The El Paso County Commissioners Court on Aug. 25 approved the El Paso County Hospital District’s fiscal 2026 budget and adopted a property tax rate of 0.240892 per $100 of assessed value to support the district’s debt service.

The action, taken after a district presentation, was split into the statutorily required votes on the maintenance-and-operations component and the debt-service component; both measures passed following motions by members of the court.

The hospital district is proposing $1.894 billion in revenues and roughly $1.902 billion in expenses for fiscal 2026, and presented a routine capital budget of about $30.4 million. District officials said total debt service for 2026 will be about $48.7 million, of which roughly $45 million will be funded by property-tax revenue. The increase in the debt-service rate reflects bonds sold after voters approved a $396.6 million bond authorization in November 2024; the district issued $275 million in the first tranche in 2025 and expects later tranches in coming years.

Michael Nunez, the hospital district’s chief financial officer, told the court the 2026 proposal uses the Jan. 1, 2025 property values and that the combined effect on an average net taxable value ($221,726 in the district’s examples) would raise the average annual UMC tax bill by $71.87, or about $5.99 per month.

Maria Zampini, chief operating officer for University Medical Center of El Paso, described outreach the district has done with local contractors and trade groups around the bond‑funded construction projects and said the district has added scoring elements in its procurement process to account for familiarity with the local market.

County leaders repeatedly framed the tax-rate increase as driven by debt service tied to the 2025 voter-approved bond program, not by increased maintenance spending. County Judge Samaniego and multiple commissioners emphasized the increase supports construction of inpatient beds, operating-room capacity, a burn center, expanded critical-care capacity and the planned comprehensive cancer care center.

The court approved three motions related to the district’s agenda items: adoption of the tax rate (motion carried), adoption of the tax-rate component allocating 0.06135 for payment of principal and interest on district debt (motion carried), and final approval of the district’s fiscal 2026 annual budget (motion carried). The motions were recorded with proponents and seconders on the record and the court announced the motions carried.

Officials said the 2025 bond projects are expected to take four to six years to complete, and that the district must comply with Internal Revenue Service rules requiring that certain bond proceeds be spent within three years of receipt.

The court’s action does not change prior authorizations of the bond program; instead it sets the district’s fiscal 2026 budget and tax-rate allocation to meet debt-service obligations arising from the bond sales.