El Paso City Council passes new travel transparency policy following ABC-7 investigation into county expenses
EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) — El Paso’s city council unanimously passed a new policy on Tuesday to increase transparency on how much council members and the mayor spend on travel every month. This follows an ABC-7 report on how much the El Paso County Commissioners Court spent on travel in the last several years.
City staff brough the item back for discussion two weeks after city representatives approved a draft resolution requiring city-funded travel to be placed regularly on the city council agenda like other expenses are currently.
The policy was originally requested by District 8 City Representative Chris Canales following the ABC-7 Xtra investigation that county commissioners spent nearly a quarter of a million dollars on travel expenses since Fiscal Year 2021.
“I think there was a lot of public interest in the county’s travel numbers,” City Rep. Canales said when he proposed the policy. “And, you know, to a lot of people, I think it was a surprise because there were multiple years of travel spending that kind of all got shared all at once. And so I think it’s a much better system to just proactively share those expenditures as they happen.”
El Paso County commissioners have also considered new policies on transparency for their travel expenses in recent weeks, but have not yet voted to fully establish such a policy as of yet.
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