Now there’s a surprise

According to this story in the El Paso’s Times

El Paso taxpayers had to make up for a larger-than-expected shortfall in projected revenues for the Downtown ballpark’s first-year debt, according to an analysis of city figures.

Two years ago, the city had projected a shortage of about $627,000 for fiscal year 2014, when the city-owned ballpark opened, to be covered by the general fund. Instead, the shortage was about $977,000.

The general fund includes money from property taxes, sales taxes, city fees and other revenue sources available to the city.

“The main reason the figures were off by so much is that the projected revenues were overestimated,” said El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser, who had just been elected to office in 2013 when the projections were set. “We’re going to have more accurate numbers going forward.”

Who would have imagined that?

Revenues the city projected it would get from MountainStar accounted for the biggest shortage. The model anticipated about $774,000 in revenues the first year — and fell nearly $176,000 short. The anticipated sales tax revenues also were short about $81,000 of the nearly $180,000 projected.

But then there’s this from the interview with Chihuahuas General Manager Brad Taylor in last week’s El Paso Inc.

Q: Did last year’s revenues meet the expectations of the team and owners?

I can say that we are all very pleased with where we were, and I think we exceeded expectations for all of us.

So at least they’re happy.

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