Bob Moore, El Paso Matters President and CEO, covers top stories each week.
Scott Brocato:
Bob, let's start with the first story about why 39% of El Paso County homeowners will pay no school property taxes this year.
Bob Moore:
Yeah, we've talked a lot about property taxes, which is no surprise. As I've mentioned a couple of times, I don't believe there's a person alive who believes they're paying too little in property taxes. But one of the things that's happened kind of quietly in El Paso, and I think even people who are benefiting from it don't fully realize it, is that with some changes in state law over the last few years, an increasing number of people in El Paso aren't paying any school property tax at all. And it has to do with what's called a "homestead exemption," which means that a certain value of your property won't be taxed if it's a home that you own and live in. And up until about five years ago, the state's homestead exemption on school property tax was $40,000, which means the first $40,000 value of your home wasn't taxed. That was raised to $100,000 and then eventually to $140,000 two years ago.
And additionally, people over 65 also had their special exemption go from $10,000 to $50,000. So basically, if you're over 65 and you own a home in El Paso, the first $200,000 of that value is not going to be taxed. And there are a lot of homes in El Paso that are valued at less than $200,000.
And so we looked into the numbers and this year all together, 72,000 homes don't pay any school property tax at all. They pay taxes to the city and the county and some other entities, but they're not paying school tax, which historically has been the highest part of the tax bill for everybody. That creates, you know, some issues. It's obviously good for homeowners: their tax bills go down. But when you don't own or owe school tax, you may be less connected to school districts. You may not be involved.
And now two of our districts here, Socorro and Isleta, are going to have tax elections in November asking people to raise their property taxes. Well, these people who aren't paying any property tax at all aren't affected one way or the other. They're going to pay zero no matter what happens. And so how they vote could get really, really interesting. And then the Isleta school district, two thirds of all of the homeowners in the district right now are paying nothing in school taxes. So that creates these interesting challenges.
And one other thing that's playing a role in all of this is El Paso is also seeing a really rapid increase in the number of 100% disabled veterans, who under Texas law are exempt from all property tax. Two years ago, about 10,000 homeowners fell into that category. This year, it's 13,000. So, you know, 30% increase in just two years. That's largely because Congress has made it less complicated for veterans to get 100% disability rating. And so these numbers are shooting up. And now one out of every 15 homeowners in El Paso is a 100% disabled vet not paying property taxes. I don't think anybody begrudges them that for their sacrifice. But one of the things that it means is that those tax bills don't go away. They just get shifted to other people who don't have exemptions. And so that creates some upward pressure on the tax bills of other people.
So these are all kind of complicated issues. You know, again, everybody wants to pay less in property taxes. They want exemptions for their own circumstance. But we're creating a system right now where we're putting increasing pressure on younger property owners and younger renters in particular who don't get any homestead exemptions at all. And that will have some implications as we go forward.
Scott Brocato:
Moving on to the next story, about El Paso's early college experiment turning 20 and dual credits still growing.
Bob Moore:
Yeah, so this is something that's caught on across the country, and El Paso was an early adopter. And the idea basically is while kids are going through high school, can they also start building up some college credits or maybe even get an associate's degree or a technical credential? And there's a bunch of different paths that schools use for that. But one of El Paso's primary means has been through these early college high school programs where students go to a designated campus where they're taking high school and college credit at the same time. This started back in 2006, so this is our 20th year.
It started with one school back in 2006, Mission Early College High School in the Lower Valley here. Now we have 19 of these early college high schools and then 21 additional programs that are called P-TECH programs, which are basically trying to help students get technical certifications as they go through school.
And so in those 20 years, more than 10,000 students have graduated from high school with either an associate's degree or some kind of technical credentials. That's a lot of students. They don't have to pay for college credits here, so it saves families money in the long term. So it's generally very beneficial, but there's some research that we mentioned in our story that says there are trade-offs for students that basically the speed approach to completing an education doesn't work for everyone. They lose out on socialization. They don't build relationships with college professors the way students who go to a four-year program might. But by and large, the program has been viewed as one of El Paso's biggest educational successes over the last 20 years.
Scott Brocato:
And finally, the story of a wife of a Fort Bliss sergeant who was deported to Honduras under Trump's immigration crackdown.
Bob Moore:
This happened earlier this month, and it was a woman named Cristy Mayora Villafranco- Trejo, who came to the country from Honduras without authorization when she was 18. She had an order of removal because she didn't show up in her immigration court hearing. She and her husband say that she wasn't aware of it, and they were trying to regularize her status. And he is an Army sergeant named Hedar Leonel Turcios Juarez, and he's now got a six-year-old child that he's having to raise alone because his wife was sent back to Honduras earlier this month.
And this is reflective of some changes that the Trump administration has been making. For many years, there's been this program called "military parole-in-place," where if you're a spouse or a parent of somebody serving in the military, there's a path where you can pursue a green card even if you entered the country without authorization. And even in the first Trump administration, they honored that. But increasingly, the second Trump administration is not using that program anymore.
And so now you have this family of an Army sergeant who's serving on active duty here at Fort Bliss who's now left to raise his six-year-old daughter. He told our partners at the Associated Press who produced this story that he hasn't yet figured out how to tell his daughter what happened to mom.
So these are very, very powerful stories that are taking place across the country. The AP story mentioned an increase in the number of these deportations of military family members, so expect to see more of these. The Trump administration is obviously prioritizing deportations, and that's going to include military families.
Scott Brocato:
And where can folks read about those stories and more?
Bob Moore:
Stay up to date with all the most important news about our region at elpasomatters.org.