Leaders with the Socorro Independent School District voted unanimously this week to seek voter approval on a $448.5 million bond measure that would build three new campuses and reconstruct Socorro High School.
Trustees on Tuesday voted 7-0 to put the measure on the November ballot, making Socorro the latest school district in El Paso County to seek a multimillion-dollar bond. Last year, taxpayers in the El Paso Independent School District approved a $668.7 million measure that was the largest ever sought in the county.
If approved, the Socorro bond would raise the district's tax rate from $1.27 per $100 property valuation to $1.376. Homeowners in the district would pay about $8.83 more a month, or an additional $106 annually, for a home worth $100,000, according to a district estimate.
Socorro Superintendent Jose Espinoza said the bond will help address rapid growth in the district.
"We are a destination school district, and our district continues to grow," Espinoza said. "It'll help us in many, many ways. We have students and families who will buy a house across from a school in the Pebble Hills area and think they'll be attending that school, and then the school says there's no space. We have to overflow them to other schools."
The district serves about 46,000 students in its 47 schools. Officials said the district grew by about 750 students this year and last year, with much of the growth in the Pebble Hills and Eastlake areas.
About 1,300 students cannot attend their home campuses due to space constraints, officials said.
Last summer, consultant VLK Architects said SISD needed two additional elementary schools in Pebble Hills to accommodate growth. The three elementary schools in the area have about 1,000 students more than their combined capacity, VLK said.
"We're the district of choice, so we have that many kids coming our way and moving into our boundaries," said Maribel Macias, assistant superintendent for administrative services.
The biggest chunk of the proposed bond, about $135 million, would go to rebuilding Socorro High School.
Nearly $106 million would be used to build two new elementary schools and a middle school on El Paso's far East Side. About $96 million would fund improvements at Montwood, El Dorado and Americas high schools.
Additional funding would pay for multipurpose rooms at 16 elementary schools, a new student activities complex with capacity for 6,000 to 8,000 seats, lights at all baseball and softball fields and extra support services.
Socorro's last voter-approved bond was for $297 million in 2011. Officials reported last year that they had saved $37 million and wanted to use $20.6 million to help pay for a new elementary school in the Pebble Hills area.
But officials at the time said that amount would not cover the full cost of the project and the remaining funding would come from the district's savings account. They estimated that purchasing the land and building the elementary would cost $25 million to $28 million.
The elementary school is separate from the bond proposal, officials said.
The district used the remaining $16.4 million from the 2011 bond to pay for air conditioning upgrades at four middle schools.
"The last time we did the bond was in 2011, and from 2011 to now we've grown tremendously," said Board President Paul Guerra. "The last time, our motto was 'promises made, promises kept.' We want the public to know that we're keeping it that way."
Election day is Nov. 7, and early voting runs from Oct. 23 to Nov. 3.
If the measure is successful, the city's three largest school districts could each have major construction projects underway at the same time. Ysleta Independent School District voters approved a $430.5 million bond in 2015.
