Picture Of The Bond Process

Katy Citizen Watchdog$

We’re Taxpayers. It’s Our Money.

Picture Of The Bond Process - Part V

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In the past bond money has been sought from the taxpayers under the pretense that many children are coming and schools need to be built. We all dutifully went to the polls and gave them 920 million dollars over the last 11 years with which to build these new schools.

But here are some interesting facts:

In those 11 years, 13 new elementaries have been built. In 1995 Hayes Elementary cost $6,931,243. In 2006 Griffin Elementary cost $14,223,878.

In those 11 years six junior highs have been built. In 1995 Beck Junior High cost $12,322,799. In 2003 Morton Ranch Junior High cost $20,855,652.

In those 11 years three high schools have been constructed--all at a huge expense. Cinco Ranch High School so far has cost $74,423,228. Morton Ranch High School so far has cost $56,162,667 (it is lower because they have failed to build the 9^th grade center for which voters have previously approved bond funds). Seven Lakes High School (which is in its second year but still sits one fourth empty containing only 9^th and 10^th and 11^th grade students) cost $70,617,832 (and it HAS a ninth grade center).

Of interest to voters should be the fact that Mayde Creek High School was built for only $17,000,000 in 1984.

The District arbitrarily uses an inflation factor which slants ALL associated costs in favor of the architects and builders of these schools. In the last eleven years they have gone from a 3% inflation factor to 6 %, to 9% and now it is magically up to 12.5%. There is no logical reason why the inflation factor is so high, other than using such a figure enables developers, architects, engineers and builders to garner a bigger slice of the BIG PILE ‘O MONEY (AKA KATY ISD). Has anyone noticed the teachers getting a 12.5% pay raise based upon supposed runaway inflation factors?

For example, the architect’s fees for Alexander Elementary built eight years ago were $156,316 --a reasonable amount for a very attractive school. The architect, Mr. Goleman had designed 12 of our schools before the District switched to someone else. In 2001 when the District switched to SVBW the fee went up to $557,849, and the fees have been very much out of sight ever since.

In 1995, Farrell Sundin, the architects for the new Katy Junior High, were paid $291,740

in architectural fees. In 2003 on the other hand, PBK Architects charged $959,650 for their architectural fees for Morton Ranch Junior High.

All this inflated expense just doesn’t pass any reasonable person’s smell test.

Of major concern to me is the fact that the District in this same 11 year time period has asked for and received bond money to build supposedly direly needed schools, but tracking their actually asked for, received, and built figures, one sees a picture that’s quite discomforting. For example bond funding for Williams Elementary School on Peak Road was asked for in the 1994 bond initiative, and voters voted to spend that money. But the school wasn’t built and the bond money was spent for something else --no way to know what. In 1996, the Board came back and asked for money for that school again. Once again, the voters anteed up the bond funding. Once again, the District didn’t build that school. In 1999 the Board was back at our door asking for money for the same school. (They called it Elementary XVIII so we wouldn’t remember which one it was they were talking about!) Once again the voters came through with funding and finally in 2000 this school opened its doors! McMeans Junior High is another school that has had bond money voted for it more than once. Same thing for the 9^th grade center at Morton Ranch High School. Who knows what else they didn’t build that we gave them money to build. The District refuses to put all their information on line which should raise red flags for everyone.

When the District tells us that our taxes are going down, we need to think about what they haven’t told us. Yes, our property taxes are lower, but not because of any lessening of expenditures by the school district. Our taxes are lower because of a Texas Supreme Court Decision that said the State Legislature had to get rid of the Robin Hood Tax scheme, and meeting in a special session, they did get rid of it. But unbelievably they included in the new legislation a proviso that said school districts, even though the State was trying to lower citizen’s taxes, could RAISE taxes by four cents for the next two years. They also allowed that if school districts took advantage of that proviso, the State would chip in a like amount for their effort! It was an unbelievable move by our Republican dominated legislature.

Katy ISD, not wanting to say they were raising anyone’s taxes but at the same time, revealing their greed and not wanting to leave any money on the table, figured out a way to have their cake and eat it too! They first moved some debt from one fund to the other and then lowered taxes in that fund by four cents. Then they raised our taxes by four cents and took the five million dollar bonus as their reward for being so clever.

So yes, your property taxes are lower and will be lower next year too, but in the mean time the State is poorer by $5 million that our school district accepted for their cleverness. All that $5 million didn’t grow on a tree. It is State Sales Tax money that might have gone for some other better cause. Make no mistake--KISD never once said at any public meeting regarding this scheme that they NEEDED this money. They just couldn’t stand to see it get away from them.

I imagine if every school district had been so clever, they would have bankrupted the State.

When the school district tells you that they need more schools, it’s not common for anyone to go out and figure out if they really need them or not. You think that you can trust them to tell you the truth about such matters.

But you cannot. In the first place there are two sets of numbers that can be manipulated and which are not verifiable. The first of these is the capacity of a school building. That number can be whatever some clever person wants it to be. Most of our schools have had varying capacities over their lifetime. Sometimes the number is real, but my experience has been over the last 25 years of watching that usually the number is devised to suit the purpose of the person who gets to set it. In this case, lowering capacity numbers makes it appear that we have schools that are full. And especially with regard to portable buildings, the school district is running a real scam by claiming that a two classroom portable only holds 30 students. It holds at least 60 and probably 70. Go look at one. Ask your secondary school kid to count the number of students in his classes that are held in a portable building. By claiming that theses buildings only hold 30 kids, the district is asking for twice as many portable buildings in this current bond initiative as they actually need. It is also significant that in the last week or two we have heard that there are 187 portables in use, or maybe 167 or if you go to the District’s web site, you will find the number --160 being used. I personally think they haven’t a clue how many portables they have or how many they need or how many children can be served by one. They will also tell you that in elementary schools for sure there are only 15 kids in a portable classroom. Do not believe that. Although the law says they must have classes with only 22 students in grades 1through 4, they often get waivers to have more. They couldn’t afford to just have 15 kids in a class!

And why didn’t anyone ask the $64 question: “Why aren’t the administrators in the portables?” Use the bond money to build classrooms for the kids instead of the administrators!

The other vacillating number that is used by the District to predict growth comes from the District’s Demographer, Pat Guseman. Dr. Guseman has been the District’s demographer since 1996. Mostly her predictions are pretty far off.

For example for the year 2006, Dr. Guseman has at various times predicted that there would be 53,106, 48,644, or 50,161 students showing up at the beginning of the 2006 school year. Actually there were 50,992 who appeared.

Had the District built schools to prepare for 53,106 (2002 prediction) or 48,644 (2003 prediction) when 50,992 actually showed up in 2006, we would have been either overly prepared or in dire straights.

On the one hand there would have been 2184 too many spots (or an elementary and a junior high) or on the other hand 2348 too few spots (or two junior highs)!

Only when they get as close as six months away does PASA get close to being near the number (50,161) which is the number given to the 2006 Spring Bond Committee, but even then it’s off by 831 students which is almost an elementary school!

Taxpayers also need to look at the District’s requests for land purchases. They seem to be in a real hurry to buy up land from the people who are helping them through the PACS to secure the bond.

Take for example the land for a school in the Firethorne subdivision. The representative of the developer (Wayne Meyer) for this subdivision was on the bond committee both times this year. Acreage of 13.491 acres was purchased for $734,564. The cost per acre was $54,448.45.

That’s a mighty sweet price for a piece of land that has no value except to the developer of the Firethorne subdivision. Realtors tell me that the going price for prime corner commercial property south of the freeway is $40,000 per acre.

The District has deliberately used things like security and maintenance of older schools to hook voters into voting. What voters should ask themselves is “Why haven’t these particular issues of security and maintenance been taken care of already?” The district seems to have plenty of money to buy land for four junior high schools that aren’t even needed and build Arenas for self aggrandizement with money that could have been used to retire the debt for Katy High School freeing up all sorts of funds that could have been used elsewhere. All that money that has simply been wasted could have gone for real issues that our students are facing in their schools.

I could write forty more pages of explanation regarding this illegitimate bond initiative, but your hard drive couldn’t handle it, and so I will stop.

Anyone who votes to give these people their blank check, and that’s really what it is, deserves to get to pay the taxes to foot the bill. It’s the rest of us who understand these issues, who think it’s not right what they are doing, and who believe that our students and their teachers are getting the short end of the stick who need to vote next Tuesday to end this madness.

Mary McGarr, Katy Citizen Watchdog$

Date: 11/02/2006