The first reason is that the County of El Paso fully controls the budget of the county hospital, also known as UMC. Whether UMC is a separate entity or a self-standing taxing entity is immaterial because they cannot operate or spend money without the approval of the County Commissioners. That is why Jim Valenti and by extension, UMC goes before the County Commissioners each year to get approval for its budget.
Therefore no matter how much Veronica Escobar, Vince Perez and their useful idiots try to spin this latest debacle by arguing they have no authority over UMC; the fact remains that they have full control of UMC’s budget and therefore can easily force them to comply.
Try this, tell your credit card company that you are about to file for bankruptcy and try to use your card. What do you think will happen? Your transaction will be declined because even though you may have enough credit available the ultimate authority allowing you to use your credit is the credit card company. They will not allow you to add more debt if they know you will be filing for bankruptcy.
It is as simple as that.
Veronica Escobar and Vince Perez can easily end the charade by ordering UMC to update their budget immediately and if they do not comply, they can order the County Auditor to suspend their accounts.
However, the ultimate authority is you, the taxpayer. It is your money that UMC uses. It is you who elects Veronica Escobar and Vince Perez into office. It is you that they owe an explanation for this latest example of monumental incompetence by UMC.
How many more pieces of bad news is still lurking within UMC and other County departments that Veronica Escobar and Vince Perez will be “shocked” to learn about? It may have been Jim Valenti that is responsible for alerting the County Commissioners to the accreditation problem but it is ultimately Veronica Escobar’s and Vince Perez’ responsibility to take responsibility and address the myriad of problems instead of playing the political pass the potato blame game.