On May 6, 2017, a CCISD election was held in which voters approved the issuance of $487 million in school building bonds with the purpose of being spent on constructing and renovating school buildings, acquiring capital equipment, and purchasing buses and technology.
Assistant Superintendent of Support Services Paul Miller and Chief Financial Officer Alice Benzaia gave a joint presentation to the board of trustees at the Oct. 24 meeting. Miller said a facility needs assessment conducted this year divided items into priority one needs, or items expected to fail in one to two years, and priority two needs, which are items expected to fail in three to five years.
According to the presentation, the facility needs assessment identified $303.7 million worth of infrastructure needs total, including $222.2 million in priority one items and $81.5 million in priority two items. The district deferred $228.5 million of the needs to a future program, narrowing the total down to about $75 million in “immediate needs” that will be addressed in the coming months, Miller said.
Miller and Benzaia did not specify how the district would address the deferred $228.5 million or the remainder of the $75 million in urgent needs after using bond funds. Chief Communications Officer Elaina Polsen said the board is not planning to call a bond in the coming year.
“The items that we deferred are things like carpets and roofs—things that wouldn’t necessarily cause the building to be shut down,” Miller said. “But the infrastructure remaining ... would have the probability of causing those kinds of disruptions.”
Some of the remaining items include mechanical needs costing $40.6 million, technology in buildings costing $10.4 million, technology infrastructure costing $7 million and bus needs costing $5.2 million.
Initial infrastructure spending
The first items that will be addressed with the $30 million in remaining 2017 bond funds, which consists of leftover money from over-budgeted projects, are infrastructure replacements at Clear Springs High School and Space Center and League City intermediate schools. Additional projects will be pitched to the board in the coming months, Polsen said.
Some of the replacements include three 650-ton water chillers for Clear Springs and water piping and mechanical pumps for all three schools.
“These are facility infrastructure that’s already causing disruption and a lot of extra work for our maintenance staff,” Miller said. “Folks have even gotten on eBay to find parts for the Clear Springs chillers.”
The total cost of these proposed projects amounts to $7.3 million. The board voted 5-2, agreeing to use the bond money.
The two dissenting opinions were Trustees Scott Bowen and Michelle Davis, who both voiced concerns with spending the bond money on items not explicitly approved by the residents who voted on the bond. Bowen said he does not object to the projects; instead, he objects to using bond funds to pay for them.
“The committee that put this bond before the voters and approved the use of this money deliberately made the decision not to include this project,” Bowen said.
Benzaia said she recommended the use of bond funds first instead of the district’s capital and contingency funds because of uncertainty with the district’s budget. The district saw shortfalls after a sharp enrollment drop caused by COVID-19.
“It’s about trying to understand what our needs might be for the general fund as we go forward this year with so much uncertainty ... and having to possibly pull funds from capital and contingency back into the general fund,” Benzaia said.
