EPISD–Citizens Bond Advisory Committee not representing the taxpayers.

August 15, 2019

There is a Citizens Bond Advisory Committee that is supposed to be watching the bond projects at EPISD for the taxpayers.

Attendance at the meetings is poor.  These people are not doing their job.

From the June 17, 2019 meeting minutes:

You can see that almost half of the members did not attend.

Further:

District personnel pointed out to the board that some members have missed the last three meetings in a row.

In this meeting the minutes show multiple agenda items that could not be voted on because the committee did not have a quorum.

The minutes point out that the situation is so bad that the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce will not even take action to designate a board member to represent their organization.

This board is telling school district staff to go ahead without their oversight.

We deserve better

Brutus

6 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
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EPISD–public comment at board meetings

August 14, 2019

The slide below indicates policy changes that the EPISD board will probably approve:

Wow!

Texas House bill 2840 requires the changes.  It is good to see the board doing what they are supposed to do.

This is better

Brutus

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

Hidden money

August 12, 2019

This is an example of why the voters should not approve massive multi-year bond issues:

The slide shows that EPISD has been selling bonds and putting the money into interest bearing accounts.

This is money that they don’t need at the moment but they sold them early to milk some interest money out of us.  Once they sell the bonds we start having to service the debt (principal and interest).

They then park the money in an account and get a lesser interest rate then what we are having to pay on the bonds.

The result?

According to the slide they have generated 8.6 million dollars using this technique.

Other EPISD documents indicate that they intend to use the money to cover cost overruns.

If the voters decide to approve the almost half a billion  dollars in bonds that the city is contemplating they should realize that even the city will need several years to spend the money.

The city could do precisely the same thing as EPISD.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

 

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

Shame on them

July 29, 2019

Well our school situation has hit a new low.

It looks like some of our school district superintendents and some of their board members attended training sessions held in San Antonio last month (June).

According to articles in the El Paso Times two of our local superintendents got into an altercation at 1 AM on Thursday, June 13 that ended up with one superintendent being flattened to the ground and the police ultimately handcuffing the one on the ground.

Also according to the Times a San Antonio police officer’s report indicates that the fallen superintendent appeared to be intoxicated.

It also seems as though some school board members witnessed the event.

What happens in San Antonio stays in San Antonio

The Times also reported that one of the school board members said:

” We took off as quick as we can get the hell out of there because I knew that both you guys were going to be charged. Let’s go. That’s all I wanted. That was my objective. That was my objective. Don’t bring this back to El Paso. We swore that us guys over there, we said we were going to let it stay there, and for the most part it did stay there.”

A school board member’s goal was to see to it that the folks in El Paso did not learn about their behavior.

So much for the idea of public service.

Party time

According to the Texas Association of School Boards’ web site registration for the conference was to begin at 7 AM that same morning.

What were these public servants doing out at that hour, especially when their meeting was to begin is less than six hours?

Are the taxpayers going to pay for their late night activities?  Where had they been before the incident?

If we have to pay for these people to go to out of town events shouldn’t we expect that they show up to the meetings ready to do their jobs?

Even if you could still manage to be out and about at 1 AM on a Thursday morning wouldn’t you think that you owed the taxpayers better performance?

The poor example that these people (superintendents and board members) have set for their students is shameful.

We deserve better

Brutus

11 Comments | El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Property owners stretched to the limit

July 23, 2019

The note below was a letter to the editor in the El Paso Times recently:

Property owners stretched to the limit

Why are property owners in El Paso constantly being asked to cough up more money?

Paving streets and operating within allotted budgets seems would be a priority. Costly ballpark, a demolished City Hall, the trolley car debacle, missing millions, new bus terminals and empty buses, and tax abatements for new businesses for years. Guess who is shouldering this cost?

Combine that with our dysfunctional school system, with their bond money, that would choke a donkey. Wages here aren’t in line with our progress. My quality of life doesn’t allow me to water my lawn anymore.

As a taxpayer, wouldn’t it be nice if you could have a bond election every time your checkbook was short?

Greg Allen

West El Paso

********************************************

Well said Mr. Allen.

We deserve better

Brutus

27 Comments | Ball park, City government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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