The first goal in our city's new strategic plan is to create an environment that is conducive to strong, sustainable economic development, to stabilize and expand El Paso's tax base and to streamline processes to provide a solid foundation for development.
The city utilizes incentive dollars to attract new companies and grow employment opportunities.
Chapter 380 of the Local Government Code authorizes municipalities to offer incentives designed to promote economic development, create employment, and stimulate business and commercial activity. However, your City Council is responsible to ensure our taxpayers dollars are spent wisely and with a great return of investment to our community.
A few weeks ago, the council discussed and questioned a 380 presentation where a company was offering to pay substandard living wages in a majority of the jobs the company was bringing to El Paso.
Their proposed wages provoked resistance on council to the incentive proposal. At the meeting, several council members shared strong concerns and together we agreed that, "We are not selling El Paso as a low-wage city any longer."
Since then, many of us have been approached and contacted by local businesses, community leaders, students, unemployed residents, recent college graduates, and so many others who share the same belief to end the perception of El Paso being a low-wage city.
As your policy makers, we respect you and we are committed when we place your tax dollars in motion to attract industry so that companies are willing to pay a livable wage to our residents.
Much has changed since our current Chapter 380 incentive policy was written and adopted in 2010. That policy based incentives on paying at or above the median county wage, meaning that more than half the workers throughout the county were making more than that wage, and half were making less.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median county wage in 2013 was $12.38 an hour. When adjusted for inflation, that's lower than the county median 10 years ago. The county median wage has fallen every year since 2009.
And these are not livable wages; these are wages that produce the stigma of El Paso being a low wage city.
We must rise above this! When we provide incentives to a company using your tax dollars, we must mandate they provide wages of at least $15 per hour, or $31,200 a year.
It is important that we revise our Chapter 380 incentive policy to ensure that it promotes higher employee wage growth; attracts, shapes and defines high-paying targeted industries; promotes business collaboration and relationships with our schools and universities; and most importantly, incentivizes local business to increase job creation, to provide higher wages, to develop new employee job skills, and overall, sustain job retention.
We must secure our cooperation with the Borderplex Alliance, our local chambers, school districts, universities, and community colleges to develop a 380 incentive policy that will determine the type of industry that El Paso is striving to attract.
We have excellent universities and colleges that graduate top students. We need to keep our graduates in El Paso and provide better paying jobs for everyone!
