Ready to get the first time.

Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to City Council Chambers.

Miss Prime, we're ready to get started.

Good morning, Mayor, and good morning, everyone.

This is a work session of the El Paso City Council for Monday, April 27th, 2026.

It is nine oh five AM.

Mayor Johnson is present and presiding council chambers along with Mayor Protein Chavez, Representative Acevedo, Representative Malonado Rocha, Representative Boyatrepo, Representative Nino, Alternate Mayor Potem Pierro, Representative Limon, and Representative Canales.

Mayor, we have a quorum.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Representative Canalis, would you lead us in the pledge?

Mayor, it's always a pleasure um to read this proclamation and to welcome our friends from emergence and from NAMI.

Uh let me start as we're walking up.

Whereas mental health is an essential part of overall health, and whereas one in five US adults experience a mental health condition in any given year, and whereas approximately one half of all chronic mental health conditions begin by age fourteen, and three quarters uh uh by age twenty-four.

Whereas on average, there's a delay of eleven years and sometimes decades between the first appearance uh of symptoms when the individual receives treatment.

Whereas early identification and appropriate treatment can signify improve outcomes and support long-term recovery.

Whereas every individual and community can play a role in ending the silence and stigma that have long surrounded mental health and discourage people from seeking help.

And whereas increased public awareness about mental health can positively shift attitudes, reduce stigma, and make it easier for individuals to access the support that they need.

Whereas El Paso can text NAMI to 741741 to access free 24-7th confidential crisis text line.

Whereas El Pasoans can experience a mental health crisis, or are concerned about loved ones, can also text 988, the National Suicide Crisis Lifeline, or contact the Crisis Lifeline at 915-779-1800.

Both lines are free, confidential, and available 24-7 and answered by Emergent Health Network Mental Health Professionals.

Whereas Emergence Health Network and NAMI El Paso will come together alongside the community for mental health night at the El Paso Chihuahua Game, taking place May 8th, 2026, welcoming all residents to join in spirit and solidarity, hope, and healing.

Now they're before be proclaimed by the mayor and council, the City of El Paso, the month of May 2026, be known as Mental Health Awareness Month.

Signed the Honorable Mayor Renard Johnson.

Good morning.

Good morning, Mayor Council Renew Thalow, Chief of Staff for Emergence Health Network.

And on behalf of the board and all the staff at Emergence, one of thank you for recognizing May's Mental Health Month.

It's a very important month for us as we work to uh educate the community about the importance of mental health access and help that is needed.

The city has been instrumental in the growth of clinical programming and outreach programming that emergency has been able to achieve.

Without you, we could not do it.

Of course, the centerpiece of our partnership is our crisis are our crisis intervention teams and our partnership with the El Paso Police Department and Chick Pasillas.

As you know, uh the CIT team is comprised of a mental health professional co-deploying with a peace officer or uh police officer to SWAT or mental health situations.

And uh now that the program has been uh in in uh in operation for several years, we do have the data that shows that uh the program is very effective at diverting individuals with a mental health diagnosis away from jail or the inappropriate placements, and again, without your partnership, this this would not be happening here in our city.

Uh mentioned 988, and of course, we are very proud to be one of only four 988 call centers in Texas.

So when you call 988 from El Paso, it's answered it's uh answered right here in the city.

We are uh co-located with 911.

They are literally an arm reach of arms reach from each other.

So again, a very innovative partnership when it comes to 911 and 988.

So we're excited that we're able to be able to continue the this programming, along with many other education and and treatment options that are available now that weren't available just a couple of years ago, uh, from our new location at the Boys and Girls Club here in South El Paso to our new mobile outreach learning library that's traveling around the area, providing information on mental health access.

Uh all all these programs would not be in existence without partnerships uh like like like the city.

So we're excited that we continue to grow and uh of course you uh you may have heard last time we were here, our CEO Christy Dharty, oh, and we have our we have our guest here showing up to talk about mental health night, so we're excited that he's gonna he's gonna be a part of this.

Um as I was saying, so we uh we came a couple just a couple of weeks ago to talk about our our our new uh our new facility that's gonna be out in Far East El Paso.

We're gonna be able to uh with the help of the state legislature that afforded emergence health network 55 million dollars to construct and operate a brand new mental health campus in Far East El Paso.

We're finalizing uh the land purchase here and we'll we'll be breaking ground this this year, so we're excited and we'll keep uh mayor and council appraised as well as the entire community appraised of this new campus that's dedicated to mental health services that's gonna change the face of how we treat folks with mental illness here in El Paso.

So we're excited to get that going.

And with that, I want to finish up my little uh speech today with with uh inviting you to the ballpark.

Uh May 9th is mental health night at the Chihuahuas.

Uh EHN is proud to be the only presenting sponsor, uh, and we want everybody out there kind of you know raising the flag of of mental health and mental awareness, and that's why we have our friends here to include Isidro.

Good morning, good morning, Mayor, good morning, counsel Isidro Torres, executive director of Nami El Paso and interim executive director of NOMI, Texas.

Thank you so much for letting us intrude on your work session today.

Really appreciate it.

We know you don't usually do these during the work session, but grateful to be here, grateful for Chico and our partners at Emergent Health Network.

presenting sponsor uh and we want everybody out there kind of you know raising the flag of of mental health and mental awareness and that's why we have our friends here to include isidood mayor good morning counsel isidotoras executive director of nominal passo and term executive director of Nami Texas thank you so much for letting us intrude on your work session today really appreciate it we know you don't usually do these um during the work session but grateful to be here grateful for Chico and our partners at Emergent Health Network this year Nami El Paso we're really grateful we're gonna be celebrating 40 years here in our community 40 years of community healing and coming together around mental health our work started um our work is surrounded in in community and in healing and that's really at the core of our theme this year uh is coming together and and connecting with one another uniting together and healing together but also moving forward together and so we're really excited uh and hope you'll join us at the ballpark May 8th very good representative is there are we supposed to be wearing certain colors or do we go Chihuahua red or I believe the emergency team is whiting out the stadium the mental health awareness color so Ms.

Lamon can't wear her green she has to wear white green green green would be perfect thank you all both for everything you do for our community I know when when we do our our monthly mental health um meetings in our in a for our community you all are always the first to step up and come out and share information on your Saturday mornings and we cannot thank you enough for all you do for everybody in our community.

Thank you thank you mayor yep Representative Nino Thank you mayor and I echo the sentiment that Fiero shared with you all thank you for everything that you do in our community I was going to ask you you guys could repeat one more time the phone numbers that the individuals could text and call whenever they're facing a mental health crisis.

So it's it's as easy as a nine eight eight that's that's probably the the easiest one to to uh to access we're available 247 365 and you'll speak to a mental health professional uh with regard in any kind of crisis or guidance to seek resources the way to go yeah mental health is extremely important and it's important to have access to it I always share with my staff I myself go to therapy every two weeks the Wednesday after a council meeting usually but it's really important and I'm not kidding for I I go to therapy no I I intentionally set it up every Wednesday after a council meeting because it's important for us to be able to have that resource and I always share with my colleagues and my staff of how important mental health is so thank you for uh everything that you guys do for our community and looking forward to celebrating uh the future East campus which I know is going to be in district five it's actually gonna be right behind my house but thank you guys for everything you guys do thank you yeah so you you're gonna hear the same thing you know thank you guys for what you do in the area of mental health and um we know that this affects everyone regardless of age background money profession and I think we have to remember that it's okay to not be okay you know and and most people don't understand what that means and Representative Nino just you know expressed something that he does in the in this private world but it's okay to go out and seek help when you need it.

I think it's important also that we remember that we need to check on our neighbors check on our friends and our families the ones that we may not know that could be suffering that we should we should reach out to to see how they're doing and asking for help is truly a sign of strength so we appreciate everything you guys are doing for this community and for 40 years it's been it's been amazing.

And you show up today you know we we're we're looking at May 9th the event at the ballpark but you bring our favorite Chihuahua here with you I mean what's not the not to expect so we're so very very happy that you brought Chico here and and that we'll be seeing you guys at the ballpark and congratulations on 40 years.

Thank you guys one on either side

You're gonna have to ask you.

See, I'm spending a combination but tomorrow contour regidores and Juarez, then the representatives of Juarez.

Okay, Miss Bryant, I think we're ready for agenda item number one.

Yes, sir.

Item number one is a presentation and discussion on the fiscal year twenty twenty-five-2026 second quarter financial report.

Good morning.

Morning, Baron City Council.

So we have for you today the second quarter report.

This will cover the time period of September through February.

So this presentation, um, again, similar information that we showed during the first quarter.

Uh this presentation is a little bit different.

So one of the important things about this presentation is it sort of sets the baseline for our upcoming FY2027 budget, and so a lot of the numbers that you'll see here as far as the projections is something that the budget office will use when they're developing out their projections for the revenues and expenses as we develop out the FY twenty twenty-seven budget.

Also, we do these presentations quarterly, and so one of the key takeaways from this is really to highlight the accuracy of the budget office and how they're doing as far as projecting out when we're developing the budget our revenues and expenses.

So I don't know if you all have seen the news, and so one of the things that we're very proud about is that we don't have to, or we've in the last twelve years or so have not seen um having to make mid-year reductions because revenues aren't performing or because expenses are out of control.

So the city of Dallas recently, a story in the newspaper here in the last few days that uh currently facing a thirty million dollar deficit in their current fiscal year, so they're having to make sort of mid-year adjustments, putting the hiring freeze in place, um, putting some expenses that they had planned um on hold.

And so a very very different situation uh than what we're facing here.

So Miss Lamone may remember from her uh first time in office, um 2012, 2013, the city was in a much different position financially.

Um I went back to the budget office in 2013 in that year from 2013 to 14 was a very very challenging time.

Uh the city was facing uh mid-year reductions and adjustments because revenues were not performing as expected.

So I say all of that because this is very very important.

We'll go through this pretty quickly, but um um overall positive news.

Our revenues are performing um as expected or even better in some cases.

Our expenses are within line with what we budgeted.

Um so overall, right now, as I mentioned, revenue right now, twenty-eight million dollars higher than last year.

Again, a majority of that coming from property tax and sales tax are two largest sources.

And then on the expenditure side, no surprise here again, our largest expense coming in the form of our um employees and the cost related to the salaries and benefits.

So the key takeaway from this presentation is that you all may remember when you all adopted the budget in August of last year, um, included in the budget was a use of 3.25 million dollars of fund balance.

I'm happy to report right now with what we're projecting that we will not use again, projected, not expected to use any of that fund balance in this current fiscal year.

So again, that's a positive story that we'll be able to uh preserve our fund balance in this fiscal year.

Um overall revenue again projected at just under 621 million.

And expenses right around the same.

So right now projecting a very, very slight surplus.

So right now projecting a very, very slight surplus, but again, being able to preserve our fund balance will be the priority as we finish out this fiscal year.

As we look to the revenues by category again, very similar structure to what I've shown in the past.

And so you'll see here in the blue the current fiscal year adopted budget, the year to date actuals again, covering the first six months of the fiscal year, the percentage collected, and then the two right hand columns there.

You'll see the comparison to last year.

So just to provide some again, easy to compare where we stand as far as the percent collected this year compared to last year.

And so right now you'll see overall revenue right around 71 and a half percent compared to 70 percent last year, and again, a portion of that coming from sales tax, which we'll talk a little bit about here in a minute.

So also happy BTS week.

I know everybody's excited for the the concert this coming weekend.

We're very excited for the impact that it's going to have on our revenue through the form of sales tax and our hotel occupancy tax.

And we'll talk a little bit more about that here in just a minute as well.

So this is showing the year in projection again by category.

Again, overall right now, revenues you will see the bottom line there projected to be under budget by 4.8 million.

However, again, 3.25 of that was in the form of the uh fund balance that we had plugged in.

So again, we're not anticipating to use any of that.

Um our franchise fees are still down slightly, however, we'll talk about that here in a minute as well.

The first quarter for the Opasto Electric franchise was a little bit lower compared to the prior year.

However, the second quarter did rebound and the second quarter, and then uh we will be getting the third quarter uh later in the month of May.

Um, so just some of the key slides here going through the different categories, and so this shows you the first quarter and second quarter for this fiscal year compared to the last two years.

Again, just to provide you an idea where we stand on the left-hand side and then the right hand side of one of the things that we look at as well as the percent collected compared to the prior years.

It just helps um easily identify any issues that we may see as far as uh if that percentage is a little bit lower, a little bit high.

Uh, you'll see again property taxes there higher than the prior two years, again, based on the property valuation growth.

On the right hand side, you'll see we're right around 96 percent, and this is again through February, and so uh that remaining four percent will come about through uh March and April primarily, and expecting to reach that hundred percent collection for property taxes.

On sales taxes here, this includes in this category sales tax and mixed beverage.

You'll see overall an increase of about four point or just under four million dollars there this year compared to the prior year.

Again, this is through February, so we did receive obviously sales tax in March and April.

Those numbers did come in extremely well.

Um, so but year to date through February, we're up about five percent in sales tax.

And you'll see on the percent collected again higher than where we were in the last year.

So that's a positive.

That means that uh we're collecting more sales tax than what we had budgeted, which is again helping to offset uh that use of fund balance in the current fiscal year.

Um, the one things that I I usually talk about when we talk about sales tax and franchise fees, it's the timing of the receiving of these revenues, and so sales tax collections, there's a two-month lag that we receive from the state.

Um, so for example, we just received two weeks ago, we just received our February sales tax amount.

So there's about a two-month, two and a half month time lag from the sales tax collection.

So the budget office has a very challenging task to try to forecast out the remaining six months of this fiscal year, plus we're projecting out when we develop the budget, the remaining 12 months.

So it's really about an 18-month projection that uh we're working to forecast and project and predict what's going to happen.

We all know we've seen a lot of uncertainty, not only locally, but across the entire nation recently with just sort of what's going on.

And so it tends to make sure that we want to make sure that we're being conservative.

So we never want to be overly optimistic when we're projecting sales tax, even though we may be up five percent or six percent, whatever the case may be.

We always utilize historical data.

We'll look at current economic indicators to make sure one that we're being as realistic as possible because you never want to be overly optimistic and expect sales tax to perform at a very very high rate when it may not happen.

And so, I mean that can lead to again if you're expecting sales tax to be much higher than it actually happens.

That can lead to the things that just mentioned with example the city of Dallas.

If your sales tax isn't performing, um could lead to some difficult decisions throughout the year to be able to balance.

Um, I will say also that incorporating the March and April sales tax that we received so far, so looking at year to date.

Right now, to the top six largest Texas city, El Paso is actually leading the top six largest cities in the state of Texas.

Say that again, Robert.

So out of the top six largest cities right now in the state of Texas, El Paso right now is actually leading.

So the last six months, we're actually leading the top six largest cities.

So performing extremely well in our sales tax collections.

Down slightly, as I mentioned, the Pasco Electric first quarter payment was down a little bit.

However, the second quarter did rebound and is actually a little bit higher than the prior year.

As I mentioned with franchise fees, again, this is even more challenging, the sales tax because franchise fees are paid quarterly.

And so this information that you'll see here on the screen is only through December.

So we will not receive the January and February, March quarterly payment until around the middle of May, so here in the next couple of weeks.

But as we get that third quarter payment, we'll incorporate that and make any adjustments as necessary.

So nothing crazy here.

Franchise fees pretty much in line with what we expected.

Again, and we'll continue to monitor that as we get that third quarter payment.

As we look to charges for services, which is a lot of different fees that we collect, whether it's in the parks department, the fire department through the ambulance revenue.

You'll see here overall, pretty much right in line with where we are historically.

This revenue category does not fluctuate too much.

We never see it really increase a whole lot, but we also don't see a decrease, which is again a positive on fines and forfeitures.

So this is hopefully nobody is getting tickets, but if you do, we hope you pay it.

Down a little bit compared to where we were last year.

So last fiscal year we did have an amnesty month, and so down a little bit from where we were last year.

Again, that was reflected in the adoptive budget that we adopted in August of last year, so we did back that out.

But you see the revenue down slightly compared to last year.

Licenses and permits, you'll see down slightly from where we were in FY25, and even down a little bit more from where we were in FY24.

However, we just closed our March month, and so again, that's not reflected here, but the month of March was up, and so that's encouraging that we did see an increase in the building permit for the month of March.

And so that'll help sort of push us to where we were, or a little bit ahead of where we were in the prior year.

On rents and other down again a little bit from where we were last year, but you'll see on the actual percentage collector, pretty much where we are historically.

And then finally, the bridge transfer that comes from the bridges to the general fund.

You'll see an increase of about 1.3 million.

So the bridge revenue is performing extremely well.

Um part of that is due to the fee now that we do have for the empty cargoes.

And so you'll see right now we're about 54%, much higher than where we were in the last two years.

So again, that revenue continues to perform well.

You all will see hopefully in the month of June, we've been working on the solicitation for the feasibility master plan for the SLEDA port of entry, and that contract should come before city council.

Hopefully, in the month of June for awards so that we can get started on that to look at the future expansion for the Sleta port.

As we look to the expenses again, you'll see here by category, um, same format as you saw on the revenue slide.

You'll see the adjusted budget, the actuals year to date, and the percent expended, and then the two right-hand columns just for comparison purposes, and you'll see slightly higher than where we were last year.

But again, a majority of that, if you look at the top line personal services, that's our salaries, benefits, and taxes, a little bit higher again, just due to the compensation adjustments that we've done or that we did in February.

Uh, but overall expenses right now, as I mentioned, projected to be under budget by about five million dollars.

So, again, we have pretty strong controls in place to make sure that we're monitoring, keeping track on all of our expenditures.

Uh, we do have a couple of accounts that are trending a little bit over budget again, but we've got offsetting again adjustments in all of the different categories.

But if you look at the bottom line again, overall projected to be under budget on the expenditure side by about five million.

Um, same thing here.

We've got the different categories.

You'll see again the large driver hairs and the salaries, benefits, and taxes.

Um, again, about 11.5 million dollar increase, but pretty much in line when you look at the right-hand graph there with where we are historically.

Our contracts, you'll see that increase there in the contracts, a majority of that coming from our information technology and some of the other contracts are awarded throughout the year.

Again, we continue to see that, and on seems like every council agenda, different contracts increasing, um, still continue to see those increases by you know eight to ten percent.

Uh but when you look at again that graph on the right hand side, pretty much in line with where we are historically on the actual amount spent.

Uh, materials and supplies is down a little bit, so this this is encouraging again that we're holding the line on those expenditures.

Our operating expenditures are up by about 800,000.

Uh, one of the things we're keeping an eye on, obviously, the cost of fuel.

We've seen an increase in the cost of fuel, and we think about the amount of fuel we go through from our police department, there all of our uh different departments, whether it's planned inspections, our parks department, a heavy user of fuel, something we continue to monitor not only for this fiscal year, but as we develop out the budget for next year as well.

Our transfers out, which covers expenses to animal services.

This is all of our pay goal funding that we transfer into our capital fund.

Uh it covers the economic sentiment amounts that come from the general fund to cover those rebates.

Um you'll see pretty much right in line with where we were last year.

And then finally, again, just to recap again, the positive here, the key takeaway is that overall right now projecting to have a slight surplus, 114,000, and again, not have to utilize our fund balance when we close out this fiscal year, which is again the priority as we you all remember.

We closed out RFY 2025 and we actually ended up using 6.9 million out of that budget is 7.2 million.

And so this year again, although we reduced it, the uh target will be not to have to utilize any of our fund balance this year.

And then finally, again, um no actions being requested.

This is just to provide you all an update.

Um one of the big things as I mentioned again is that this information really helps set sort of the base for the FY2027 uh budget development.

We've made quite a few different changes to the budget development process this year, a lot of exciting changes.

So we're gonna do multiple rounds of budget workshops with the council.

We've got our community meetings scheduled for the beginning of June.

We're gonna be rolling out our our budget simulator so that the public can actually have more interaction when they actually come out and uh get to attend those community meetings.

And so those will be taking place over the next several months.

And so with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions you all may have.

Very good uh second quarter financial report, Robert.

Um slide four was so good you put it in there twice.

I mean, it's excellent news that not to have to utilize the fund balance, and so it's something that we've talked a lot about.

Yeah.

Again, not best practice.

Fortunately, the city we are in a position where we do have healthy reserves where that's been a tool that we can use.

However, we know that's not a long-term uh sustainable plan.

And so as we develop the FY27 budget, you know, Ms.

Mack's been you know challenging us to develop a budget that doesn't utilize fund balance as part of the balancing next year, and so that's something that we're working on right now.

Expenses are under budget and sales tax revenue is up.

And sales tax is doing extremely well right now.

That's very good.

Very good.

And then this weekend should be really good for us.

And so again, we won't see the impact of that.

So this will be so May 1st and 2nd and Thursday, so we won't see that until July, when we're probably the middle of July is when we'll get the May sales tax.

And then the quarterly, so we won't receive the hot because hotel occupancy taxes are quarterly, we won't see that impact until the middle of July.

So again, very exciting to see you know 50,000 plus people here on Saturday and Sunday.

It's gonna be a fantastic event, Saturday and Sunday.

Absolutely.

Good job, Robert.

Uh Representative Chavez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Robert, for the presentation.

That's great.

I want to focus on slide eight, if we can go back to that real quick.

And I have a couple of questions for you, only because I I love I love everything to do about sales tax.

Um as a business owner myself, I used to religiously pay my sales tax uh to the state every 20th of the month.

That's when they're due.

Um, and I process them myself for over 20 years.

So this is something I'm familiar with and love to talk about.

Do we have it broken down on uh well, first of all, I'd like to ask you what percentage of our general fund comes from sales tax?

It's about 23 percent.

Okay.

Um it's a big chunk of it, right?

It's the second largest source of revenue for the general fund.

Second to property taxes.

Yes.

Okay.

So do we have it broken down by any chance by industry, by business size, by area of the city where we're collecting it?

So not by the area of the city.

We do receive on a monthly basis confidential reports from the state controller, and so uh actually partnering with internal audit, they we have a partnership with NUMO, and so they are collecting those confidential reports, and they're provided to the city on a on a monthly basis.

And so in those reports, it gives us not only by the industry, but we can see down to the business, the actual businesses and how their sales taxes are performing.

So we don't share that information obviously because it's confidential, but it does help us as we're projecting out you know the budget for our sales tax because we can see is it maybe a one-time increase, or do we anticipate it continuing into the future?

And so I mean a lot of the driver, no surprise.

E-commerce, uh electronic, uh, you know, the Amazon, the TikTok shop, and those type of things are performing extremely well, so that's helping.

There's some other categories that are helping, but uh to answer your question, yes, we do collect that information.

And by business size as well, so by number of employees or by number like by revenue or something like that.

No, not by business, but we get the complete the complete list of the businesses for you know that month.

And so the challenging thing with that is that that's another month lag.

And so again, we get a two-month lag from the state, and then that confidential report is another month lag.

And so when we're looking at that information, it's three months old if you're looking at you know the real-time information.

And I'm I'm wondering because we've seen a lot in the news of um certain types of businesses shut down here in our city, and there was you know, a period of time where people were maybe worried about the trend of that happening.

And so as we talk about economic growth and you know, flipping the tax base to commercial more than residential.

Um wondering how to be more targeted, right, in our approach to that.

How how do we get our our economic development team to understand this part of of our general fund income, which is 23 percent, which you just mentioned, to say, okay, this is the industry we should be targeting, this is the business size, this is the support we need to be giving this type of of businesses in our community to ensure that we don't see closures but we see growth, right?

And and business is able to scale, or businesses able to come to our city and establish themselves here.

So I I think it's fascinating.

I think that there might be some information there that we could probably utilize to our benefit and maybe get other departments involved in in this conversation.

And so they are.

So the economic development department does get to see those reports as well, and so they see you know the different industries, um, a lot of things that we're working on.

The business one-stop shop that we have, the shop local program that we have, the biopassal rewards program.

So a lot of those different things really focusing on the investment in the small businesses to help them again continue to grow and to prosper.

Okay.

Well, I don't I don't know.

I know you said some of it's confidential.

I don't know if there would be ever a moment in time where we could just better understand where this comes from, if it's large, medium, small, um and and how we can do that.

I mean, we can show by the industry categories, but we don't have I'm trying to think.

I don't believe that we have by business size, but I'll look.

Okay.

Well, maybe maybe a little bit more detailed report would be would be good to know.

Thank you, Robert.

And Robert, I think by industry would be great.

So we would know where to target our efforts if possible.

Representative uh Fierro.

Thank you, Mayor.

Robert, thank you very much for for the positive uh report.

And and thank you to you, your team for doing all the hard work and putting these numbers together.

I wanted to bring up something that the mayor had brought up or highlighted in your report.

And it had to do with uh expenses.

And he he brought the point that expenses are not are in line or underneath.

And and I think that's a culture that Ms.

Mack has really implemented in in our team, in in the whole citywide team of pride of being fiscally responsible to the citizens of El Paso.

And I just didn't want to go without uh highlighting that, Mayor, because I think that's important.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Mack.

I agree.

Representative Nino.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Robert, for putting this presentation together.

I know that we've had a lot of conversations about the financial health of our city at FOAC.

Um I'm really excited that you know we're projecting not to use the fund balance and there's going to be a possible surplus.

Um I have one question on slide number 11 on the fines and four traders.

Um you mentioned the amnesty amnesty period.

How often do we do the amnesty period?

Is it every three years?

It depends.

And so I've I mean I've seen it to where in years past the city was doing it every other year.

I think the last time we did it went about three years from in between the different amnesties.

And so it varies.

But we're able to do it yearly or how is the strategy done when it comes to deciding the amnesty?

We want people to pay their bills on time, and so we don't want to tell them when amnesty is coming.

Okay.

And last time we didn't really recover the cost.

And so I think we have to be strategic.

We really thought we were going to bring in an additional million dollars, and we didn't.

So I think we just have to re-relook at what we do because there is a cost and expense to that process as well.

Okay.

No, and this is great to know and understand.

Um, and I'm looking at the picture of, you know, when individuals might have some sort of like pending citation and becomes warrants and to help you even just the system of the jail system, you know.

That's what I was trying to understand in regards of um possibly brainstorming of when people do have certain fines that are overdue and they didn't take part of that amnesty period.

How is it that we could possibly continue to advocate for them to pay for their citations?

Um yes, I thought it was just important for me to ask that.

We we can also gather, I think it's important if you all know the payment plans and some of the things that we have, and so I'll ask the team to sort of put together, you know, a memo.

So if someone's asking the question, they know that they can try to get themselves in a payment plan and figure out how to best get those things paid off.

I think the courts are are really a meanable to trying to help people in that way.

Yeah, no, this is great.

And I think a lot of people sometimes might be worried or scared of going to go pay a warrant or a citation thinking that they're gonna get arrested.

Um so I think definitely we could work a little bit more on the educational park, it could go a long way.

So thank you for that.

Um I have one question on operating costs, and I'm again I'm happy that there's a possible surplus.

Um, you know, everyone's has been affected about on the raising cost of utilities, and uh that doesn't, you know, exempt the city of O'Paso when it comes to paying utilities as well.

Um has there been a bit big impact on the raising cost of utilities to the city of El Paso.

So we did see an increase.

You all may remember last year that was one of the big drivers on the expenditure side.

We increased believe it was about two and a half million dollars on the water cost.

So we did have did have a budget impact in this uh fiscal year.

And so as we develop out the FY27 budget, yes, absolutely.

We'll make sure we're taking into account the increase not only in Alpassal Water but Alpass Electric as well.

And I have a question for you.

Um we've seen so many different filings happen, and I know some of them were not you know, um were not expected.

When it comes to possibly knowing that, you know, these utilities could file cases throughout the year.

How are we prepared for us to see the possible rising cost annually as it comes forward?

Yeah, uh that so we don't have crystal balls.

I mean, we try to do the best we can utilizing the historical information that we have, the information that's out there.

Um Ian Bogleweed and his team try to keep us in the loop and things that he may be hearing working with our utility partners.

Um but obviously we don't want to over budget as well, right?

So we want to make sure we're being again realistic on both sides, expenses and the revenue side.

So we don't want to uh say, well, if we need to add an extra million, because we may or may not see this.

I mean that million dollars can go to another program, but we want to make sure that we are covering anything that may be coming down the pipeline.

Yeah, and the reason I bring this up increases is because I'm aware, you know, I think we all have work we're conscious of uh it's impacted a lot of members of our community.

It also impacts our operating costs, and even this body has taken you know position on intervening on several cases to try to protect the rate pair, but also it's protecting the entity as itself because we are paying the rising cost of utilities as well.

Right.

Okay, thank you.

Um and I echo you know what what the mayor was saying also about this coming weekend of you know revenue for the city when it comes to um whenever we're working with our budget, we're looking at and identifying different budgets or different funding streams of how is it that we're gonna you know overall create our budget.

So I'm looking forward to the results of these concerts that are coming forward, not just this weekend but throughout the year, right?

I know I had a conversation with uh Visit O Paso and they were just sharing some preliminary numbers in regards to what's gonna impact you know all of our community.

But thank you for all your work and and this presentation.

Okay, thank you.

Representative Assavidal.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um Robert, thanks for this great presentation.

A couple months ago, you were giving us some what ifs on kind of a bleak outlook for the future.

And I always have trust in you and getting us to where we need to.

And I think we're we're in a good position here, and I think you seem to be happy, so I'm happy, right?

Um we have a great team.

So it's not just myself.

Having Telshwendonowski on board as the budget director to have a full-time budget director for the last coming up on a year now.

And so that I mean his leadership and the the work that he's been putting in with the team to get the budget office team staffed up and developed up.

He's doing a fantastic job.

So I mean it's the whole team to be able to get these things done and be able to make sure that you know we're not just looking again, it's I keep saying it over and over, but it's it's critical, right?

Because it's important that we're not just looking at you know the upcoming year, but we maintain that multi-year focus.

And so that's another one of the changes you'll see this year is as we're talking about the FY2027 budget.

We're also gonna show you all throughout the process the FY2028, what that could look like based on those decisions.

No, that's great to hear.

I I also um want to focus a little bit on sales tax echo what my colleagues have been saying about it.

I I guess I I want to see if we could get uh an understanding of how this can impact us in in a positive way.

You you have UTEP with BTS next month and post Malone and Jelly Roll and then Carol G later and then Usher and Chris Brown later.

Um and they're promising to bring a lot more.

So I'm thinking through this in terms of how can we have some conversations with UTEP about you know, letting us be at the table with them and helping.

I know Destination El Paso is working through numbers and the impact on that, but just strategically, how can we partner in that sense to say we want the sales tax, but we also want you to have a great event, and then we're also providing a lot of security for you, et cetera, right?

So I think it's a really great opportunity because we don't have a venue that that's the biggest venue that we have in in the city.

So it's it's something that we should continue to take advantage.

I'm really uh happy that the Sun Bowl is kind of reviving and getting a lot of concerts because we were getting some maybe every few years, but not as much as we're getting this year.

So it is a positive moment for the city in that sense.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't want to I don't want to speak for you, Tip, but um, you know, it was public a couple years ago where they were trying to get some some help to make some improvements to the to the facility.

It's you know no different than a lot of our facilities.

Unfortunately, that needs some significant investment to be able to get it to where it really needs to be, not only from the infrastructure standpoint, but the technology standpoint as well, so that they can continue to attract these big type shows.

And and that's kind of where the thought was if you're bringing in X amount of sales tax with four shows in 2026.

What what impact is that?

And I believe at the time they were asking for a hundred million dollars, and so is it gonna even out at some point or something like that?

And and it's it's worth kind of talking through it because we don't have any other arena.

Um we have the Don Haskins, which also feels up.

We have the county coliseum, but that's it.

We have nothing else in the city.

So I think it's uh it's a really important moment for us to kind of look at that and be a little strategic about it.

Let them lead, but some data sharing would also be really great.

Thank you, Robert.

Thank you.

Representative Rocha.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thanks, Robert, for the presentation.

I I I um I also am very interested just to make sure that it's on the record of that industry kind of segmentation on what the sales tax is.

I think it it provides that information that is um a little more targeted to see what where where the opportunities could lie.

But with that being said, uh not only happy BTS week, happy uh Soul Summit Week, happy uh Comic Con week, happy Clue week for uh for visit El Paso.

So all of that that's going to be contributing to the overall um economic impact within the city of El Paso.

I have a couple of questions.

The franchise fees that you show that are collected at this time.

I know that there was at one point several, well, I'll say two that I know of uh companies that had outstanding bills with the franchise fees.

By any chance, are you able to to or do you have knowledge of what that looks like right now, Robert?

I'm not sure what you're referencing.

So we do have telecommunication franchise fees.

We won't work with ATT, yes.

Yeah, yeah, that one we're working on.

We need to get that special permit.

That one is still outstanding.

That one is still outstanding.

Okay.

That that was the one in particular that I was talking about.

And it's a smaller one, but yes, it is.

It's still impactful from what I remember.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

And then secondly, um, are you able to share those cost containment measures that that you spoke about?

What you're doing strategically to bring the expenses down.

So it's not necessarily to bring it down, it's more about just monitoring so the budget office, that's what they do all throughout the year.

So they continue to monitor on a daily basis, monthly basis, they're working with the departments to continue to review their expenses just to make sure that they're in line, make them aware, providing the reports, um, talking to them, going out and visiting these departments to understand what things that they're facing as far as upcoming contracts that they may have in place.

Um so I wouldn't say that it's cost containment, it's more of just having the mechanisms in place to make sure that we're all on the same page and that you know the departments aren't doing something that the budget office isn't aware of, or the budget office you know isn't communicating clearly with the department.

So I don't want to give any type of impression that we're implementing any type of thing where we're withholding or restricting what the departments can do, not at all, just to be very, very clear.

Not at all.

It's mainly just working together to make sure that we're on the same page and that we're sharing information.

I I appreciate the clarification.

I guess following up to that, are there opportunities then to improve those operational operations that we could bring costs down?

We're looking at that on an ongoing basis.

I think it's really helped us to have stability and leadership, as you might recall.

And then stabilizing their systems, stabilizing um OMB.

So then we're having those conversations, those reports really flow.

What the DCMs are doing is as the teams are looking strategically at operations, we're doing those reports as we go along.

And so as the teams are starting to look at things by program, how do we look at how do we fund those?

How do we talk about what priorities are for the city?

How do we look at our staffing in a very different way?

Because the majority of our funds and costs are staffing, and so you'll see some things that we're starting to evaluate right now.

Um we're doing budget week this week, so I'm meeting with 31 departments, and we'll be bringing that forward to you.

It really is starting to dig in because we know we have a lot of expenses coming up.

We know that there's a lot of things that are hitting the city that are uncontrolled expenses that are coming through legislation that have recently been passed that are hitting us, and so it's always a need for us to think about efficiencies and within the dollars that we have.

And so we're we're gonna be bringing some things forward that I think will right size us in some ways to help us to be able to sort of have transparency on this and have the teams really align to the new strategic plan that you put forward.

Okay, thank you, Ms.

Mack.

And so we do have.

I mean, one of the things that we've had in place for gosh, over 10 years or so is when departments want to make position changes or if they want to even they want to fill a position, they send an email to myself, I'll review it, and then usually respond right away, and it's usually approved right away.

But one of the things that allows us to do is to be able to keep an eye on what's going on in the different departments, so it helps us highlight.

Are we seeing a department that's constantly asking to fill positions?

Maybe they're having a lot of turnover.

Or if a department, for example, submits they want to do a staffing table change where they're looking to delete some position titles and they want to add some new position titles.

That gives us the opportunity to say, well, explain to me why, why what is it that you're trying to accomplish?

How is it going to help improve the service that you're providing?

Is that the only change you're looking to make, or is it part of a larger discussion that we need to have?

So there are opportunities that we utilize to be able to evaluate, particularly on the staffing side, because I mean we've seen and I've shown you all that.

That's three-quarters of the budget.

And so if we're going to make adjustments, it's going to come to those type of efforts.

Thank you, Robert.

Thank you, Miss Mac.

Robert, thank you.

Good report.

All right, thank you.

All right, council.

Due to the nature of item number two, it deals with cybersecurity.

Uh, and it's an audit.

We need to retire into executive session.

And I'll read it into the record.

Item two is discussion and action on the El Paso Police Department Cybersecurity Assessment.

All right, is there a motion?

So move.

Second.

There's a motion and a second to retire to executive session.

All in favor?

Aye.

Anyone opposed?

And the city council of City of Al Paso may retire to executive session personage section 3.5A of the El Paso City Charter and the Texas Government Code, Chapter 551, sub chapter D to discuss any of the following.

Item number two, discussion and action on the El Paso Police Department Cybersecurity Assessment under 551.071.

Executive session item one, claim of Nilda Rivera, Philip Adams, and Sol Arzola under 551.071.

Executive session item two and Helica Lujan on behalf of Javier Hernandez versus City of Alpaso et al.

Cause number 326-CB-00158 under 551.071.

Executive session item three, application of Al Paso Electric Company for approval of a high load factor, large power service tariff, PUC number 59611, HQ number utility-83 under 551.071.

Executive session item four application of Al Paso Electric Company to amend and certificate of convenience and necessity for a 150 megawatt battery battery storage facility, PUC number 59585, HQ number utility-79 under 551.071.

Executive session item five, El Paso Electric Companies petition to modify duration of certain Texas Electric Vehicle EV ready pilot program tariffs, PUC number 59509, HQ number utility-82 under 551.071 and executive session item six discussion on purchase exchange lease or value of real property in Al Paso HQ number 25-255 under 551.071.

These matters are taken into executive session under 551.0711.551.072 deliberation regarding real property.

It is 1002 a.m.

Okay, Miss Prime we're ready.

Councilman, is there a motion to come out of executive session?

Second.

There's a motion and a second to come out of executive session.

All in favor?

Aye.

Anyone opposed?

And the meeting is back in session.

We're on item number two.

Mayor Pro Tem.

I make a motion to approve item number two to accept the audit report.

There's a motion.

Okay, motion and second.

Ms.

Bryan.

Yes, the motion was made by Mayor Pro Tem Chavez, seconded by Representative Canales to accept the results of the audit on item number two on that motion.

Call for the vote.

And the voting session.

And that motion passes unanimously.

EX1.

Motion made, seconded, and carried that the city attorney's office in consultation with the city manager be authorized to deny the claims of Nilda Rivera, Philip Adams, and Sol Arzola in HQ matter numbers claim dash 935, 975, and 982, respectively, and to take all steps necessary, including the execution of any required documents in order to effectuate this authority.

Okay.

There's a motion.

Is there a second?

Second.

Ms.

Pry.

The motion was made and read into the record by Mayor Pro Tem Chavez, seconded by alternate mayor Pro Tem Fierro to deny the claims on EX1.

On that motion, call for the vote.

And the voting session.

And that motion passes unanimously.

All right, the CIC EX2.

EX2.

No action.

Thank you.

EX3.

Motion made, seconded, and carried that the proposed high load factor large power service tariff rate be suspended for 90 days to allow for review and furthermore that the city attorney in consultation with the city manager be authorized to hire and retain outside council and any other necessary consultants and to file an intervention in the El Paso Electrics Company's application for approval of a high load factor large power service tariff under the Texas Public Utility Commission docket number 59611 in matter number high Q Utility-83 and to take all steps necessary including the execution of any required documents in order to effectuate this authority.

Okay.

There's a motion, is there a second?

Representative.

Just wanted to take my usual 1750 for one Pussel Electric Employee PAC for EX3, 4 and 5.

Okay.

There's a motion and a second, Miss Prime.

Yes, motion was made and read into the record by Mayor Pro Tem Chavez, seconded by Representative Limon on EX3, and this is to suspend rates, hire retain outside council and consultants on that motion.

Call for the vote.

And the voting session, and that motion passes unanimously.

Okay, let's say EX4.

EX4.

Motion made, seconded, and carried that the city attorney in consultation with the city manager be authorized to hire and retain outside council and any other necessary consultants and to file an intervention in the El Paso Electric Company's application to amend its certificate of convenience and necessity for a 150 megawatt battery storage facility under the Texas Public Utility Commission docket number 59585 in matter number high Q Utility-79 and to take all steps necessary including the execution of any required documents in order to effectuate this authority.

Okay, there's a motion.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right, Ms.

Pry.

There's a motion made and read into the record by Mayor Pro Tem Chavez, second it by Representative Limon on EX4, and this is to intervene and hire outside counsel and consultants on that motion.

Call for the vote.

And the voting session.

And that motion passes unanimously.

Okay, let's take EX5.

EX5.

Motion made, seconded, and carried that the city attorney in consultation with the city manager be authorized to file an intervention in El Paso Electrics Company's petition to modify duration of certain Texas Electric Vehicle EV ready pilot program tariffs under the Texas Public Utility Commission docket number 59509 matter number utility-82 and is further authorized to engage outside council and other consultants as necessary and to take all steps necessary including the execution of any required documents to effectuate this authority.

Okay, there's a motion.

Is there a second?

All right, Miss Pry.

There's a motion made and read into the record by Mayor Pro Tem Chavez, seconded by Representative Limon on EX5 to intervene and hire outside counsel and consultants if necessary on that motion call for the vote.

And the voting session.

And that motion passes 721.

Representative Ganales voting nay, the remainder of council voting aye.

The motion carries okay.

Let's take EX6.

EX6.

No action.

Thank you.

Okay, is there a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

All right.

Second.

There's a motion and a second to adjourn the work session.

All in favor?

Anyone opposed?

And the work session for Monday, April 27, 2026, is adjourned at 11:59 a.m.

Thank you, Council.