El Paso ISD: Did taxpayers pay to build empty schools?

The El Paso Independent School District is considering three bond elections over the next six years. These bonds would pay for the recent recommendations made by the Jacobs Engineering Group, which found many schools are being under-utilized due to a decline in population. The firm recommends closing a number of schools, and rehabilitating others.

The board is considering holding bond elections in 2015 for $261 million, in 2018 for $253 million, and in 2021 for $216 million, raising upwards of $850 million. These bonds would help pay to close down some schools. But don’t forget, there were two bonds in 2003 and 2007, meant to build new schools. Now the question is: Do taxpayers really know what they’re paying for?

“How did we get here?,” said Board President Dee Margo. “There was no facility study for 15 years, there’s been no analysis to the physical structures and the composition to our district.”

Margo calls into question the judgement of past EPISD trustees, who as he said, didn’t study the district, but found reason to build numerous new schools in the early 2000s. Now, after commissioning a more than a $1 million study, EPISD discovered it’s actually losing students and would cut millions in repairs by closing under-utilized schools.

“Normally you would do this, with the asset size we have with buildings and structures, every five years,” Margo said. “And they’ve known for years, and it was the old, kick the can down the road.”

An El Paso Inc. article from March 2007, titled, “EPISD: Largest growth in 40 years cites new troops arriving in Fort Bliss would bring in 10,000 students and enrollment will grow nearly 16 percent to 74,051 by 2011. There were two bonds held: one in 2003 for $207 million, and one in 2007 for $230 million, both with funds set aside for new schools, the majority of them elementary schools.

“We certainly built those schools based on the projections that we had,” said Dr. Lorraine O’Donnell. O’Donnell is a former trustee and vice president of the board throughout the 2000s. “Of course at that time, you remember, we expected a huge influx of military personnel. So we responded to those needs at that time.”

That projected growth from Fort Bliss never came, and with a current student population at 59,000, with a projection of 5,000 less in the next five years, O’Donnell says that information was given to her from administration under Dr. Lorenzo Garcia. She doesn’t say the board made a mistake.

“I really can’t respond to that,” O’Donnell said. “Except to say, based on the projections we were given…to open a new school, to build a new schools, that is something we are quite reluctant to do because it occasions a huge expense on the budget. If that’s something that we did, that’s something we needed to do at the time. I think if you look at the number of the schools built, you’ll see that those schools are full.

And most are:
Tippin Elementary, built in 2004, is at 76 percent capacity; Magoffin Middle built in 2006 is at 62 percent capacity; Moye Elementary built in 2006 is at 80 percent capacity; Aoy Elementary built in 2006 is at 62 percent; Western Hills Elementary built in 2006 is at 84 percent capacity; Mesita Elementary built in 2007 is at 88 percent capacity; Brown Middle built in 2007 is at 96 percent capacity; Herrera Elementary built in 2009 is at 86 percent capacity; Powell Elementary built in 2009 is at 109 percent capacity; Tom Lea Elementary built in 2009 is at 120 percent capacity; Lundy Elementary built in 2010 is at 78 percent capacity; Hart Elementary built in 2014 is at 78 percent capacity; Logan Elementary built in 2014 is at 61 percent capacity.

With the exception of Magoffin Middle, Aoy, and Logan Elementary in the low 60’s, newer schools are at 75 percent capacity or higher.

Another former trustee Sergio Lewis, though, is taking issue with both the rebuilding of schools and the option of closing schools.

“It’s too easy to say we over-built, and it’s too easy to say we need to close schools,” Lewis said. “Redo and look at the situation of shifting or doing boundaries district wide and see if it will fill the void. That’s always been a tough issue. It’s always an issue that people don’t want to address, and it’s probably an issue the board of managers doesn’t want to address. Redo boundaries is my suggestion to the board of managers. Study it at least and see if that will fill the void.”

No final decisions have been made, but the board hopes to have one by the end of February.