ABC-7 Xtra: YISD Bond

live where news comes first, this is “abc-7 xtra. >>> welcome to “abc-7 xtra. good evening. i’m maria garcia. glad you’re with us tonight. rember when the city of el paso tried to pass that nearly half a billion dollar quality of life bond? it was and is a big deal. voters approved it. lots of investment and debt for our community. well, as we’ve told you, starting tomorrow, voters will decide if they want to pass a bond almost that big for a school district. the ysleta independent school district says it needs $430.5 million of debt to pay for new schools, renovations, upgrades and some closures and consolidation of campuses. we’re going to get to the details of the bond tonight. yisd asked voters to approve a slightly less expensive version of this bond in may, but it failed at the polls. so the district is hoping this month will be different. and it’s also counting that proposition 1 will help convince voters. it would increase the exemption homeowners can claim on their taxes, which means some homeowners’ tax bill would still be lower even if yisd’s bond passed. joing me tonight, yisd superintendent dr. xavier de la torre and parent and volunteer patrick brown. you can email us your comments and questions now to abc7xtra@kvia.com. you can also reach us at 915-496-1775. on twitter, use the #abc7xtra. when you tweet me at maria g abc 7. part of the challenge for yisd, with an aging population, many older residents in the district are on a tight income and aren’t convinced approving such a large bond is the right move. our education reporter ashley rodriguez filed this report. >> so many of us are elderly and to the point where our children have been raised and they’re gone, grandchildren are raised and gone. >> this eastwood resident declined to go on camera, but was more than willing to share why her elderly friends voted against yisd’s bond election in may. >> we don’t see the need for investing in the community further. >> yisd will have an uphill battle to climb as it tries to sell a repackaged bond this november. a $430 million bond means a 14 cents tax rate increase or $66 more per year. while parents want the new schools and technology promised for their kids — >> you got to look at it as a big picture, it’s for our children. it’s for our future. >> — older residents aren’t buying. >> people our age tend to get a little cautious with their money. >> the last time yisd residents invested in the schools was 2004, under superintendent hector montenegro. from 2009 to 2013, dr. michael zolkoski led the district and oversaw a failed bond effort in 2010. he pitched only $160 million for new schools and refrigerated air. current superintendent dr. xavier de la torre’s pitch will cost more than twice that, and older residents aren’t feeling the urgency. >> i can only speak for my tenure and the time that i’ve spent in the district. and i seen a lot of people who acknowledge that we’ve not addressed the needs of our schools, and they’re not getting any better and they’re excited about someone coming in with some energy and some enthusiasm. >> joining us now are yisd superintendent dr. xavier de la torre and parent and volunteer patrick brown. thank you so much for joining us tonight. we appreciate it. >> thank you. >> you bet. >> dr. de la torre, as we mentioned at the beginning of the show, the city of el paso a couple of years ago asked voters to approve $470 million quality of life bond to improve the quality of life for the entire city. and you’re asking voters to approve nearly that much to improve the third largest school district in the city. why so much? why not a more palatable amount? >> i think there’s some misconception that we’re trying to address all of the needs at once. people i think sometimes are taken aback when they find out the $430 million is about a third of what we need in the district. we are taking a smaller step toward what we believe not only our students need but our students deserve. we do want to improve the quality of life in the community, you need to invest in education. this generation of students who are going to guarantee the kind of economic prosperity this country has enjoyed for almost two centuries. it isn’t done through parks and projects. it’s done by educating generations of students so they can be part of the economic machine that’s made this country so great. >> you heard from a voter in that opening piece saying, you know, i’m on a tight income. i’m not sure voting yes on this is financially sound for my home or for my community, especially when there are tax increases from other taxing entities. sometimes there’s fatigue from voters. they feel they’re being asked to pay more from other avenues. and so what do you say to voters who say, i don’t think i want to approve this? it’s too much and it’s not good for my household. >> i feel that now more than any time is the best time to approve a measure just like this. to me it’s where i’ve drawn the line. there is a homestead act saving the taxpayer in that district a lot more than anybody else. we’re the lowing paying district in the area. also with proposition 1 coming up, voters actually now have a chance to vote yes for both. that’s a majority of the tax rate go down and get the kids what they need to have the quality >> but even if yisd, if the bond passes with proposition 1, it could actually save people on a fixed income a significant amount of money. but aren’t they missing out on how much money they could really save, i mean, without the bond, if it was just proposition 1? >> well, there are two things. first, we have to do a better job of educating our elderly. when we conducted a survey after the narrowly defeated bond in may, we were dismayed to learn 50% of voters 65 years of age and older were unaware that their property taxes would be frozen for the purposes of — [inaudible]. almost half of them were also unaware of the fact that they enjoyed a 20% local homestead exemption and they’ve enjoyed that homestead exemption for two decades, since 1994. so i can certainly understand being on a fixed income, i can certainly understand being on a — [inaudible]. one thing the board and i never want to do is be cavalier and dismissive about somebody’s financial reality. but to mr. brown’s point, if there was ever an environment more conducive to considering making an investment in your school system, it’s now. >> speaking of how big the bond proposition is, why hasn’t ysleta invested before this? you’re saying, you know, the $430.5 million is only a third of what the school district needs. it sounds like yisd should have been taking care of its facilities a lot more in the past. >> that would be true if homes and buildings had eternal life cycles. the reality is, even schools at some point reach the end of their life cycles. when you’re a school district that’s been, in my opinion, that’s been the best option for families and students for 100 years, for a century, you simply have to come to the conclusion that some schools, whether you made the right investment, whether you’ve managed monies appropriately in the past, at some point in time schools like homes need to be replaced. >> i want to talk about the biggest expense there, the biggest expense there. the $93 million for eastwood high school. eastwood high school, some would say, is the crown jewel of ysleta. it’s so popular. there are children from other district boundaries coming into yisd to go into eastwood. it’s overpopulated. why not invest in other campuses to make them as attractive as eastwood is? >> i don’t think that eastwood is attractive because of the facilities. i think eastwood is attractive because at present i think eastwood may be the highest performing high school. you’re right, we do get a lot of students who don’t live in the area or the school district. but we have faculty staff there to support 2,300 students. if we were to limit the number of students who could attend eastwood, then we would have a personnel or a staffing challenge on our hands. those teachers that at eastwood do a terrific job. the performance doesn’t happen by accident. it’s done by design. it’s done with the spirit of excellence by design and we’re very proud of all of our comprehensive studies. it seems to be very popular in the el paso community. >> but academics–wise, why not invest in making the other high schools, ysleta, for example, academically as intriguing and as attractive as eastwood? >> again, i would argue that ysleta high school has an amazing environmental science program, another high school has a one-of-a-kind magnet program. all of the high schools has something that’s unique and special about them. i believe that my predecessors and i will certainly continue to invest in all seven learning communities. we’re only as strong as our weakest link. we want all of our high schools to be very, very attractive because they have very unique magnet programs. it just so happens eastwood is one of the more established comprehensive high schools in the area and it draws students, families from outside the area and has increased the enrollment from what would normally be like 1700 students to about 2,300 students. so we appreciate having the additional 600 students, especially when you’re a district that’s been in a pattern of declining enrollment for the last two decades. >> let’s go to the phone lines. jesus on the west side is on the line. what is your comment or question? >> my request he is for superintendent xavier de la torre. what would be done to reduce central office administration in order to ensure trust in the community? thank you very much. >> thank you very much. i have to tell you, every time we have a superintendent on the program, we get a similar question from viewers about administration and how you’re tightening your belt with that. >> i think our efforts are well chronicled. the 18 months that have been at my tenure pursuing a flatter, leaner office. >> how exactly? >> what we do is any time we have openings at school sites for assistant principals, for principals, for teachers in some cases, we take staff from the central office and we reassign them to the schools that have those openings. another example would be the imwill nation of positions. whenever we get the benefit of positive attrition. positive attrition refers to retirements, resignations, promotions, people that relocate. we simply eliminate those positions behind them to make sure that we always have a balanced budget. if you look at the central office 18 months compare that to today, what you find is we’ve cut and recaptured millions of dollars and in some cases have redirected that investment to the schools. relative to his question surrounding why the voters should do this, i often — i believe strongly that you can tell the character of a community by how they invest in their youth and in their elderly. i think the single most important issue of our time is improving our public schools because, again, they’re going to drive the economic prosperity that we will either enjoy or not enjoy in the future. it’s going to effect and impact every one of us. so the reason we re-invest in the school district is because we’ve gotten lighter and leaner at the central office and this bond is the gen sus for the growth of schools that are underutilized. >> let’s go to norma on the east side. norma, what is your comment or question? >> i heard that voting no for the proposition 1 for the homeowners exemption, it’s not going to help us. it would be better to vote no. well, then how are you now saying it will be better to vote — we’re going to continue to have a bigger discount than voting for the proposition for the ysleta independent school district. thank you. >> thank you very much. norma says she seems to be a little bit confused on how to vote on proposition 1. she says she’s been advised that it would be better if she voted no on proposition 1. do you want to respond to norma’s question? >> proposition 1 is basically going to increase your homestead to another $10,000. right now i believe it’s $16,000 and it will go to $25,000. which means you’re paying less tax off the tax base of your home. when you vote yes, you’re lowering your taxes on your home. so when you vote yes on proposition 1 and vote yes for the bond, you’re actually still lowering your taxes and getting the kids what they need for education. >> but if somebody voted yes on proposition 1 and no on the bond, they could save more money. >> they could. their taxes would go down a little bit more, yes. >> so then, again for voters who say, i want to take advantage of the full benefits of proposition 1 and the yisd bond takes away from those benefits, what’s your response to that? >> our response is, the children to me are more important than saving a few cents. i get it, again, i don’t want to say that money is not important, but the education of our children are much more important than that. i don’t feel you can put a value or a cost into providing what the kids need. i’ve been around these schools. i was part of the committee to see what the — i went to these schools and these schools are literally falling apart. i went to my school over 25 years ago, i went there, it’s way worse than it was. there’s exposed wires everywhere. it’s not just eastwood, it’s all the schools. it’s come to a point, we need to realize we have to take care of our children and our communities. sure we can save a few bucks in our taxes but we won’t move our children’s future forward. >> we have to take a break. when we come back, we’ll take more of your phone calls and tweets. you’re watching “abc-7 xtra. remember, you can call us at 915-496-1775. >>> welcome back to “abc- xtra.” we’re talking about the ysleta independent school district, $430 million bond that voters will get to approve or deny starting tomorrow with early voting. we have with us dr. xavier de la torre, yisd superintendent and patrick brown who is a volunteer. the second most expensive thing on the bond, $87.1 million would be a combination elementary, middle school that would replace camino real and valley view middle school and mission elementary school and the new march school would be named devilla mission. the closure would close to build this campus. >> it depends on the campus. in that particular case, we would like to close camino real middle school. the kids would be consolidated as simulated with current students at valley view middle school. there would be approximately 900 students. it would be a combination school similar to what we we did. there’s an economy of scale by creating combination schools. i think the important thing is to make sure the public understands it doesn’t mean it’s a pre-k through 8th. there’s two administrative offices, two parking facilities, so on and so forth. that’s an example of what we’re trying to do that is somewhat unique. that is, we’re not moving a group of students from one tired weary school to another tired weary school to save a million dollars. nothing we’re doing has anything to do with recapturing money. the idea is to try and grow schools and give those students the 21st century learning space that they need and the teachers need to gain the education they’re going to need. >> cal walter elementary school possibly to close if this bond passes, what would happen to that? >> because it’s unique and historical would likely be repurposed for adults who have special needs and who we work with to provide skills so they can be employed in our community. that’s current reply called tcc. it will accommodate the closure and consolidation of [inaudible] and hillcrest. it would continue and the students would consolidate and be part of the brand new thomas manor school. [inaudible] >> okay. so for the merger school that would combine camino real and valley view, you mentioned the campuses that would be closed would probably be sold. so it sounds like there’s not a realreally incredibly concrete plan to what would happen to these campuses. the campuses usually become alarmed when they think of an empty building with no concrete plan. >> we have a concrete plan. the one thing we have to keep in mind, i work at the pleasure of the school board. there are seven individuals on that school board. it’s likely there will be elections between now and when we complete the middle school project. i can’t take liberties and make decisions on behalf of the school board. the school board we have right now is thoughtful, deliberate and is aware of our plans, but they ultimately make the final decision. our recommendation would be to close that middle school and use the proceeds of selling that property to offset any debt we may incur. now, with the potential $10,000 increase of the home exemption state level, there’s really no debt. that $10,000 is negating the increase to current property taxes. so in this case, what mr. brown is talking about, is the state of texas wants to help ysleta independent school district re-invest the money to schools, faculty and staff and the $430.5 million into the el paso economy and that’s never happened before. what i mean by that, a lot of people think the the cents generate the $430 million. they do not. they generate half. why is that? because the state gives the local entity, the local municipality one dollar for every dollar we generate. so the state is already paying for half of the bond. now, the other half of the bond is supposed to be paid for with the 12-cent increase in the property tax. that’s been put into question because if we pass the $10,000 proposition 1, it negates the 12 cents. the you’re looking at a situation where the entire state of texas wants to help this school district rebuild, reconstruct, rein vent an experience with 4 1,000 students. >> definitely a unique situation with voters. let’s go to jessica. what’s your comment or question? >> yes. why aren’t current monies and materials being used instead of us paying more money? i’m aware there’s a lot of materials that are not being used where other districts have them available are they are being used. >> thank you. jessica is asking about resources that the school district is not utilizing to their fullest potential. >> if jessica can point out where we have these interactive white boards, we would be happy to install them. the reality is such white boards don’t exist. we currently receive $365 million a year to operate the school district. the majority of those funds are already dedicated to salary, health and welfare benefits, statutory benefits, transportation and instructional materials and all the things we need to operate the school district. any notion that there are things like interactive white boards that we’re aware of and that we’re intentionally not utilizing to support students is a distortion of the truth. >> let’s go to daisy in the lower valley. daisy, what’s your comment or question? >> yes. my question is, why isn’t all the schools in the ysleta independent school district benefiting from this bond? and why is it takin 32, 38 years to pay off this bond? thank you. >> thank you very much, jessica. the first question, why aren’t all the schools in the district benefiting? >> all the school in the district are benefiting. every school we plan to operate in the future is receiving an investment. the bond is — [inaudible]. >> how are all the schools receiving an investment? how will you know how to allocate that? >> it’s driven by the engineering report, it’s driven by recommendations that were made by the facility advisory committee, the equity enhancement subcommittee the investments are being driven by data, by need. it isn’t a plan where we decided to allocate a set figure for each one of the 63 schools in the district. we don’t plan on having 63 schools in the district. we plan on having closer to 48 schools in the district at some point because we no longer have over 50,000 students in the district the way we once did. we have 4 1,000 students. in many cases, we have schools that accommodate 1,000 students and they have 300 students in the building and it’s costing the district anywhere from $00,000 to $1 million to operate the school being utilized 30%. some schools aren’t going to get much because those schools aren’t going to exist in the future if we adhere to our facilities master plan. it’s being driven by the data and the need. not all schools were built at the same time so it’s unreasonable to believe that the schools have all the same needs. >> rebecca tweeted us, will this bond cover everything or will you come back and ask for more in a future bond? >> i’ll come back and ask for more in a future bond. this will cover about half of the needs but these are the priorities. >> earlier you said it was about a third. is it a third or half? >> it’s about a half of what we have in our facility master plan but about a third of what we need. the master plan — [inaudible] >> when will you come back and ask voters for more money? >> what we would like to do is do four things. we would like to make sure all the projects listed on the bond are built on time, under budget. the quality that we expect and the majority of the labor is done here from contractors and subcontractors in the el paso area. i think if we do that, when people see tangible evidence, i think the trust and confidence in the school district will be significant. when that happens, i can come back in seven, eight, nine years and ask them to consider expanding the note on the current bond. that means we’re not going to ask them to increase their tax. we’re going to ask to go out bond 30 years so we can secure additional money, the much the same way you would if you had equity in your home and you need additional money to remodernize. we’ll do the same thing but we won’t come back if we don’t deliver exactly what we promised. >> a tweet, is there a way to guarantee the bond money goes specifically to that project and not anything else? >> there is. we’re in the process of identifying a cross-section of members in our community that would make a bond oversight committee. people with background in construction, people with background in finance that can hold the administration and the district accountable to make sure that everything that we presented to the public as part of the bond remains the project in the bond. >> we have to take another commercial break. we’re going to keep on taking your phone calls and tweets when we come back. we’re getting some comments from viewers about the district encouraging students to vote over the age of 18. we’re you’re watching “abc-7 xtra.” xtra.” we’re talking about the ysleta independent school district upcoming bond election. valerie had written to us and she asked, is it legal for a taxing entity, let alone a school district to openly advocate for a self-serving tax increase? she’s talking about students being able to receive community service credit hours if they were willing to pass out information on the bond for the district. you know, you said that this is simply an informational campaign. it’s not supposed to influence the vote. but there are some viewers who told us they feel it’s sort of an ethical murky ground to have students — to incentivize students by giving them community credit hours to pass out information that is informational but that still makes a convincing case for the district. >> well, i think the first thing that is true is that this district, this administration, our principals do have a strong interest in seeing more and more people, not just students in el paso participate in elections, bond or no bond. i think what we’ve been very careful to do is make sure people understand that we’re prohibited from doing anything to be interpreted as an attempt to compel, coerce or persuade a student or an adult to vote in any one way. we’ve been very clear with everyone and everything we’ve sent to employees and people affiliated with the school district that that simply cannot happen. whether or not students should be given hours, and that’s the credit we’re referring to because they’re not given credit in the form of a grade or anything like that, the ysleta independent school district can select how they generate 80 hours over the four years that they’re our students. if students ask or request to participate, we feel like giving them hours is a legitimate thing to do. we do not and we’ve made sure no one has gone out and campaigned for them to use increased voter registration as a means to generate these hours. i will tell you that what we’re working on is a partnership that was initiated not by the ysleta independent school district but by the senator rodriguez who i think we all support and we believe as he does, that voter apathy has gotten out of control. more and more people need to understand there’s a civic responsibility to have a voice in decisions that are being made on their behalf and on our behalf as a society. so we don’t apologize for any of those. >> there is research obviously that shows the younger you vote the more prone you are to vote the rest of your life, the more it becomes a habit. i really think that the question here is, if you have somebody as an authority figure, a district official who is an authority figure to these students talking to them about the election coming up and how they could vote and what it means, how they could vote, that the dynamic seems a little bit unfair because these are authority figures within the district. >> we’ll have to agree to disagree. >> that’s not my opinion, that’s what i heard from students — not from students but from viewers. from earnest, what’s the long-term plan for debt servicing? is that when taxes go up? also, eastwood has newer buildings as well, will those be torn down? >> no, the new buildings will not be torn down. we’ll rebuild about 90% of these. the science labs that were recently built will remain on the campus. we would never be that dismissive with our taxpayers contributions. the second thing relative to debt service, i think what mr. brown is talking about, at least in the immediate future, if proposition 1 passes, there is no debt taxes are going down for most homeowners in our school district, not up. >> and also another email from rosa. please ask dr. de la torre if there is documentation on their website of all the positions eliminated and how much monies are being saved. >> not on the website, no. >> where can the public find that if they wanted to look for that? >> an open records request. we can do a before and after. we can identify the positions that have been eliminated and redirected to the schools. we can do any and all of that for you. >> and another email from a viewer. why aren’t more campus administrators paying attention to the physical maintenance of the school? also, why is a good portion of the bond going to athletic facilities, i believe it’s bud 55 million? are we here to educate or promote athletics in our schools in yisd? >> we’re here to give students an incredible experience. in our society, athletics are important to people just as visual arts and academics what we try to do is make sure there is something for everyone. we happen to be the last school district in el paso county that hasn’t installed the artificial surface at each one of our — >> i think that’s $8 million. >> probably closer to $14 million in artificial surface. the lighting on the baseball fields and the softball fields replaced, tennis courts replaced, basketball facilities. so those projects are are not to the experience that students have in school. again, i want to reiterate something that people tend to forget because it is unique to this bond and that is the administration didn’t develop this bond. we’re not the authors. we’re not the architects of this bond. this bond was developed by some of the same people that helped defeat the bond in may and only agreed to participate in the process because they wanted to make sure they could stop any future bond from being put before the voters. the project list that is going to be before voters in november was developed by 80 members of the same community. it was made by the community for the community. it wasn’t driven by the board of trustees. this was the community that came together and over a short period of time realized there’s a sense of urgency in addressing some of these needs. they determined chad continue to remain on the — they determined what would continue to remain on the bond. >> rick carter is saying, will any of the money be used for administration bonuses? how about for teachers salaries? >> no, bond money cannot be used for compensation. >> this is specifically for facilities. and mr. brown, you were on that committee. >> yes. >> that refocused the projects. what were the factors you used to determine which projects would be included? >> for me personally, i think the greatest need was — [inaudible]. the things that were most important to move the district in the right direction for the students. the safety and security of the students, the true of the building, the learning environment, the technology aspects. we’re in a position now where technology is not getting dumber, it’s getting smarter and better. these buildings for now wouldn’t look for that. you walk in the schools like eastwood and ysleta, they have four outlets because there’s four walls. the reality is, where are you going to plug in your computer, your data, everything else? where are you going to put your white board? right now what’s in today’s classrooms and we have a hard time and they’re not even there because our facilities cannot support it. >> cannot support the technology. last week there was an incident where a man who appeared to be drunk went into one of the schools, local school here. putting $4 million into safety and security enhancement such as alarms and cameras. why such little security relatively speaking? >> security doesn’t help much. that committee decided and i was privy to the conversations, if we’re going to convince parents that the safety and security of their children, faculty and staff is our number one priority, then we need to live that value. what we’re doing is we’re replacing all the fire alarm systems, the security systems, we’re installing additional surveillance cameras, putting up perimeter fencing. the biggest thing we’re doing is putting in magnetic door locks where nobody can get access to the school without being allowed into the school by someone from the front office. >> sounds good. we’re out of time. thanks for watching us. thank you both thank you so much for watching “abc-7 xtra. we hope you found this informative. remember, early voting starts tomorrow and election day is november 3rd. thanks