Posted 11:07 am Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Tyler ISD Bond Issue Passes
By MEGAN MIDDLETON
Staff Writer
Voters gave Tyler ISD the nod of approval Tuesday night to move forward with a $124.9 million bond proposal that will replace six TISD schools and continue the work the district began four years ago to address facility needs.
Staff Writer
Voters gave Tyler ISD the nod of approval Tuesday night to move forward with a $124.9 million bond proposal that will replace six TISD schools and continue the work the district began four years ago to address facility needs.
Complete but unofficial results showed that 25,645 people, or 65.42 percent, voted for the bond issue, while 13,556, or 34.58 percent, cast ballots against the measure.
“We are really thrilled that the voters have that kind of confidence in TISD and in our board of trustees,” TISD Superintendent Dr. Randy Reid said after the final results were reported Tuesday night. “I can’t help but believe I’m the benefactor of all the hard work that was done by the board and the previous administration on the last bond election (in 2004). We’re excited about the opportunity to continue to put new facilities out for our children and hopefully improve their educational opportunities.”
TISD Board President Ron Vickery said of the final results, “I’m just extremely overwhelmed and proud of our community in the way that they supported the children of this district and public education as a whole, especially in the face of such difficult economic times.”
There was no organized opposition to the bond package.
Under the plan the school district has laid out to voters, the approval of the bond issue means Clarkston, Griffin, Jones, Orr and Woods elementary schools as well as the St. Louis School for students with special needs will be replaced. The district is considering building Jones and the St. Louis School as a joint facility.
Officials have cited lack of space, the large number of portable classrooms on campuses, as well as safety and security concerns as some of the facility challenges at the schools they proposed for replacement. The average age of these school buildings is 49 years old, with Jones and Woods at the high end at 52 years old and Orr at the younger end at 46. They include anywhere from seven to 20 portable buildings. More than 60 portables are expected to be eliminated when replacement schools are built.
According to TISD information, the passage of the bond election means the TISD tax rate will increase in fiscal year 2009-10 by about 16.447 cents per $100 valuation. The rate will then decrease in subsequent years because of a reduction on prior debt and increases in property values.
The owner of a home valued at $135,000, with a $15,000 homestead exemption, is expected to pay a little less than $200 a year more in taxes in 2009-10, when the debt service tax rate will peak. The average home value for TISD for 2008-09 is $131,048.
Officials have said the district would like to see as many of these schools open in the fall of 2010 as possible, but the acquisition of land and design challenges may require an extra year for some projects. The district will need new land for Griffin as well as a possible Jones/St. Louis joint facility.
Architects, who TISD had already retained to begin work in an effort to save time and money in case the bond passed, can move forward with putting together designs for the buildings, the superintendent said. Reid said they hope to have buildings pretty well designed before the Christmas holidays. The district hopes to be able to bid construction work sometime in early spring, he said.
The 2008 bond election, also considered “Phase 2,” continues the work of the district’s master facilities plan that was started in 2004 with the passage of the Phase 1 bond, which built seven new elementary schools. The development of that master plan came after a failed bond election in 2002 for $293 million.
Phase 1, a $96 million bond program, included construction of Bell, Ramey, Douglas, Austin, Bonner and Peete elementary schools — and one new campus, Jack Elementary. Peete, the last of the seven to be finished, opened in January.
According to TISD, Phase 1 school construction started on time and was completed on time and under budget. Those schools saw a decrease in energy consumption, increased security/safety measures and improvement on Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) scores, according to the school district. More than 80 portable buildings were removed from schools included in Phase 1.
State Sen. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, and former Tyler Mayor Joey Seeber co-chaired a Vote Yes committee to support the 2008 bond proposal as they did for the 2004 bond.
TISD officials thanked the voters and said they were grateful for the work of the Vote Yes committee, with Eltife and Seeber at the helm.
Eltife said Tuesday night that he was very excited and pleased that the voters passed the TISD bond issue.
“It speaks volumes about our community and its support of public education,” he said. “I know this was a hard vote for a lot of people because of the economic times. But they made the sacrifice so we can continue to improve our public education system and we should all be very proud of that.”
Seeber said Tuesday night, “I think it’s remarkable in these difficult economic times that the people voted for this bond issue by the margin that they did. I think it says a lot for the voters of our community that they believe in our schools, and they believe in our children, and they believe in the future. That’s really good news.”
Vickery said that the results from Tuesday’s bond election were close to the results they saw in the 2004 bond election.
“So I think our work in keeping the first seven schools built on time and under budget hopefully demonstrated to the public that the school district was going to be good stewards of the taxpayer dollars,” Vickery said. “We’re just extremely proud and ready to get to work where we can complete these schools on time and under budget as well.”
Vickery said the primary focus of the board and the administration when the 2004 bond election passed was to “hold true to our promises with the voters, that we would build beautiful schools for our children and we would build them on time and build them within the budget that we projected to them.”
“I can tell you as one board member and as current school board president that I’m going to make sure that we do the same thing with this phase — that we will work very hard to make sure that these schools are also built on time and under budget because that’s very important in the public’s eye,” he said.
Reid also said they would work to continue that tradition.
“That was our goal last time and certainly it’s our goal this time as well,” the superintendent said. “We want to be really good stewards of the money. We want to make sure that we provide facilities that our voters can be proud of and that our kids and our teachers can be proud of when they attend there and work there. We hold very close to the idea that we committed to getting these projects done for a particular price and a particular time frame. And it’s our desire to make sure that we fulfill that promise that we made to the voters this time as well.”
Updated Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2008 at 2:58 p.m. CST
There was no organized opposition to the bond package.
Under the plan the school district has laid out to voters, the approval of the bond issue means Clarkston, Griffin, Jones, Orr and Woods elementary schools as well as the St. Louis School for students with special needs will be replaced. The district is considering building Jones and the St. Louis School as a joint facility.
Officials have cited lack of space, the large number of portable classrooms on campuses, as well as safety and security concerns as some of the facility challenges at the schools they proposed for replacement. The average age of these school buildings is 49 years old, with Jones and Woods at the high end at 52 years old and Orr at the younger end at 46. They include anywhere from seven to 20 portable buildings. More than 60 portables are expected to be eliminated when replacement schools are built.
According to TISD information, the passage of the bond election means the TISD tax rate will increase in fiscal year 2009-10 by about 16.447 cents per $100 valuation. The rate will then decrease in subsequent years because of a reduction on prior debt and increases in property values.
The owner of a home valued at $135,000, with a $15,000 homestead exemption, is expected to pay a little less than $200 a year more in taxes in 2009-10, when the debt service tax rate will peak. The average home value for TISD for 2008-09 is $131,048.
Officials have said the district would like to see as many of these schools open in the fall of 2010 as possible, but the acquisition of land and design challenges may require an extra year for some projects. The district will need new land for Griffin as well as a possible Jones/St. Louis joint facility.
Architects, who TISD had already retained to begin work in an effort to save time and money in case the bond passed, can move forward with putting together designs for the buildings, the superintendent said. Reid said they hope to have buildings pretty well designed before the Christmas holidays. The district hopes to be able to bid construction work sometime in early spring, he said.
The 2008 bond election, also considered “Phase 2,” continues the work of the district’s master facilities plan that was started in 2004 with the passage of the Phase 1 bond, which built seven new elementary schools. The development of that master plan came after a failed bond election in 2002 for $293 million.
Phase 1, a $96 million bond program, included construction of Bell, Ramey, Douglas, Austin, Bonner and Peete elementary schools — and one new campus, Jack Elementary. Peete, the last of the seven to be finished, opened in January.
According to TISD, Phase 1 school construction started on time and was completed on time and under budget. Those schools saw a decrease in energy consumption, increased security/safety measures and improvement on Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) scores, according to the school district. More than 80 portable buildings were removed from schools included in Phase 1.
State Sen. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, and former Tyler Mayor Joey Seeber co-chaired a Vote Yes committee to support the 2008 bond proposal as they did for the 2004 bond.
TISD officials thanked the voters and said they were grateful for the work of the Vote Yes committee, with Eltife and Seeber at the helm.
Eltife said Tuesday night that he was very excited and pleased that the voters passed the TISD bond issue.
“It speaks volumes about our community and its support of public education,” he said. “I know this was a hard vote for a lot of people because of the economic times. But they made the sacrifice so we can continue to improve our public education system and we should all be very proud of that.”
Seeber said Tuesday night, “I think it’s remarkable in these difficult economic times that the people voted for this bond issue by the margin that they did. I think it says a lot for the voters of our community that they believe in our schools, and they believe in our children, and they believe in the future. That’s really good news.”
Vickery said that the results from Tuesday’s bond election were close to the results they saw in the 2004 bond election.
“So I think our work in keeping the first seven schools built on time and under budget hopefully demonstrated to the public that the school district was going to be good stewards of the taxpayer dollars,” Vickery said. “We’re just extremely proud and ready to get to work where we can complete these schools on time and under budget as well.”
Vickery said the primary focus of the board and the administration when the 2004 bond election passed was to “hold true to our promises with the voters, that we would build beautiful schools for our children and we would build them on time and build them within the budget that we projected to them.”
“I can tell you as one board member and as current school board president that I’m going to make sure that we do the same thing with this phase — that we will work very hard to make sure that these schools are also built on time and under budget because that’s very important in the public’s eye,” he said.
Reid also said they would work to continue that tradition.
“That was our goal last time and certainly it’s our goal this time as well,” the superintendent said. “We want to be really good stewards of the money. We want to make sure that we provide facilities that our voters can be proud of and that our kids and our teachers can be proud of when they attend there and work there. We hold very close to the idea that we committed to getting these projects done for a particular price and a particular time frame. And it’s our desire to make sure that we fulfill that promise that we made to the voters this time as well.”
Updated Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2008 at 2:58 p.m. CST
