The El Paso Independent School District is conducting a public relations campaign concerning the condition of our schools.
They have studies that indicate that it will take over $800 million to repair our schools. Since they will probably have to use bond money to pay for the projects we will end up paying the $800 million and the financing costs probably bringing our ultimate cost to over a billion dollars. Then the schools won’t be maintained and the cycle will start over.
Our school board is supposed to operate with a budget that is in balance. Past boards as well as this current board of managers have failed to pay for repairs as they are needed. The situation is not unusual. While state law requires balanced budgets, our local governmental agencies frequently neglect paying for building upkeep until it takes so much money to make the repairs that bond money is required.
Our county hospital is an example. Of the $152 million the county authorized to build new outpatient facilities $27 million was really needed to remodel some floors at the hospital. The hospital simply has failed to maintain it’s facilities through the annual budget process.
Is there a different way?
I don’t know if this idea is practical and would like input from our readers. Would a public/private partnership make sense in light of the fact that our local governments like to ignore their basic operating costs? Would it be practical for a private entity to build the new schools that are being promoted by the district and then lease the facilities to us with maintenance included? Would this kind of approach bring us back to a “pay as you go” situation?
I do know that these governments have not been honest with us.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
I think you have a slightly skewed view of things. First of all, the deferred maintenance over the course of many years was brought on by a set of factors, one of which is that the district, in a chronically depressed economic town had to maintain buildings (demanded by the town’s public by the way) had a hard time getting bonds apporoved which would have paid early on for that item. Because there was no extra money, the choice came down to such things as patching the roofs (low cost quick fix where there was money) vs. replace the roof (high cost where there was no money).
Secondly, the district has to meet the requirements (in all things) set down by the state and federal governments, no matter the costs. So say for instance, the federal government says the district HAS to remove all asbestos from all of its buildings. That money, which would have gone to maintenance, had to be shifted to the asbestos removal project which cost multiple millions of dollars. (I use asbestos as an example because that was something happening as far back as the 70’s, showing that these issues are a long term festering problem.) Same for ADA requirements, putting safety eye washes and showers in all science classrooms (do you know how expensive that is in a building such as El Paso High School?) the list goes on and on and on. No matter WHO runs the schools, those issues come up all the time and monies that WOULD have been used to do basic repairs had to be shifted to do these mandates. IT is no small sets of items, Putting ramps and elevators in one school for ADA is one thing. Putting them in ALL schools is mind boggingly expensive.
Add to that a legislature that is anti-public schools, a state who traditionally underfunds schools (how many YEARS has the state been told that the way they fund schools is unconstitutional? (As far back as I can recall… going back to Edgewood vs. Texas) a tax local base that is shrinking not growing, a hostile older voting citizenry who have forgotten the idea of the better good, a series of scandals and you have a recipe for why the costs are so high. No matter WHO is running or owning the schools, the costs will not go away. (We have a board of managers leader who proudly voted to CUT 5.4 Billion dollars form public education when he was in Austin. One wonders if he is still so anti-education now that he has had to sit in that chair for two years.
Want to change things? Lets start with the local tax base. What are the local politicians doing to increase the tax base in El Paso besides handing out tax deferments to millionaires and billionaires? That deferments affect the amount of money that EPISD can collect. What are the local leaders doing to bring in higher paying jobs and all the benefits (including larger amounts of taxes going to all schools) that go with that? What are the local politicians doing to stop the bleed of students out of EPISD? Clever and insightful residential planning that keeps the tax base? Nope. Clever little projects that benefit developers? Yep.
What are our state legislators doing to make state funding equitable? Where are the political champions for EPISD and all the property poor districts? I hear silence. What are our national legislators doing to help bring in better jobs and hence more PEOPLE and taxes? I hear pretty much silence.
The bottom line Brutus, is that no matter who owns the schools,unless the system that the schools have to operate in changes, then the money issues will not go away.
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Bond issues might have a problem with voters due to distrust of EPISD. Their aversion to transparency and history of financial corruption and educational fraud does not make EPISD an institution I would trust with my money.
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School bond issues traditionally have problems in El Paso because we are a chronically economically depressed city AND very few people actually vote when it comes to education matters. We are also very transient, as the military families are only here for a few years and don’t have an emotional attachment to the community, so they don’t vote as much as they could. The issues that EPISD has had only complicates an already difficult sell. Trust takes a long time to build, and short time to destroy.
Everyone “says” that they value education, and everyone pretty much likes their neighborhood schools. However, it is hard to convince Northeast folks to vote for something that helps the Southside campuses, Westside people to vote for things that help the east side schools, and so on. We are still very provincial as a city. “Why does the West side get this and that?”
Couple that with the eroding idea of the common good, which many aging baby boomers (who are the voting base) and anti-taxers have made a theme (if I am not affected then I don’t want to pay for it), a law that forces a cap on taxing for all school districts, and it becomes more and more difficult to fund a very expensive proposition.
That is why YISD and EPISD are looking to close schools.But even closing costs money as Brutus points out in this piece.
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Some of the local businesspeople profiting on the backs of taxpayers are also anti-tax, anti-government-spending people who give big bucks to support conservative politicians like pay-to-play Perry. They only want government spending that benefits them personally. They also make charitable donations with one hand, while picking taxpayers’ pockets with the other. They are not interested in common good, only what’s good for them.
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This aging boomer understands that he has a responsibility to future generations and I did vote for the EPISD bond issue that the Dodge board mismanaged about 10 years ago. I won’t make the mistake twice.
I reiterate that local corruption and secrecy in government are the two main factors in El Paso’s decline and all the taxing and spending in the world won’t fix it. Not ball parks or arenas or trolleys will fix it; only an engaged citizenry that rejects the Mexican mordida culture will fix it.
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Are charter schools also included in our local corruption? On August 6, 2011, an article published by the El Paso Times stated that “The Texas Education Agency was looking into allegations that Burnham Wood Charter School had misrepresented attendance at its schools… which the state uses to help determine school funding”. In addition the article quoted “Auditor Concerns” regarding real estate transactions which resulted in private benefits of approximately $400,000 for the school’s superintendent Iris Burnham.
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As for bringing good jobs here…El Diario reported on Sunday that STEM jobs – science and engineering – are badly paid in El Paso, which occupies slot 92 of 100 cities surveyed by the Dept of Commerce. Did the Times report this?
http://diario.mx/El_Paso/2015-01-18_f1f1253b/carreras-de-ciencia-e-ingenieria-son-mal-pagadas-en-el-paso-/
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I agree with Deputy Dawg. Regardless who owns the facilities, the taxpayers will get the bill. If the facilities are owned by a third-party, the price will go up because of their profit requirements. Plus, when they can pass the maintenance costs on to taxpayers, no maintenance will be deferred, so maintenance costs are not certain to go down.
I would not be surprised to see the board of managers try to move it in that direction, especially considering that Woody Hunt owns CGL Facility Management and one of Margo’s sons works for CGL. In 2013, CGL was awarded a $44 million contract related to the El Paso County Jail annex expansion; that project did not involve third-party ownership.
http://www.cglcompanies.com/development-finance
http://www.cglcompanies.com/announcement/6
When you start talking public/private partnership, you’re definitely singing Hunt’s song. Those are the same lyrics Mountainstar sang to get the ballpark built. The public paid to build it: private individuals now gets the profits.
Let’s see how this plays out over the next few months. I’m betting that the board of managers will fast-track more major, questionable decisions before the end of their term. They did that this week with the vote to exit the state healthcare insurance program. HUB International, which was brought in to build the board’s case for termination, is the company to which Margo sold his insurance agency and the firm which now employs one of his sons. HUB’s point of view is also biased because it would be a potential vendor if EPISD goes to the private insurance market.
EPISD has financial issues and challenges that must be addressed. In government, however, promises of efficiencies and cost reduction are often used as the justification for privatization, which is a means for creating a feeding trough for special interests. Quite frequently, the promised savings never materialize.
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