EPISD spends $300k a year to maintain vacant school buildings

EL PASO, Texas -- After Monday’s fire at Crosby Elementary was deemed arson by the Fire Marshal's Office, ABC-7 is learning more about what happens to vacant schools.

The fire at Crosby Elementary School in Northeast El Paso was the second fire at that school this year.

Officials at EPISD say the districts owns more than 30 vacant buildings. Ten of those buildings are schools.

According to the school district, many schools that are now vacant were consolidated due to the 2016 Bond program.

Following a school closure, the district said there are three main top priorities.

The first is to ensure that students and staff are successfully transferred to a new school. The second objective is to make all district property inside the school are accounted for and redistributed to other schools or safely secured in a warehouse. Lastly, the district ensures the school is secured and maintained for the community.

Alan Wiernicki, the Chief Operations Officer at EPISD, said after a school shuts its doors, the school is locked, windows and doors and boarded up, and utilities are turned off.

Additionally, electricity must remain on since it is needed for the security cameras, intrusion alarms- as well as fire panels.

He also said the weekly site walk-throughs occur at each vacant property to assess any potential issues.

“We do an inspection of the exterior and the interior of the building looking for evidence of break-ins, looking for evidence of vandalism, want to make sure the fire panel is operational, that the city cameras are operational and that the building looks good for the community,” he said.

He added that district police also monitor these facilities. However, they know that vandalism still occurs inside and outside the properties.

“Unfortunately, we have found indications of vandalism. When they come into the building, sometimes there's evidence that there's squatting there, maybe try to live there, and also there's just normal vandalism.”

He said the school is immediately repaired the same day when incidents like these happen.

The official added that maintaining the ten vacant school buildings costs around $330,000 per year.
Out of the ten properties, eight have been declared surplus by the Board of Trustees. Those properties have been determined to no longer be of instructional or operational use to the district and therefore can be sold.

Wiernicki said there are several options for these schools, which include: “A demolition is an option, we can sell to a developer, sell to another public entity or can enter into a lease agreement.”

He said he doesn’t believe many of these schools pose a threat to the community since many only closed down recently.

Despite the various options available, he said upkeeping the properties is still necessary despite the high costs.

“Although it cost a lot of money to maintain them, we do believe that it is worth the cost to try to maintain the buildings and keep them safe for the community.”

As for the future of these vacant properties, he said it's ultimately decided by the board.

He added that they are planning on creating a school repurposing committee to gather input to best repurpose these schools.