Did you know that, despite having household incomes about twenty percent less than the rest of Texas, the City of El Paso has the highest municipal debt per capita of any large city in Texas?
According to the Texas State Comptroller, the City of El Paso owes $1541 for each of its 679,036 residents. Austin, with one of the highest average household incomes, owes $1473 per capita.
And that doesn’t include the roughly $460 million in debt that hadn’t been issued when the report was prepared, like that $180 million for that arena.
And that’s just municipal. That doesn’t include the school districts.
The El Paso ISD currently owes about $400 million in debt. Add that other $669 million that was just approved, and it’s cleared a billion dollars in debt with plenty of room to spare.
The Ysleta ISD owes a paltry $200 million in debt, with another $430 million coming up.
The Socorro ISD owes $536 million.
Man, that makes me want to go out and buy something.