School districts encouraged not to maintain buildings

January 7, 2018

Unfortunately state law encourages school districts to avoid maintenance on buildings until they reach the point where they have to be replaced.

Locally the districts have had us  paying for the new buildings by taking on debt through bond issuances.

School districts are allowed to set two different property tax rates.

The first is known as M&O (maintenance and operations) with the second commonly called I&S (interest and sinking fund).  Bonds are paid for out of I&S taxes.

If our numbers are correct the state has placed a cap (maximum) on the M&O rate at $1.50 per hundred dollars of property valuation and has capped the I&S rate at fifty cents per hundred dollars of property valuation.

If the districts were to properly maintain our buildings the costs would have to come out of the M&O funds.  When they ignore maintenance and end up having to build a new building they get to use I&S funds.

Last year EPISD’s M&O rate was $1.07 per hundred and their I&S rate was twenty-four cents per hundred.  Remember that this was before the new bonds have been issued.  The I&S rate will go up when they are issued.

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

EPISD–bidding

January 5, 2018

In the middle of the EPISD construction bidding mess is an unfortunate fact.

The district had to bring in a lawyer to clean up the district’s bidding process.

What does that tell us about what has been going on now for years?

We deserve better

Brutus

7 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

EPISD–jerking the contractors around

December 28, 2017

Incredibly the EPISD board in their Tuesday, December 19, 2017 meeting took what appears to have been contradictory actions within minutes.

They had previously gone out for bids to find construction managers at risk for Burges, Coronado, and Jefferson high schools.  The board voted to reject those bids and instead issue requests for competitive sealed proposals once the architects have finalized their designs.  The problem here is that the bidders had to spend time and money to come up with their bids and then the board decided that using a different approach would be better.

The very next thing that the board did was to allow district staff to go out to bids for a construction manager at risk for Irvin high school.

Why did the board drop the construction manager at risk approach for the three schools and then go ahead and use it for a fourth?  It appears that EPISD staff might have conducted an unfair process on the first three schools .  The district has brought in yet another out of town lawyer to straighten out the district’s bid process.  Their only way out of awarding the original bid was to reject all bids.  Going to competitive sealed proposals will potentially add costs to the projects, but going out for bids a second time for construction managers at risk would expose the district to legal claims from the original winner.  The district still feels that the construction manager at risk process is more cost effective–that is why they used it for Irvin high.

This could have been avoided if the district had been fair with their evaluation of the original bids.  It looks like they  tried to pull a fast one here but  got caught.

This costs the contractors and the  community money and will result in fewer bidders in the future.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | El Paso Independent School District, Purchasing | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

EPISD–construction bids rejected

December 27, 2017

Trouble is here.

EPISD went out to bids for construction manager at risk contracts for Burges, Coronado, and Jefferson high schools.

Maybe the district did not like the amounts that were bid or they didn’t like the bidders.  Then again maybe they did not follow the rules and were caught.  If you watch the video of the board meeting where you did this you won’t learn why.

It looks like this is going to get messy.

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

EPISD–travel spending

December 26, 2017

The EPISD November 2017 travel report that was presented to their finance committee contained this”

Not only does it look like the superintendent has slowed down his spending, but it appears that some of the board members are traveling on their own dime.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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