Bond 2014 Fact or Fiction Second Half of the District Communication that came out this evening: Bond Committee - Fact or Fiction Largest bond in Katy ISD history empowertexans/features/katy-isds-massive-bond-proposal-and-the-return-of-the-megadebt-stadium/ HERE ARE THE FACTS: The Katy ISD student population has grown by more than 30,000 students over the past ten years. Capital needs such as classroom facilities and student activity facilities are driven by student growth. In addition, Katy ISD has older facilities that have capital needs like renovations and updated technology. The November 2014 bond represents a large dollar amount because Katy ISD is now serving a greater number of students, while construction costs and inflation have increased over time. For more information about the history of Katy ISD bonds click here. Largest bond in the State of Texas for the November 2014 Ballot empowertexans/features/katy-isd-poster-child-for-statewide-bonding-reform/ HERE ARE THE FACTS: This November, Katy ISD will have a $748 million school bond on the ballot, however, it is not the largest bond proposed by a Texas school district this year. Comparatively, Cy-Fair ISD passed a bond for $1.2 billion in May 2014 to meet their immediate student enrollment growth needs. Frisco ISD passed a bond at $775 million in May 2014 to meet growth demands. Katy ISD currently has a tax rate higher than 93% of the other districts in Texas. HERE ARE THE FACTS: Katy ISD currently has a tax rate higher than 23% of the other fast growth school districts in Texas. The majority of school districts in Texas are not experiencing rapid growth like Katy ISD. Less than 100 school districts in Texas serve more than 80% of the states total student population. These districts are considered fast growth school districts, and Katy ISD is among them. Katy ISD continues to be recognized by the Texas Comptroller for outstanding financial management through its Five Star Rating in the Financial Allocation Study for Texas (FAST). This year, Katy ISD earned Platinum Status from the Texas Comptroller for transparency. Over the past four consecutive years, Katy ISD has been recognized by that same agency with the Gold Circle Membership for transparency. Katy ISD also has received Superior Achievement in the Texas Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas (FIRST) for 12 consecutive years. Katy ISD currently owes $1.2 Billion in debt, with the addition of this bond the debt will increase to approx. $3.5 billion with interest. TOTAL DEBT PER STUDENT WILL BE $31,808. HERE ARE THE FACTS According to the State Comptrollers latest information, the outstanding debt per student in Katy ISD for the fiscal year ending 2013 is $19,172. At fiscal year ending 2014 the district had $17,797 debt per student. Retrospectively, ten years ago in Fiscal Year 2004, Katy ISD had $19,061 outstanding debt per student. If the bond passes, using the same calculation, Katy ISDs debt is projected to reach $21,840 per student, but decline annually thereafter. The link below contains information about debt per student and contains clarifying commentary. katyisd.org/sites/bonds/Pages/financial-health.aspx Katy ISD has responsibly managed debt— keeping the tax rate flat for the past eight years, and refinancing debt to reap the benefits of low interest rates whenever possible. Consequently, our debt per student has remained steady, even as debt is incurred with new bonds. Simply adding the new debt and interest to the old, without taking into account refinancing opportunities or defeasances is an inaccurate portrayal of any school districts debt. In addition, the District will not issue the entire $748 million authorization at one time. Bonds will be issued to match cash flow needs. As these bonds are issued over time debt payments paying off principal will reduce outstanding debt. This bonds unpaid debt will assume another bonds debt in 3 years - THEY WILL BE ASKING FOR MORE MONEY IN 3 YEARS HERE ARE THE FACTS: Growth will dictate the need for additional space for new students. As Katy ISD continues to manage growth, bonds must be considered as an option to meet capital needs for classroom and program space. The proposed stadium will cost more per seat than the University of Houstons stadium. coveringkaty/2014/09/04/katy-isd-stadium-proposal-costs-seat-uh-stadium/?fb_action_ids=10203733556653651&fb_action_types=ogments HERE ARE THE FACTS: Comparing the Katy ISD proposed stadium to recently constructed stadiums is not a fair comparison or a wise exercise due to differences in program, scale and infrastructure. Our proposed stadium has yet to be designed, bid or built. Pricing of our proposed stadium is based on construction costs determined by historical and local data (with appropriate construction inflation) of similar type projects and current construction costs as seen in the Houston area. Actual bid pricing may or may not be exact with the cost estimates. Also, it is highly probable that construction costs have risen since others have enacted a contract. The only traffic study, provided by the district about the side by side stadiums, was done by PBK (architect of the 2 year old, crumbling Allen Stadium). HERE ARE THE FACTS: The traffic study associated with the new proposed stadium was completed by the firm, Traffic Engineers Inc. (TEI), which was retained directly by the school district. TEI is a transportation planning and engineering firm and is the oldest traffic engineering specialty firm incorporated in Texas. TEI conducted the traffic study and provided the results via their report dated September 2013. This study was done in conjunction with the commencement of the original design. This bond contains maintenance items (carpet, roof, waterproofing, windows, etc.) that should be done routinely and paid for out of our maintenance budget, rather than putting it on a bond, to avoid financing. HERE ARE THE FACTS: Items included in the bond are major capital expenditures that significantly increase the overall value of the Districts assets. The District utilizes the General Operating Funds (GOF) for routine general maintenance. State funding for the GOF was reduced across Texas in 2011. Katy ISD focuses the majority of its GOF resources on students in the form of competitive teacher salaries and benefits. If large scale maintenance items are paid for out of the GOF it would compromise the districts ability to pay for other non-maintenance needs. The High School included on the bond, is the largest and most expensive in Texas for Nov. It costs $151,000,000 and is over 600,000 square feet but, will only hold 3,000 children. Smaller, less expensive schools with a capacity of 3,200 children have been built in neighboring districts. Tompkins cost $97 million thats land, building, furniture, fixtures, and equipment. Its like purchasing a $200,000 house but agreeing to pay $300,000 for it. HERE ARE THE FACTS: The new high school will be designed as a fully comprehensive high school complete with the full spectrum of learning opportunities for students that exists at the other District high schools. It will be designed to provide the learning environments to support the needs of 21st century students. Tompkins High School was bid at a time when the construction market was in a downturn. The construction market has since dramatically shifted to one characterized by sharp inflation costs including labor shortages. The projected cost for this high school, $151 million, includes construction, fees, furniture, equipment, technology, etc. and is estimated in 2015 dollars (the year the project will be bid). In 2015 dollars, the construction cost equates to $209/SF. The following high school construction cost per square foot followed by year school opened is provided per the Texas State Comptrollers report (issued April 2014). All costs below are in 2013 dollars. Angleton ISD - Angleton HS - $206/SF (August 2010), 2000 student capacity College Station ISD - College Station HS - $208/SF (August 2012), 1800 student capacity Lamar ISD -George Ranch HS - $203/SF (August 2010), 2000 student capacity CyFair ISD – recently bid HS#11 - $213/SF (excluding site infrastructure), 3000 student capacity Money is not free - the district counts on our rising assessed values to pay bonds. They could lower taxes and continue to rake in money because of increased home values. YOU WILL PAY MORE IN TAXES - and the $10-$20 a year tax increase is a misleading figure. https://youtube/watch?v=QLvUG5FJv9M What they are telling you is false. -Paul Bettencourt, former Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector HERE ARE THE FACTS: The District takes into account anticipated increases in assessed values when projecting school tax rates. Assessed values increase not only because property in Katy ISD continues to appreciate in value, but also largely because of the new properties being built, along with expansion and new developments throughout the District. The District has forecasted a projected tax rate increase only amounting to a potential maximum of $10 on a home valued at $200,000. The District has no control over taxable values assigned to taxpayers property by the County Appraisal District. The bond contains portables - bond or no bond the portables will remain at the schools. HERE ARE THE FACTS: Portables are used as a planning tool to manage growth. Katy ISD builds new schools once the children and families arrive to responsibly respond to growth. Portables are not planned as permanent construction at school campuses, but rather are a planning tool to assist with enrollment peaks at school campuses within high growth areas. The use of portables at existing campuses allows the District to accommodate growth until a new school is complete. Thus, the new schools are able to open with a sufficient enrollment to be economically efficient and cost beneficial. The portables can then be redeployed to other high growth areas as needed. Failure to provide capacity for 3,000 additional students per year may necessitate the use of many more portables than normally planned. Capacity for 3,000 students might require as many as 75 additional portables above those planned for growth. This reflects a potential cost of $8.25 million. Q. With regard to the bond committee, I was told that not all core and alternate members agreed with, or approved, the final package that the committee recommended to the Board. A. The Bond Committee, comprised of more than 200 community members, agreed upon a process of consensus building as their approach to developing the bond package they recommended to the Board (a description on their process can be found in p. 15-18 of the committees presentation to the Board of Trustees). For them, consensus meant, coming to a common agreement of opinion on a given problem among the majority of bond members. The Bond Committee agreed that while individually, they may not agree on every single project in the recommend bond package, they do support it as a whole, and collectively believe that the package meets the current and future needs of the students and community within their District. All Bond Committee members, agreed they could support the final package, with the exception of 11* members that formally notified the committee and/or District liaisons of their desire to be removed from the committee and related informational materials on behalf of the committee. These individuals expressed they could not support the recommended package for various reasons. They notified committee or District liaisons that they wished to be removed from the committee, either during one of the committee meetings, or following the committees recommendation to the Board, via in person or in writing. Q. Is it true that at the Bond Committees final meeting not all members voted for the final bond package that was recommended to the Board of Trustees? A. The committee did not take a vote on the final bond package. They followed their guidelines for arriving at a final decision by way of consensus. At their last meeting, the Bond Committee considered three variations of the bond package. They considered elements of each, and decided upon a final bond package that combined some components, as well as excluded some components, of all three variations. Committee members common goal was to meet their identified facility needs and stay under a potential one cent tax rate increase. The final bond package, which became the product of the three merged packages, was then discussed by the members. Following that discussion, the committee facilitator requested the entire Bond Committee to stand if they could support the final package. All bond committee members stood in support of the package. At that time, the entire committee determined that they had achieved a final package that they could support as a whole and recommend to the Board of Trustees. Q. Is it true that District personnel or Board of Trustees made the final decision about certain projects to include in the bond package? I heard it was the Districts decision to include a scaled down stadium in the final bond package. A. The Board of Trustees and District personnel did not identify the final projects to be included in the Bond Committees recommendation. Projects included in the bond package were determined by the citizens Bond Committee. The Bond Committee made a decision to recommend the scaled down stadium as a part of the bond package because they felt it was one of many facilities that were important for the students and community they were representing. Q. I think its wrong that the Board of Trustees and District personnel recommended one referendum for the entire bond package instead of separating certain projects like the scaled down stadium. A. The Board of Trustees, nor District personnel, recommended a single referendum. The recommendation for a single referendum was made by the Bond Committee based on their research and discussion. The Board of Trustees, do however, support the Bond Committees recommendation. Political Action Committees Q. A September 17, 2014 Channel 13 news report charged that campaign finance reports for Political Action Committees (PACs) for, and against, the Katy ISD bond were not provided by the District when requested by that media outlet. It is believed that the District is withholding this information from the public. A. As of September 18, 2014 the Katy ISD had not received a campaign finance report from a PAC that is for, or against, the 2014 bond measure. When these reports are submitted by PACs, they are publically available to anyone who requests the reports. School districts are not legally responsible for requesting these reports, or otherwise ensuring submission or timely submission. This is the sole responsibility of the PAC and their campaign treasurer. There are fines (in the range of $500 and up) for late filing. Additionally, PACs may be subject to criminal prosecution or civil complaint with the Ethics Commission if they fail to submit a report. The Texas Ethics Commission website is the best source for information concerning PAC filing requirements. Generally, the reporting requirements are as follows: Semiannual reports – filed twice per year, January 15 and July 15. These must be filed for as long as the PAC has a campaign treasurer on file, even if there are no contributions or expenditures during the reporting period. 30-Day Pre-election report – Due 30 days before an election and must be received (not just postmarked) by the filing authority by that date; i.e., October 6 this year. 8-Day Pre-election report – Due 8 days before an election and must be received by that date; i.e., October 27th this year. Special Pre-election report – Must be filed if the PAC accepts a contribution or contributions from a single source that exceed $1000 in the aggregate during the period 9 days before the election – noon on the day before; i.e., October 26 – November 3 at noon this year. The report must be filed no later than 5 p.m. of the first business day following acceptance of the contribution. There is a modified (less involved) reporting schedule that applies to a specific purpose PAC that does not accept more the $500 in contributions or make from than $500 in expenditures. Let me know if you need more information on that.
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 02:46:39 +0000
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