Facing financial challenges and an increasingly fractured relationship between its top two elected officials, the San Elizario City Council will have a special meeting Monday to discuss potential layoffs, a change in legal advisers and creating a cybersecurity policy.

A primary driver of the special meeting is a growing dispute between Mayor Miguel Chacon and Mayor Pro Tem Thomas Black. Black said he had the city staff change the mayor’s email password without his knowledge last month after discovering that a recently terminated city employee was accessing Chacon’s email and calendar.

“Recently, I was notified by a city vendor and by the office of the city attorney of irregularities related to the city’s computer security systems. Acting within my authority, I took reasonable and limited steps designed solely to protect the integrity of the city’s computer systems and to safeguard the city’s legal position,” Black said.

Chacon acknowledged he made a mistake by allowing the former employee to access his city email and calendar, but said the situation should have been handled differently. “Nobody ever said, ‘Hey, mayor, change your password so she doesn’t have access,’” he said, adding that he lost access to his email and calendar for five days.

Voters in San Elizario, a Lower Valley hamlet that was once the county seat of El Paso County, reincorporated in 2015, in part out of concerns over annexation by the neighboring city of Socorro. An audit of the San Elizario city government completed last year found that it has failed to meet basic governance and accounting requirements since its incorporation.

An immediate issue facing the City Council, to be addressed at Monday’s meeting, is a cash flow problem that could leave San Elizario unable to make payroll later this month. Chacon said Black has been misrepresenting the seriousness of the issue after learning about it last week.

“Mr. Black finds out from (the city) accountant that we were in a cash flow constraint, right? He got panicked and he started immediately sending emails,” Chacon said.

Black placed an item on Monday’s City Council agenda for discussion and action “related to current cashflow constraints and adoption of short-term contingency measures (including, but not limited to, employee layoffs and/or furloughs, operation of a skeleton crew, vendor payments, and potential issuance of debt.)”

“I’m disappointed that the Council was not made aware of this issue months ago. Something this significant should have been brought to our attention much sooner. I am eager to help remedy the matter responsibly and with transparency going forward,” Black said.

San Elizario Mayor Miguel Chacon, left, and Mayor Pro Tem Thomas Black

Chacon said the steps outlined by Black in the agenda won’t be necessary. He said the bulk of the city’s revenue comes from property taxes that are received at the beginning of the year, which has created the cash flow uncertainty at the end of the year.

He said the city has about $60,000 in the bank, enough to make the upcoming payroll next week but not enough for the second November payroll.

However, Chacon said a $144,000 reimbursement from the Texas Department of Transportation should arrive before then, allowing the city to meet its financial obligations until property tax revenues start arriving early next year.

Chacon said he is also seeking a $200,000 line of credit from the city’s bank, but that hasn’t yet been approved. The bank asked for audits, which the city historically hasn’t performed.

The mayor said he’s been trying to approve the city’s accounting systems since he was elected in May 2023. 

“There were no accounting records other than Excel (files),” he said. 

Chacon said San Elizario hasn’t had a city administrator since October 2024, forcing him to fill the role.

Chacon and Black supported each other in the 2023 election, when Chacon ran for mayor and Black for a City Council seat. Both said their relationship has deteriorated, each accusing the other of inappropriate behavior.

They each provided agendas for Monday’s meeting. The agenda posted by the city was the one approved by Chacon, which removed a couple of items proposed by Black. One of the removed items would have allowed the city staff to report to Black rather than Chacon.

Chacon placed an item on the agenda to elect a new mayor pro tem.

San Elizario’s budget this year is $2.3 million. The city’s population is just over 10,000, according to Census Bureau estimates.

The City Council last year received an audit of the city’s 2018-19 fiscal year, which was delayed for years by incomplete accounting records and the discovery in 2023 of missing cash. Audits for fiscal years 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 are still pending, according to the audit report submitted to the city in October 2024.

“Management did not retain copies of written minutes of City Council meetings held during the

periods January, March, May, October, and December 2018, as well as January through November 2022, and therefore, we could not obtain sufficient audit evidence regarding actions approved by Council members during such periods,” said the audit report by SBNG Certified Public Accountants in El Paso.

The failure to retain minutes also violates the Texas Open Meetings Act, the auditors said.

The auditors also found that the city failed to perform the basic accounting function of monthly reconciliation of bank statements from October 2015 through September 2022. The city lacked an accounting policies manual, according to the auditors.

The city’s chart of accounts didn’t allow the tracking of budgeted appropriations and expenditures, according to the audit. As a result, total expenditures in fiscal year 2019 exceeded budgeted appropriations.

The city provided a corrective action plan to address the audit findings. 

Meeting Details

What: Special meeting of the San Elizario City Council

When: 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 10

Where: San Elizario City Council Chambers, 12004 Socorro Road in San Elizario.

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