Now they want another $166M in bonds. Of course the justification is the growth in enrollment and the need for additional schools.
Lets look at the GISD's own projections from their February 2018 budget presentation.
The upper line shows the growth estimated by a hired consultant. We know what they do - they provide the answer the customer wants! The lower line reflects a 2% annual growth which is right in line with the annual growth over the last 6 years.
Now consider the District just added capacity for 2,121 additional students over the last 3 years with the new Wagner middle school, Purl elementary school and an expanded Tippit middle school. The District admits that the schools are not at capacity right now, so there is still room for growth in the existing schools.
If one uses the historical growth rate of 2% annually, it can be observed that another 2,000 student seats are not needed until after 2023.
Thus it appears that this request for bonds to build additional schools is premature. If it takes 3 years after a bond election to complete new schools, as was done after the 2015 bond election, then additional school bonds are not required for another 2-3 years!
Keep in mind GISD has almost $11M left over from the 2015 bond sale and would be available to meet near term rehabilitation needs.
No comments:
Post a Comment