Well we are now hearing that the El Paso Independent School District is going to gear up for a bond election in November of 2016.
District officials are saying that the Ysleta bond process taught them a few things. They plan to place far more emphasis on a citizen advisory committee. We should also expect to see our state senator visiting campuses to educate the 18 year olds in the district about their responsibility as citizens to register to vote and then vote at the bond election.
Few of us will dispute the fact that some of the schools are in sad shape. We will be told that others need to be expanded so that smaller schools can be closed.
In the past we have been told that a consultant’s report indicated that it will take about one billion dollars to make the changes.
We should encourage the school board and the administrators make their bond requests of reasonable size. The citizens of El Paso are living through the disastrous situation where they gave the city $420 million for quality of life bonds and the city engineering organization was overwhelmed with their new work load.
The district also has a history of promoting specific bond projects (I can think of two high schools) and then using the money for something else.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Isn’t the failure of the QoL projects due to a whole lot more than just the “city engineering organization was overwhelmed with their new work load?” I mean, on the one hand, we have a City Manager who has cut a number of positions. On the other hand, we seem to have an entire work force that lacks leadership and direction, mostly because nobody seems to know who is in charge? And, City Council? Worthless.
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Fraud and cronyism are the biggest threats to EPISD construction projects.
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If the estimate is correct, that amounts to almost $1400 PER PERSON for these improvements, or, say, $5000 per household? I like living here, but not that much!
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Bonds are spread out over a number of years, typically 20. So to say “that’s $1400 per person” is misleading (if correct). it would be $70 per year if it were spread over the 20 years of the bond, assuming that the bond was not paid off early, which I believe the district did do a few years back, and lowered taxes as a result.
The way to stop fraud and cronyism is to get involved on the bond committees and keep an eye on things. Citizens do have power, they just usually ignore to use it.
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The price may be spread over a number of years, but it is the price – more if you add in the interest paid…I will grant you that I may only pay $70 a year and might even escape the full tariff if I don’t live for 20 more years, but that’s cold comfort. It would be interesting to know how school expenses in a comparable regional city such as Albuquerque have fared – particularly as Albuquerque has been spared the endless sprawl of El Paso by being hemmed in largely by federal or tribal lands..
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Has anyone else wondered what was done with the yearly O&M money for EPISD? They want to spend, spend, spend, with no accountability later.
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