A $72.9 million bond package will be on the ballot for voters in the Aledo Independent School District, Texas, this November.
Monday night, the board unanimously voted to call a bond election with two proposals: A $64.1 million option to build a new middle school and convert McAnally Intermediate School into an elementary school, and a second $8.8 million option to build new facilities for the district's Ag and Career Technical Education programs, including a new Ag barn.
The $8.8 million proposal also includes funds to purchase land for future school facilities.
The district's bond steering committee originally proposed an $81 million bond package earlier this month.
The board decided to trim the costs by about $10 million to keep from bumping up against the district's bonding capacity of $85 million, Superintendent Derek Citty said.
After looking at the remaining funds for facility maintenance in the 2015 bond program, the board made the decision to use that money instead of including a $3 million proposal for maintenance in the 2017 bond.
"There was a number in there for maintenance needs," the superintendent said. "What the board asked us was to look at that number and see if we need that money right away... the board had some concerns about our bonding capacity and asked us to look at where we were with the remaining maintenance funds from the 2015 bond in hopes of deferring that particular part by a year. And we have enough in that 2015 bond for general maintenance needs."
The costs for construction of the new middle school and the McAnally conversion were also reduced by a combined $7 million, Citty said.
"There was a substantial amount of money removed from the cost of building the middle school. They pared that number down as well," Citty said. "And there was a little bit of a reduction on repurposing [McAnally] into an elementary school."
Before the board voted to call the election, community members expressed their opinions on the bond, referencing the controversial final meeting of the bond steering committee in which a pro-bond political consultant (who worked for the district's architect, VLK) was present.
"As a community member, I think a lot of us are getting the feeling that before the dust settles on a crisis, the district is already rolling into another one," Ella Bullock said. "I was on the bond committee. It was a privilege to work with them... but unfortunately, at our last meeting, I was taken aback by a political consultant who was brought into the meeting. Honestly, it derailed the whole thing for me and I was uncomfortable to have been a part of it.
"We felt very strongly that even in the very best of circumstances, this bond was going to be a challenge to present to the community. For that to be the ending of that process was very disappointing."
"I think some of the things that have happened over the last few months are concerning," community member Jessica Brown said. "What I'd like to see is a focus by the administration and the board on what actions you can take to rebuild trust and a relationship with the community. The reason I bring this up is, with the proposed bond election... I want to make my own opinion. I don't want to rely on social media or the media themselves to make an opinion.
"Seventy-two million dollars is a lot of money. We're obviously putting our faith in your hands, but the community needs to feel there's that trust there in order to do that."
