UTRGV parking and transportation made $2.5 million from permits and citations in 2024
Students, professors and alumni react in shock at how much money is raked in for the parking disaster that is UTRGV
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Update: Parking and transportation executive director, Rodney Gomez, responded to my questions. He simply reiterated what non-executive director, Pablo Aguilar, said at the student government meeting discussed later in the article.
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A document obtained by me from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, pursuant to a public information request under Texas law, reveals how the university’s parking and transportation department raked in over $2.2 million from parking permits alone and over $275,000 from parking citations in fiscal year 2024. Revenues progressively increased over the last three fiscal years, as I requested data for 2022, 2023 and 2024.
This is the first time in university history that such information has been made public, despite parking being a constant issue every academic school year. Here is the chart UTRGV attorneys sent back:
Students and residents who live near the university have requested amelioration for the horrendous parking situation present at all campuses, consisting of congestion, car accidents and exorbitant parking citation fees for years. Yet, nothing gets done, except excuses for why they can’t do more.
I asked students and professors at the Edinburg campus, as well as alumni, what they thought about these figures. I began by asking them, first, what they guessed the university raked-in from parking permits and citations, then showed them the figures to gauge their reactions. How much would you have guessed? Try this on your friends and family—ask them first how much they would guess the university receives from parking permits and citations for all campuses; then, show them the chart above and gauge their reactions.
The first group of students I spoke with were three males. One, named Cesar, studies computer science. Another, Brandon, studies art. Emmanuel, the third, studies accounting.
Cesar said, “They make more than what I expected.” He said he would have expected “less than two million,” followed by laughter from him and his buddies. He guestimated, “probably around like 200,000 or 500,000.”
He went on: “I feel like it should go to maybe like more parking spaces. Like how the other colleges have a garage. Something like that.”
Brandon chimed in and said, “Because I know a lot of people, when I’m walking around, just hear them complaining about parking during certain times.”
Cesar added, “The professors as well.”
I said that I know professors who park in my neighborhood, as I live near campus, who park on my block due to the horrendous parking situation. They take it as an insult that they have to pay “for the pleasure of going to work,” as one once said.
“Yeah, I didn’t really want to deal with it [parking] because my family runs on a really tight schedule. So we have to come here like super early because they don’t want to deal with parking. I personally don’t want to deal with parking. It’s very first-come first-serve.”
Brandon added, “You can really tell the difference when you get here early and then later… Like when you get dropped off at, say, 7 a.m., it’s so smooth, but when you come here, let’s say 10 minutes before your class starts, you’re obviously going to be late due to traffic.”
Cesar closed by saying “I think they should be a little more attentive to that.”
Interview clip:
I then spoke with a group of ladies at the student union who were equally shocked. When I asked them how much they would guess the parking department makes, one said 20-thousand; another said 500-thousand; another agreed.
When I showed them the figures on my phone, one of them screeched and gasped, “Eeeehhh!”
“That’s ridiculous!” another one said.
Another asked, “Where does that money go!”
I answered that judging from the ‘directors’ staff photos posted to the internet, in which they gratuitously flaunt their wealth with fancy suits, most of the moneys likely go to administrative salaries.
I then asked how they felt about the fact that, while so much money is collected, there is no parking garage at the Edinburg campus (by far the largest and most frequented of all the UTRGV campuses).
“I thought they said they were going to make one, but instead they made the baseball field,” one said.
The ‘baseball field’ referenced is the City of Edinburg’s new amphitheater, just around the corner, as it was briefly discussed locally that a parking garage might be made in conjunction with the municipality. It didn’t happen. Shocker.
Responding to my appreciation for their time, one of them said, “I didn’t even know that!” referring to the dollar amounts received by the department for parking and citations. One of them jested, after I told them I requested comment from the parking and transportation department asking if there were plans to build a parking garage, “It’ll probably be made after we graduate!”
She’s not wrong.
Interview clip:
“My mind thinks like—I mean, I’m low-income, you know?—so I never think that high.”
Pete Rodriguez, UT Pan American alum, founder of Tropicasa
I then asked a group of ladies near the bus drop off, which transports students from other cities to and from Edinburg, for their thoughts. One guessed 500-thousand. Another said 120-thousand. The last of the three said 600-thousand.
“Woah!” one said. “No way!” said another.
Asking them for their thoughts about what should be done with all that money the university receives: “With that much money, I don’t know, like maybe a new parking lot. Because there’s a lot of people having trouble with that. I mean, I would guess they would have the money to do it, so I don’t know why they don’t.”
Another said, “I didn’t expect it to be so high!”
I asked them what they thought about the prospects of a parking garage. One said the subject is discussed in her classes. “We should get one,” one said, followed by laughter from all.
Interview clip:
One might point to the fact of student/youthful inexperience, at this point, so I then walked over to the school of business to ask a finance professor what his thoughts were. The faculty member, whose name I did not ask for so as to not get him in trouble, also fell way short in his guess, saying 100-thousand.
(100-thousand was the most common figure people gave. My personal guess was $500,000. Having just woken up when I saw the email, I rubbed my eyes and splashed water on my face to make sure I was reading the figures correctly.)
The business and finance professor was also shocked when I showed him the figures. All he could say was just gasp, hardly being able to utter a big ‘Wow’, as he was so speechless.
As I showed him the evidence on my phone and the fact that my article would be up today, he said, “Outstanding.”
Interview clip:
I asked anthropology and psychology alum, Pete Rodriguez, who owns and runs the popular thrift store and vegan snack store, Tropicasa, in McAllen, what he thought. Like many others, he also guessed that revenues were between 100-thousand and a few-hundred-thousand.
When I asked him to explain his reasoning, he said, “My mind thinks like—I mean, I’m low-income, you know?—so I never think that high.”
I then showed Pete the ‘directors’, pointing to their flashy suits, saying that they don’t look like people who buy their clothes at Tropicasa, which is known for it’s affordable and reasonable prices like their famous weekly ‘$5-dollar fill-a-bags’. His response? “Definitely not.”
I then asked Pete if, as a student, did he ever get parking citations or anything of the like. He said he bypassed all that by riding his bicycle everywhere, adding he “couldn’t afford a car at that time.”
Commenting on the lack of a parking garage, he said, “With that much money per year, they could probably afford to make one.” He added, “I’m curious to know what their [the directors’] salaries are.”
Interview clip:
Our mutual friend, Moonowl Kitchen founder Adrian Luna, was at Tropicasa when I was interviewing Pete. Adrian was a former student at UTRGV legacy institution, UT-Pan American, and said he received parking citations as well. “Oh, fuck yeah,” he replied. I filled him in on my findings. He perfectly summarized, in just seven simple words, what everybody was feeling:
“That’s fucked up. That’s really fucked up.”
I wrote to the executive director, Rodney Gomez, and the (presumably) non-executive director, Pablo Aguilar, requesting comment for this story. I asked three questions:
Where does the money go? How does UTRGV’s revenues compare to comparable universities like UT-San Antonio and UT-Austin? And, is a parking garage being made? If not, why not? And if so, what’s the status?
Regular ‘director’, Pablo Aguilar, gave a presentation which you can view here to the UTRGV Student Government Association (SGA) on 20 September 2024, in which he delivered a deceptive account of what his department supposedly ‘does’.
It was a ten minute presentation, with several slides, not a single one of which showed the amount of revenues received by the department nor how the monies are spent accordingly. ‘Twas therefore a misleading presentation, during which his main objective was to give the illusion that parking permits and citations are not done for profit, but for ‘safety’, as all corrupt bureaucrats (especially those tied to police departments, as this one is) always say that what they do is in the best interests of those they supposedly serve.
Among the things Aguilar said during his ineloquent and inarticulate presentation were:
“As far as, you know, what happens like in the operational sense, of, you know, of our duties, what we actually do, the revenue that we collect—I just wanted to let you guys know—the revenue that we collect in parking permits, sales, or citation fees, umm, that revenue is just going back into the infrastructure of the university. So, what we do is, umm, we’re self-funded, this department.
Let me pause here to say that his first claim is flat-out false. Actual university infrastructure, like buildings, are called ‘capital investments’ and are funded at the state level by moneys called ‘permanent university funds’ or ‘PUF’. Access to these funds are, actually, the main reason why UTRGV merged its two legacy institutions, UT-Pan American and UT-Brownsville.
“So, parking services is self-funded. We do not receive any money from state or tuition. Again, the revenue that is generated, it helps fund improvements, like parking lot improvements, construction, safety, security, lighting, security cameras. So there’s just a whole bunch of things that we help out in the back-end, you know, that’s really not seen by the general population.” [He got that last part right!]
Although Aguilar suggests the parking and transportation department spends a large amount of its money on parking maintenance, he did not provide any spending breakdowns showing how much of the department’s revenues go towards maintenance, versus—say, oh, I don’t know—department salaries!
Next, Aguilar talks about how despite record enrollment, parking permit applications only increased by two-percent, while saying nothing about the department’s increases in revenues which have only gone up every year from 2022 to 2024, as shown in the chart the university disclosed.
“That’s fucked up. That’s really fucked up.”
Adrian Luna, former UT Pan American student, founder of Moon Owl Kitchen
Aguilar pretends he doesn’t know the real reason why permit applications haven’t increased as he knows the students to which he is speaking are too ignorant or afraid to call him on his claims—the real reason being that people would prefer not to waste their money on a permit for subpar and infrequent parking, choosing instead to park at nearby establishments like Walmart and surrounding restaurants in Edinburg—submitting rather that the university’s ‘ride’ programs are the reason, despite the fact (as reported in the campus newspaper) that shuttle travel was at record lows in recent semesters:
“Umm, so, umm, you know, just moving forward, just that, for this semester, uh, we noticed that obviously there was record-enrollment, right?, umm, here on our campuses and our institution. But, on the parking side, we only saw about a two-percent increase in parking demand.
“So, umm, that’s a little bit odd. That’s a little bit strange because you would figure that we have way more parking demand, right? But umm, I guess the parking rides like, for example, the one in Harlingen, I guess that really helped as far as—you know—providing additional parking spaces because we did see a big increase in transportation rider-ships. So, I think that’s where the difference is located at.”
Again, if Aguilar knows permit applications were down two percent (a very precise statistic), why not also list how much money they generated? Not listing the amount of money parking and transportation received from permits and citations was, therefore, a deliberate and conscious decision.
Aguilar then states that the university hasn’t increased permit prices since 2018, which as I will show up ahead was actually far more deceptive than we can see at first blush, again to suggest their motives are pure:
“There was no parking permit rate increases this year. That’s great news. We value the direction of President Bailey, where we try to keep the tuition and is, you know, along with everything else, parking services. We have not moved, we have not increased our parking permit rates since 2018. That was the last time we increased them.
“And, uh, just an example, the remote parking—Zone 1—that has never been increased. So, it’s been constant since legacy institutions. It’s been $60 for a whole year. So, uh, we try to place value on that. So, umm, that’s great news.” [Give. Me. A. Break.]
Aguilar then says the reason for issuing parking permits and citations (parking tickets) is for ‘safety’. This stipulation, however, was nothing but a setup to inform the student government that the university tracks license plates, effectively a surveillance program never publicly disclosed to students nor the public! Notice how he continues reinforcing the point that his department’s motives, in issuing permits and citations, are done out of care and concern, not money.
“Umm, again, parking permits are required on campus at all times. And that’s by everybody. Umm, if you’re a student, faculty, staff, visitor. And it’s not for us to, you know, sell a permit. It’s for us to know who’s on campus. So, it’s more of a security issue.”
Aguilar goes on to recommend inputting different license plates, if used by students, to avoid ‘issues with the police’, again, as segue to revealing the university’s surreptitious surveillance program, as discussed shortly up ahead:
“So whenever you do buy a parking permit, I don’t know if you have purchased your parking permit for this year. But, if you have not, I’ll just let you know how to do it. But, umm, you know, when you’re doing it, when you’re in the process of getting your parking permit, go ahead an input your license plates. … Let’s say you’re driving in two vehicles. It’s yours and someone else’s. A family member or a relative. Input their license plates as well. [Don’t do that! It’s a way for the university to track your family!] That way we can tie the parking permit that you purchase to both vehicles. And you shouldn’t have issues with the police department or parking services for that matter.” [Don’t do it!]
Before getting to the license plate surveillance program, he goes on to state that Zone 1 parking is ‘under-utilized’ and a permit for this designated area allows students free shuttle services, known as ‘Volt’.
Aguilar, whom I’ve nicknamed ‘Mr. Umm’, added the university would be adding a free parking lot at the Harlingen Clinical Education Campus, at the Harlingen soccer complex, which is only 2.5 miles away!
He also mentions a ‘new’ method of payment by scanning a QR-code.
Finally, to the surveillance program, Aguilar says the university has a “license plate recognition (LPR)” software to detect vehicles that “don’t belong there.”
“Again, it’s just for efficiency, for security. It’s just to make the department more efficient. And this is uh, going to help us detect vehicles that don’t need to be on campus. It’s also for safety and security.”
Who the hell is this guy to say which vehicles don’t “belong” on campus?
Once Aguilar’s slide presentation ended, he said he had only 5 minutes for questions! Surely because he’s so busy, right?
SGA Vice President, Juana Jimenez asked the first question:
“In regards, you did say, that transportation would be stopping at the clinical education building, and then at the soccer complex. Is that always happening, like all the time, or it’s only on certain times of the day?”
Aguilar answered that they do, indeed, regularly stop there.
Next, somebody asked if the Volt app was fixed, after students experienced difficulties. [A better question.] Aguilar answered in the affirmative.
Another student senator asked when negotiations for the new soccer complex in Harlingen occurred. He didn’t directly answer, but talked about how the parking and transportation department conducted the negotiations.
Senator at Large for the Edinburg campus, and Vaquero Movement caucus member Skyler Howell, asked the last and most important question:
“I know at the Edinburg campus. There’s a common complaint of not enough space. I know the parking department invests their money into alternative options, such as the Volt, but has the options, or has the discussions, been explored for expanding the space in Edinburg?”
“So, yeah, in Edinburg, like in Brownsville as well, and Harlingen, we’re always looking at opportunities. [Opportunities to make money!] And the way that we gauge this is by the parking permit sales. [Oh really?] That gives us a kind of idea where the demand is. I’ll just give you a quick example: If there’s ample space in Zone 1, what we try to do is try to shift the demand, that way people will be able to park in Zone 1. So, uh, yes, we are looking at future locations and future sights. We’re always doing that.
“But what we’re trying to do right now is manage what we do have, right? Again, since we are self-funded [nonsense], and expenses that are incurred, we don’t want to pass them onto students, so we do what we can with what we have, but yes. If the point gets to where we pass that threshold, yeah, we look at expansion opportunities, or other opportunities that we can take advantage.”
I looked up the two above ‘directors’ on Facebook. I’m glad I did, because I found this 2018 post on a page called ‘UTRGV Students Tired of Being Ignored’. It turns out Mr. Aguilar has been notorious for a while and that the student government association has also been useless for a longtime as well, as I have reported on for more than ten years, as a legacy student government senator myself:
I interviewed the aforementioned Senator-at-Large, Skyler Howell, for this article thinking he would give a resounding support of student sentiment. Unfortunately, he only confirmed this grim view adumbrated in the above Facebook post of the student government, as he sided with the administrative point of view that the university doesn’t have enough money for improved parking services:
“My reaction, obviously, I know, UTRGV, one of our main attractions is we’re affordable, right? But what that means is that if the university isn’t getting it necessarily from student fees, they need to get it from other sources of revenue. So, based on the number you told me I think that’s why they’re so strict on those fees and citations, because they’re trying to maintain their affordability while also facing the challenge of also trying to improve their infrastructure and their services to students as well.” [This is all false.]
I followed up and asked Howell about the parking garage question and how the students I interviewed felt.
“What I would say for—and maybe this is more of a generalization, right?—but for the ‘parking garage’ topic, it’s been an issue students have come to me about, and my answer, my response to them is, I think UTRGV does have the facilities to build one. The problem is it’s going to come from student fees.
“So, students have to ask themselves, are they willing to pay for it, right? Are they willing to pay for a project right now that they might not even be able to see completed? And so, every student needs to kind of ask themselves that question. Are they willing to pay for it, you know, for a greater good in the long-term? And I think until there’s…(phone signal cut off at this point), it’s always going to kind of be something that’s more of a question than an answer.” [More falsity.]
Let me pause here to add that when the student government sponsored a referendum on the upcoming football team, asking students to raise their athletics fees, it was exactly what Howell suggests is so bad—paying for something they won’t even see, given that the vote took place in 2021, and that the football team won’t even be playing their first game until next fall! In fact, the fact that increased athletics fees would only affect future students was used as a selling-point by Vice President Magdalena Hinojosa and (the much overrated) Athletics Director Chasse Conque for getting students to vote in the affirmative. Howell had not even graduated high school when that corrupt vote took place.
“And these are based on talks,” Howell continued, “I’ve had with the parking department and, you know, administration, you know. If we do have a parking garage, it’s going to have to come from the student fees. And so I think right now it’s a question that students have to answer. Whenever we’re ready to make that decision, we’ll see it.”
I asked Howell, again, if he seriously believed current parking and citation revenues were insufficient for a parking garage. He said:
“I can say, and this is like I said based on conversations I’ve had, is that it’s going to require more than that. It’s going to require more revenues than that. Those permits and citations, those revenues that they get, they’re not necessarily only allocated towards parking. You’re going to see that revenue that they generate get invested into infrastructure, better buildings, more services. I know we have the athletics department that’s kind of getting a revamp. You know, UTRGV is always looking to expand, and so it’s through those kind of revenues, like the permits and citations, that they’re able to do that without necessarily raising the parking permit fee or the student fee.”
Everything Howell said above, which is simply a parroting of what Pablo Aguilar inarticulately stated at the SGA meeting cited above, is absolutely false. Again, money for buildings come from the State of Texas (permanent university funds, PUF), and athletics fees have their own line-items under what’s known as ‘student fees’, which again were decided by a sham referendum sponsored by past student government goons.
Howell’s answers only prove how the lies of administrators, like Pablo Aguilar, are repeated by student government senators like Howell. Hopefully, Howell stops repeating these lies after reading this. (Sorry, Skyler. But you’re dead wrong about how transportation funds are used. Don’t believe the lies.)
Howell also told me he most recently passed a student senate resolution calling for military veterans to receive special parking, under ‘Zone 3’ parking, usually reserved for administrators. This move betrays the fact that Howell realizes parking really is an issue. While it attempts to convey such as some kind of ‘win’, all it does is solidify privileged status for a few and gives Howell clout for upcoming student government elections in which he is likely to run for an executive position under the degenerated Vaqueros Movement ticket.
Interview clip:
Finally, I filed additional public information requests seeking the salary amounts for every administrative member of the sham and corrupt parking and transportation department, as meter maids and drivers (the actual backbone of the department) are likely to make between twelve to fifteen dollars an hour as mostly part-time student workers.
I also requested spreadsheets showing the department expenses, to see how much money is actually spent on “infrastructure”, as Aguilar says and Howell repeats, versus administrative salaries. I believe my hypothesis (for statistics and science students) is the null hypothesis, in this case.
Before I obtain this information—which I will—let’s play a new game: Would anybody like to guess how much the directors of parking and transportation make? My guess is executive director, Rodney Gomez, makes probably over $200k, and non-executive director, Pablo Aguilar, perhaps makes over $100k. These are my guesses; what are yours?
The author of this article served in the legacy Pan American student government association from 2013 to 2015, served on the founding UTRGV constitutional convention, and is currently authoring a book on the university’s first ten years—from its merger to the present day—which is expected to be released in August 2025.
jonathansalinas@substack.com
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