|
Only have a minute? Listen instead |
A divided Brownsville ISD Board of Trustees defeated a proposed $350 million bond election on a split 3-3 vote on Thursday, failing to meet a state deadline to place the proposal before the voters.
Board President Erasmo Castro was not present and did not participate virtually, as he had at earlier Facilities Committee meetings leading up to Thursday’s vote. Castro reportedly is battling pancreatic cancer.
The bond proposal the board failed to approve was option three among four presented to the Facilities Committee at those meetings.
Approval would have resulted in a $350 million bond proposal to voters that set aside $25 million for a new Career and Technical Education center, prioritized the 42 most-urgent roofing and HVAC projects across the district totaling $263 million, and separately proposed a $62 million Performing Arts Center.
BISD last year sold the former Cummings Middle School, now the district’s CTE campus, to the city of Brownsville for $16 million to expand the Gladys Porter Zoo. The money is invested and BISD must move CTE operations elsewhere within five years.
A Performing Arts Center has long been a district priority.
Board Vice President Daniella Lopez Valdez and Trustees Jessica G. Gonzalez and Denise Garza voted for the proposal, with Trustees Carlos Elizondo, Frank Ortiz and Minerva M. Pena against.
A simple majority was required for approval. Feb. 14 was the state deadline to call an election in May.
The board can still call a bond election for November or for May 2026, but calling the election now, should voters have approved the proposal, would have allowed BISD enact a budget on June 30 with its bond debt, or I&S tax rate, unchanged at 24 cents per $100 of assessed property valuation, and still issue $350 million in bonded debt with voter approval, Chief Financial Officer Alejandro Cespedes has said.
With the bond neither proposed nor approved, the maximum I&S tax rate BISD can enact for the 2025-26 fiscal year will be 13 cents, a decrease.
For the past two years, BISD has paid down its bonded debt through defeasance resolutions, saving the district $1.5 million in bond interest and placing it in an advantageous position to call a bond election.
Because of the defeasance payments, BISD must make bond payments for 2025 totaling just $39.68 million, a relatively small amount compared to other districts.
Cespedes told the Facilities Committee on Monday that BISD has the lowest bonded debt among all districts in the Edinburg-based Region One Educational Service Center. Some districts of about BISD’s size in San Antonio have bonded debt into the billions of dollars, he said, citing a state bond review board website.
If BISD proposes a bond election in November or May 2026, one key calculation will be the fact that one cent in I&S tax levy produces $14.5 million in tax revenue, Cespedes has said.
There is wide agreement that BISD facilities need roofing and HVAC upgrades. Air conditioning problems have been a recurring problem at several schools.
Under the leadership of Superintendent Jesus H. Chavez, the BISD Board of Trustees established a Citizens Facilities Committee in November, which then conducted walk-through assessments of all district facilities.
The committee, which numbered more than 100 members, issued its final report on Jan. 27, which recommended proposing a $350 million bond for roofing and HVAC improvements across BISD, and with a new CTE center as priority one.
“Ultimately, we voted against putting roofs and HVACs for our children,” Lopez Valdez said after Thursday’s meeting, characterizing failure bring the bond proposal before the voters as a lost opportunity.
“We unfortunately won’t be able to maximize the debt that we have now. It’ll be a smaller amount, but we can go back and work the numbers and try again in November. It won’t be taking full advantage because this was a unique opportunity. …We’ll never get the $350 (million) but maybe we can go for 200. I feel that we should try again,” she said.
“It was a golden opportunity where all the stars aligned for us to be able to do this while not placing the burden of a tax increase on our community, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity where the citizens proposed what needed to be done. It was hours and hours of work that was done and was unfortunately voted against for, in my opinion, no reason. I think it’s important to commend the citizens committee because they worked all of this, they went to all the schools” and proposed what needs to be done.
Pena said she never got adequate answers as to where the $350 million was going to be spent and that she voted her conscience.
“It was $350 million and you’re not going to have enough? That’s very hard for me to comprehend because of the prices that are being charged. Why are we allowing them to charge us $3.5 million dollars for a small school that doesn’t even have a large roof? …I’m getting thousands of calls and I don’t get answers and because I don’t get answers, I’m saying let’s go back and do it properly. …I wasn’t comfortable voting for it,” she said.
