School promises

HISD must address community expectations for its bond plan with all deliberate speed.

Houston Independent School District’s $1.89 billion bond issue — the largest district bond issue in recent Texas history — promised to give young Houstonians an opportunity to learn in structurally sound, clean and modern schools. By a 2-1 margin, voters in 2012 responded to HISD’s outreach and agreed with its vision. Based on a facilities study, HISD committed to replace and repair 40 schools across the district, including 29 high schools.

By voting for the bond issue, the public placed its trust in the district and is expecting the district to get the most value out of those bond funds and to hold itself accountable for results. The district has strived for transparency with a bond website loaded with information and reliance on a Bond Oversight Committee made up of community and business leaders, which meets quarterly.

Each school receiving bond funds has a Project Advisory Team made up of the principal, parents, teachers, students and community members who work with planners, architects and the construction team to try to ensure that the school meets the needs of its stakeholders. Meetings are open to the public.

But now on the heels of the community outcry over the demolition of Phillis Wheatley High School, the construction process has hit a much larger bump: The bond proceeds may be insufficient to cover the cost of the projects. According to data provided by HISD and posted on the state Comptroller’s website, in 2012 and 2013 the construction cost of new school buildings averaged about $140 per square foot. On July 29, HISD staff reported to the HISD Bond Oversight Committee that the bond budget would support construction costs up to $195 per square foot but that the estimated cost of construction was $210 per square foot and rising. “Inflationary increases are preventing us to build what we want to build or what we promised to build in our new construction projects,” HISD superintendent Terry Grier told Chronicle reporter Ericka Mellon.

HISD isn’t the only district affected by Houston’s ongoing construction boom. Several districts, including the Tomball Independent School District, have reported concerns about rising prices. The increase in HISD’s estimated costs could result in a potential shortfall of $211 million.

The issue came to a dramatic head over the weekend when a Davis High School English teacher expressed outrage on Facebook that the program may be so short that her campus will have to be renovated, rather than rebuilt. HISD did extensive community outreach prior to the bond issue to obtain community buy-in, and Diane Morrow pointed out that she and her colleagues at Davis had parades, went door to door and worked hard to pass the bond issue because “we had been PROMISED a new school with a portion of the bond money if the bond passed.”

In response, Juliet Stipeche, chair of HISD’s audit committee, has called for external and internal audits of the bond program. A comprehensive review by qualified construction experts — who can benchmark the district against best practices for construction cost containment in the private sector — makes sense.

HISD may not have been able to anticipate the construction cost increase that occurred before the slowing of construction that has begun to accompany the decline in oil prices. But as soon as the shortfall became apparent, the HISD board should have given Grier clear directions on the criteria he should use to develop a plan to align community’s expectations with the budget. The board should press Grier to identify as soon as possible those projects that may need to be scaled back or delayed.

The voters and the school board need to keep asking hard questions. Now, and as part of any future bond issue, HISD will need to explain the actions it took to squeeze the value out of each tax dollar and how its cost inflation compared to those of other public and private entities. Even if some answers are not what anybody wants to hear, even if some promises have to be broken, Grier and the HISD board should step up now as a team and face this community which is so eagerly awaiting our state-of-the-art schools.