What this record does, what it refuses to do, and how to prove it wrong
What it does
Reads documents the City of El Paso publishes about itself — audit plans, quarterly updates, policy manuals, budget books, consultant assessments — against each other.
Publishes evaluation criteria before the document being evaluated exists, where that's possible.
Traces every figure and every quote to a specific city document, with a link or citation on the Sources page.
Sends the constructive version of any finding to the people it concerns before the critical version goes public.
Publishes results either way — including when a finding doesn't hold, or when a plan passes.
What it refuses to do
No audit opinions. Nothing here claims professional audit standing or issues a finding of the kind only a credentialed auditor can issue. Everything is a document statement: the City's own plan scheduled this; the City's own update shows this many hours charged.
No preferred outcome. This record takes no position on whether any specific incentive agreement was a good idea, or what the City should decide about any pending question. The only thing it wants is that the record gets read.
No unverified quotes. An item that can't be confirmed against a primary source is held out, not published with a caveat.
How to prove it wrong
Every score and every ledger entry links to what it's based on. If a source is misread, a date is wrong, or a status is out of date, say so and it will be corrected publicly, at the same prominence as the finding it corrects, and the correction will be credited.
This has already happened once in the underlying research behind this record — an earlier note asserted a figure from a search summary rather than a document actually read, and the correction is preserved rather than erased. That's the standard this project holds itself to, not just the City.
A note on independence
I have never been paid by the City of El Paso or any City-affiliated entity, and will not accept payment from the City while any part of this evaluation is ongoing. See the Who page for the full disclosure.