity assessment and that model looking at the current state strengths and areas for improvement and of course the capability gaps. Then we had a development of a really tailored and very detailed action, both short-term and long-term action items that you will find in that report that takes you from your current state all the way to you know implementation to the maturity level that you all have decided you would like to achieve.
openpublica.com