Here is some additional information to help you decide how to vote on the Mount Pleasant ISD May 4th Bond Election. It has been obtained from presentations recently put on by the Superintendent Judd Marshall, answers to follow up questions to Mr. Marshall and various websites including MPISD, TEA (Texas Education Agency) and others.
The MPISD School Board is asking for the voter’s approval to issue $55 million of bonds which will be repaid over 20 years at about 3% interest. The money is intended to be used as follows:
High School new construction $25 million
High School Renovations $23 million
Parking lot and drainage renovations $2 million
District wide security upgrades $2.5 million
Contingency $2.5 million
The primary reasons given are that the High School is 52 years old and overcrowded.
The HS was built in the mid 1960’s and put into use in 1967. There have been several additions to it since then. As with any building of that age it is bound to need some work as HVAC and electrical equipment reaches the end of it’s life, foundations settle and students wear out the buildings and equipment. However not all of this is new. Issues like flooding between buildings, during heavy rain, have been going on pretty much since the high school opened, pointing to poor design and/or construction. The older areas of the HS are intended to get more thorough renovation than the newer parts.
The new construction is intended to add 12 to 16 classrooms and labs with CTE (Career and Technical Education) and fine arts being the primary beneficiaries. At $300 per square foot $25 million should provide about 80,000 additional sq.ft. to the existing 300,000 sq.ft high school.
Mr. Marshall has stated that when he first arrived at the HS in 1998 there were about 1140 students and they started this school year with about 1540. TEA detailed data goes back to the 2003-04 school year and shows that then MPHS had 1268 students and passed 1300 the following year. It did not go over 1400 until 2012 and only broke 1500 last year with 1503 in 2017-18. Enrollment dropped in 2008 and 2009. Overall you can reasonably conclude that MPHS enrollment follows the local economy with stronger growth 15 to 20 years ago, dropped in the recession and some slow to moderate growth since then.
Nowhere in the materials provided by MPISD is there any attempt to quantify the overcrowding, just photos of crowded classrooms, stairwells and the cafeteria. It would be useful for the voters to know how many students they think the existing buildings should hold and how many students they will have capacity for after the $55 million has been spent.
Another factor that is not addressed is how much MPISD expects the High School enrollment to increase. The local economy is doing better but not growing anywhere close to the state average and is unlikely to lead to dramatically higher HS enrollment. In fact, the data points in the opposite direction. Unlike elementary schools, it is much easier to predict High School enrollment trends as most of your future HS students are already in the lower grades. Total MPISD enrollment was 5041 in 2004, hit a peak in 2007 of 5341, dropped to 5182 in 2009, hit another peak of 5524 in 2013 and has fallen every year since, only being 5289 last year. Furthermore, there is a pretty even spread between the different grades and no sign of a bulge in any particular grade(s) that is going to significantly increase enrollment at the HS.
Just a few miles north east of MPHS is the much smaller Harts Bluff school district. This exceptionally well-run K-8 school district is debt free and has quietly embarked on adding a high school program. If my information is correct, over the next four years, they are adding space for a grade at a time starting with 9th grade and on up to 12th. All of this is being paid for out of current revenues and without any borrowing. Until now Harts Bluff 8th graders had the choice of going onto Mount Pleasant HS or Chapel Hill HS. As a result of adding their own HS program, MPHS will likely lose 100 or more students from Harts Bluff, which will reduce their student numbers by about 7-10%.
In an informational brochure that MPISD mailed out, they state that the $55 million in bonds will raise their tax rate by 23 cents per $100 of property value. Their current rate is $1.22 per $100 so this is nearly a 19% increase. The brochure also shows that to offset this increase for home owners only, MPISD is adding an additional 20% Local Homestead Tax Exemption (LOHE). What the brochure does not say, although Mr. Marshall freely admits it in his presentations, is that this is the same homestead exemption that the MPISD School Board took away from the taxpayers in 2014, when they were embroiled in legal battles with Luminant on the valuation of the power plant. The LOHE was voted for by the school board last June and is already in place for 2019 property taxes.
As for all private businesses in the MPISD district you will see your school taxes go up by about 19%. In the City of Mount Pleasant school taxes account for about 50% of the property taxes so your overall rate will go up about 9.5% if nothing else changes with your valuation or the other taxing entities. If your business is outside of the City, school taxes account for about 60% of your property taxes so you overall property taxes will go up by about 13%, if nothing else changes.
All the affected private businesses will try to find ways to pass on these tax increases. If you rent a house or apartment, it is highly likely your landlord will have little choice but to increase your rent.
Existing debt is obviously a consideration when new debt is being considered. According to the MPISD 2017 audited Financial Report, MPISD already has $55 million of long-term debt, so this bond election sets to double the debt. Of the existing debt $33 million is tax payer approved bonds. It is not easy to see what they were used for, as the original bonds have been refinanced at lower interest rates. The other $22 million is various Maintenance Tax Notes issued in 2012, 2014 and 2016. None of these were approved by taxpayers as they are pledged against part of the normal tax revenues (Maintenance & Operation taxes) of the school district. These so called ‘Revenue Bonds’ are widely used by other local taxing entities to avoid having to ask the voter to approve borrowing. Some of these MPISD notes only pay interest with some large principal payments due in about ten years time.
The process that MPISD used for this bond election is also worth looking at. Last June the school board approved for Mr. Marshall to negotiate with potential architects. This led to Boynton Williams and Associates (BWA) out of Dallas, being hired. Three months later In September 2018, a Facilities Committee was formed to look at MPISD facility needs. I have not been able to find where the school board approved this or formally appointed the 30 members of this committee. Mr. Marshall has stated that this committee met 5 times last fall and that some of them visited other school districts to look at renovation projects. On January 14, 2019 the school board held a 2 hour workshop with the architects BWA to ‘discuss the upcoming bond election’. On January 23rd the school board held a special meeting to ‘Consider And Possibly Take Action To Adopt An Order Calling School Building Bond Election’. Some members of the Facilities Committee were present to explain their findings and make recommendations. Given that the meeting started at 12.04 pm and concluded at 12.08 pm, and included taking the vote to approve the bond election, there has to be considerable doubt as to how much information the Facilities Committee imparted to the board.
I have asked for a copy of the Facility Committee’s report, but none has been forthcoming as they never prepared one.
Five percent of the bonds ($2.5 million) are intended to be spent on security upgrades at all MPISD campuses. Currently only one of the eight campuses has controlled access into the school using double doors and a buzzer entry. I find it totally unacceptable that 20 years after Columbine, 6 years after Sandy Hook and 15 months after Parkland, and with over $20 million of Maintenance bonds issued since 2012, that the Mount Pleasant Independent School District Board of Trustees have done next to nothing to improve the safety of our 5000 plus school age children that are in their care. Instead they are cynically using the safety of our children to try and sell a $55 million bond election.
So there you have it, a lot more information on this bond election than many of you want but information I believe should be made available to the voters and taxpayers to help them decide.
Submitted by Nigel Christopher
No comments:
Post a Comment