We have predicted several times that EPISD will have to raise their interest and sinking fund tax rate next year in order to pay for the bonds that the voters approved.
When the voters approved the “penny swap” in the last election they took ten cents per hundred off of the interest and sinking fund tax rate and switched it to the operations and maintenance tax rate.
That moved the operations and maintenance rate to the highest allowed by the state. They cannot increase it without the state legislature changing the law. That maximum is $1.17 per hundred dollars of valuation.
It also shrank the amount collected for bond repayment below the amount needed with our current debt. We wrote about this in EPISD–will they get caught?
On the March 7, 2019 special board meeting agenda item 1.c was listed as “2019-2020 Debt Service Fund Projections“.
We’ve been waiting for this so we clicked on the link for the backup material that would explain what they are thinking of doing.
This is what we got:
They don’t want us to know, especially before the May elections.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
I thought EPISD was committed to ethics, transparency, and regaining the trust of their community.
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HAHAHAHA thanks for the laugh, I needed that.
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What is the role of TEA in this mess?
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TEA is culpable. I think they pushed Cabrera as a candidate.
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Haven’t you heard, there is a war going on between Education Reform and Public Education. Education Reform is the privatization of anything to do with education and Public Education is losing the battle.
TEA is part of the National Education Reform movement. Feds give money to State to give away and State picks a Charter company to work with EPISD and then gives 5 million dollars all handled by Charter company. Do you see the connection where TEA stands in all this. They will get the other 5 million after the election.
What is funny about their Transformation Zone is they picked 8 “low Performing” schools for the ZONE only problem is they picked 3 of our best schools, Chapin, Milam, and I can’t remember the 3rd but they are all good schools. It is a BS program.
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If the trustees don’t demand better transparency we need to vote them out. If staff doesn’t comply, fire them immediately.
No more Participation Trophies for those we put in charge of our education system!
Perform or Perish. Take no prisoners.
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public school is a joke. they do a terrible job teaching. third-world countries have far better test scores and put out far more capable students. all American schools do now is condition children towards a specific political viewpoint. tax dollars shouldn’t be used for political purposes. teachers only ever demand more money while they rail against anything that might be used to hold them accountable for low test scores. I guess that means they aren’t really teachers…
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In the third world there is a clear message to kids from parents and school systems (and sometimes government) that education equals a better job. Here too many parents see education (and daycare) as the school’s responsibility. And the donor class sees schools as a money making opportunity which leads to more and more new money wasting initiatives that don’t get results. The third world doesn’t have the money for that foolishness so they just teach.
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Some of us did quite well with our public school educations. My schools even taught capitalization and punctuation.
Our tax dollars are used for political purposes and personal gain every day at every level of government and by members of both parties.
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Our schools could do better for sure, but I never like comparisons to other countries where only the children of the rich elite even take exams that are used for these studies. How many countries that score well don’t even allow girls in school! We have also been testing 100% of our students with exams like SAT. Not too many years ago only college bound students took these entrance exams. The more students we test the lower the scores because we are challenging students that probably would not have taken the exam on their own. Maybe it’s a racket to make sure College Board gets billions of dollars, but maybe it’s a way to put students on a college path who otherwise would have wasted their talents. Just some food for thought. With EPISD’s chronic ethical struggles,
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they may not be in it for the right reasons…
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You are an idiot!
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File a Freedom of Information Act request for these documents and all planning documents, pre-meeting notes, text messages, and e-mail communications related to this subject and this particular meeting.
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I found the link to the video for item 1c. https://elpasoisdtx.swagit.com/play/03072019-683
It sounds like they are waiting to set the tax rate until August because the certified tax rate does not come out until the end of July. The debt service situation isn’t clear to me but hopefully, someone else will watch this video and can explain what they are up to.
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The word “swagit” in the link is appropriate. Whenever the fuzzy math lady is involved financial projections are a scientific wild-assed guess. I can see her and the superintendent sitting around saying, “What the hell, let’s just swag it.” In fact, the use of swagit in the file name makes you wonder if they take any of this seriously.
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