This was a guest column in the Cleburne Times Review this past Sunday April 24th 2016, and it was so good I retyped the thing to post it, thanks to CTR for not putting this up on their website even by Wednesday! For anyone who still has any doubts about voting NO on this bond scam, this article should put that to rest. Get out there and vote NO on this bond scam!
Time to step back on 2016 school bond proposal
Lots of information about the CISD 2016 bond has been given out and both sides are pointing fingers at each other for various reasons. But one central theme we all seem to agree on is our facilities need regularly scheduled maintenance and updating.
Last years's bond steering committee learned from Huckabee that it would cost a little over $40 million to bring all of CISD's facilities up to code. The three new elementary schools built in 2007 already need $1.3 million in repairs. Neither bond has addressed this concern to date. Why? At Coleman and Cooke both were scheduled to have roofs in 2013 and 2014. But again this maintenance was deferred. Why?
A Cleburne ISD telephone survey conducted last year stated that any bond over $100 million would not be supported by the community. CISD called a $150 million dollar bond and true to the survey it failed. Is paying for advice we don't plan to consider sound thinking?
Another Facilities Planning Committee was formed for the 2016 bond and I decided to sign up and I attended all nine meetings. Nine people sat at my table and our moderator was the principal at Cooke Elementary School. One member of our group attended two meetings and never came again. We were a diverse group including a teacher, a para professional, two PTA folks, two gentlemen whose wives worked for the school, and myself, a retired IBM employee. After listening to my table I was beginning to form the opinion that my colleagues would agree to probably most, if not all, of the ideas presented at the meeting. No one seem to understand that we were being shown just dreams and ideas of what could be built at the high school campus.
At the beginning of the meeting Superintendent Kyle Heath told committee members that a stadium was not on the table for this bond. However, after seeing the presentation of two new gyms, two new locker (facilities), two new football/soccer fields and a new softball field wrapped in Astro turf, the notion of a sports complex began to evolve. Without any real clear-cut plans before me I began to visualize that we could also turn that current football field at the high school into a stadium with just the addition of bleachers and a few more amenities. The architects never really explained to our committee the parts that define a 'comprehensive' package as the ballot language suggests.
By the fifth or sixth meeting, more participants began to drop out as we continued to hear from one expert after another. I was most interested in the fact that the demographic study presented to us showed no real growth at CISD for the next five years. This expert billed the district for $8,500 and I wondered if we were going to heed his findings or ignore it like the previous phone survey?
Local school districts in Godley, Joshua, Keene and Alvarado have all passed bonds in the $45-50 million range. That, in my opinion, seemed to be a reasonable amount to ask for so that taxpayers migh be able to slowly adjust their budgets to afford their increased property tax bill or the rise in rent for non-homeowners. Not to forget those with small businesses or other types of income producing properties owned by locals, or 'outsiders', who may be negatively affected. The difference between other local bonds and ours seemed to be that their facilities improvements were completed in phases guided by increases in enrollment. that has made me start to look at the view from 30,000 feet and ask what parts of this 'comprehensive package' is a need or a want.
Lately, Dr. Heath has been shifting the talk from growth to the condition and age of our facilities. As I listened to other members talk of age, over-crowding, and unsafe conditions, I began to question why any parent would knowingly send their child into harm's way? District officials cite 1.400 students will pass thru the current high school, remodeled as a CTE, on a daily basis. The question becomes, without a set of design plans, how do we know that $38 million will be needed to turn the old high school into a state-of-the-art career and technology center?
We all want the kids to be safe and secure and we all want our teachers to have what they need so every child can have a proper public education. But I think that we should do it in a manner that is responsible for both the kids and the taxpayers.
Emotional decisions are not good financial decisions when we're talking about $130.5 million dollars. Should the interest be as estimated about $102.9 million added to the $43 million we are already encumbered with, we could feasibly place the district $276.4 million in debt. Now before you start pointing out how much another district spends per child versus Cleburne, I don't really think we want to get into 'bragging rights' to see who can be in the most debt. But if you want to use that argument then I'll respond by saying when 85 percent of your budget goes for salaries and the top earners are administrators and coaches instead of teachers, the 15 percent you have left over for the kids is your reason why. That's a business model doomed for failure.
All children have different strengths, weaknesses, and talents, and that is why academics is job one to me. I would rather be at the top of my class in academic scores in a 41 year old building than be in a shiny new building in the bottom 10 percent of the state. Whether the bond passes or fails, CISD still has the same administrators, the same teachers, and the same kids.
I'm voting no because of the inability of our district and school board to maintain our current facilities, excessive administrative and coaches salaries compared to our teachers, average academic scroes, and the amount of unwise debt placed on the taxpayers and our high percentage of economically disadvantaged families.
As odd as this may sound, I'm doing it for the kids.
No comments:
Post a Comment