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By MEGAN MIDDLETON
Staff Writer

Tyler ISD will have to figure out in the coming months how deep they will ask taxpayers to reach into their pockets to help pay for facilities needs in an upcoming bond election.

Replacing five elementary schools in a possible November bond issue could cost $112 million, and remodeling several others could be another $77 million, according to estimates presented during a school board workshop Monday.

If TISD were to put forth a bond issue between $110 million and $185 million, the potential tax impact would be an extra 13.8 to 17.4 cents on the total tax rate of $1.215, according to figures.

Trustees met for the workshop Monday to discuss cost estimates for possible projects that might be included in the next bond proposal, review the potential tax impact of various scenarios and look at aerial views of campuses to consider the possibilities for building schools on current sites.

No action was taken, and officials stressed that nothing is set in stone at this point.

“At some point, it is our responsibility to figure out exactly which projects are going to be pulled into this next phase,” Board President Ron Vickery said after the meeting. “It seems we’re all in agreement — the school board and the administration — that we need to stay with the elementary schools in this phase, but I don’t think the community is in a position of being able to bite off all of this work at one time, so we’ve got to make a decision on what gets pulled into this phase.”

He said they need to make sure to educate the community, in part through using a community committee that has been assembled but not yet put to work.

TISD Superintendent Dr. Randy Reid suggested at the end of the workshop convening the community committee to help in the process of deciding how much to include in the next bond.

Vickery said the board needs time to digest the information from Monday’s workshop and decide on the next step.

“Thankfully, we do have time on our side,” Vickery said. “At some point we do need to engage this community group … We need to define the scope of what their task will be.”

TISD is considering a November bond election to address the second phase of a four-phase master facilities improvement plan now. Phase 1 consisted of a $95.9 million bond program voters approved in 2004 and included the construction of six replacement schools — Bell, Ramey, Douglas, Austin, Bonner and Peete elementaries — and one new campus, Jack Elementary. Peete, the last to be completed, opened in January.

Phase 2, according to the original master plan, would address facility needs at the remaining elementary schools — Jones, Woods, Orr, Clarkston, Griffin, Dixie, Rice, Owens and Birdwell.

The third phase called for addressing mainly middle schools; and the fourth, high schools.

The district has to look at an accelerated timeline of construction because of the rising costs of construction and inflation.

The Facility Group, TISD’s pre-bond development firm, presented figures at an April meeting that showed the cost to build Peete today would be about $1.5 million more than in 2006. And costs are projected to continue to rise.

If the board wants to have a November bond election, it will need to call it by the end of August.

“Because y’all did such a great job in the last election — we did what we said we were going to do, we did it in the time we said we were going to do it and we did it under the budget we said we were going to do — the community should feel really good about your leadership and where y’all have taken the district,” Reid told trustees during the meeting Monday. “I think it’s really important that we make sure that we get that message back out and help them understand that all we’re trying to do is continue with that same good work.”

In the information given to trustees Monday, the possible replacement elementary schools were listed as Griffin at $24 million; Woods at $24 million; Jones at $20 million; Orr at $24 million; and Clarkston at $20 million. The total cost of that work is about $112 million.

Reid called those the “clear replacement schools.” These five proposed replacement schools are the highest priority needs for the next bond issue, he said.

The list presented assumes that all schools will be built to house between 600 and 800 students. Reid said they are factoring in building schools with extra room to be able to hold off having to build at least one additional elementary school in the future. A demographer has suggested the district will need two additional ones in the future. A new, non-replacement elementary school costs an extra $1 million a year in operating costs, Reid said.

“We believe if we did (build in more room) at these campuses that we at some point in the near future could come back and readdress our boundary lines — obviously that would take us going through the courts to get approval,” Reid said. “We believe that there are ways we can consider potential restructuring of boundary lines and better utilize our existing facilities and existing attendance zones and absorb at least one of those two buildings that we would have to build in the long haul.”

Reid said TISD is not proposing a single boundary change with this upcoming bond election, but it may in the future.

On the list for possible remodel for this next bond issue are Birdwell at $8 million; Dixie at $19 million; Owens at $17 million; Rice at $20 million; and the St. Louis School at $13 million. Remodeling work at these campuses varies.

The total cost of elementary replacement or remodeling, including the St. Louis School, would be about $189 million, although those numbers could decrease some, Reid said.

Reid described the items on the remodel list as “things we could put in this bond election or things we could push back to the next bond election and overlap with some of our secondary work, depending on what we believe the threshold of pain for taxation is for our voters.”

“That’s our biggest decision we have to make going forward,” he said.

After researching and talking to builders and construction companies in the area, the maximum amount of projects TISD could do at one time is five, Reid said.

He also provided an updated FCI, or facilities condition index, for every school. The FCI shows the percent of what it would cost to replace a building, essentially measuring the cost of repairs versus replacing a school.

The schools with the highest FCIs — Griffin, Woods, Jones and Orr — had FCIs of more than 100 percent.

In preparing for the last bond, 70 percent was the FCI chosen to replace a campus, although Reid said that was an arbitrary number. A standard has not yet been assigned this time around.

Reid said because of some schools’ ages, such as Rice and Dixie, despite their FCI being above 70 percent, they are included in the remodel list instead of rebuild because they are relatively newer, built in the 1970s.

“Because those campuses are the age that they are, I’m not sure that would be the right move for us,” he said.

Another reason schools suggested for remodeling might have higher FCIs is because, unlike in 2004, TISD this time factored in the cost of updating technology to the standard that has been set in the new schools already built.

The cost of $13 million for St. Louis, which serves special needs students, will be about the same whether it is replaced or remodeled, Reid said, “because of the types of remodel work we’d have to do to make it most effective for those children.”

Reid also gave trustees estimates on how much middle and high schools would cost to replace, although said the focus of Phase 2 is on elementary schools.

Replacing all six middle schools and building an additional middle school, as a demographer suggested was needed, would cost $290 million in 2011-12. Replacing a high school would cost $173 million in 2013-14.

A $110 million bond would require an I&S (Interest and Sinking) tax rate of 32.3 cents, which is a 13.8-cent increase above the current I&S rate of 18.5 cents.

A $135 million bond issue — made up of $110 million in bond proceeds available in January 2009 and another $25 million available in May 2010 — would cause no increase beyond the 13.8 cent increase of $110 million bond because of the projected increase in taxable values and because some prior debt would be paid off, officials said.

A $160 million bond would raise the tax rate by 14.5 cents, and a $185 million bond issue would result in a 17.4-cent tax rate increase.

Reid said the projected tax base for TISD is slightly more aggressive than previous projections, but is still conservative.

In reviewing the aerial shots of campus sites during the workshop, officials were looking at which schools could be built on site with the current facility standing. There is at least one former school facility, the old Peete Elementary, which could be used for swing space.

“We’re pulling it together,” Reid said after the meeting. “We’re taking our time to make sure that we have it well defined when we move forward because we want to make sure and have the same kind of success we did in 2004 — both passing the election and doing the work.”