Bad timing for Manor’s $125M school bond vote
District lacks chief executive; entire board is under investigation.
As the Manor school board seeks $124.9 million in school bonds from taxpayers this spring, political watchers say upheaval at the district could taint the May election and keep voters from funding new schools needed to accommodate growth.
When they discuss what it takes for a successful bond campaign, political consultants, chambers of commerce and school officials often emphasize the importance of being fiscally sound, united and having strong leadership. Manor, in recent weeks, has been questioned on all fronts.
The district has been without a permanent superintendent for five weeks, since former Superintendent Kevin Brackmeyer’s controversial
resignation.
The Public Integrity Unit of the Travis County district attorney’s office has opened an investigation into the school district.
A parent, who is a lawyer, recently filed suit accusing the school board president of misconduct and calling for her to be removed from office.
In response to the parent’s allegations, the trustees called on the Texas Education Agency to investigate the entire school board. And they ordered a comprehensive audit of the district’s finances.
“Generally, you would say this would cast a real pall over the chances of this bond passing,” said David Butts, an Austin-area political consultant. “It’s bad timing. I wouldn’t call it the wisest direction to go under the circumstances because it’s likely to be defeated — and that’d certainly be detrimental to the Manor school system given the growth they’re experiencing.”
School board President Desiree Cornelius-Fisher said she hopes voters consider the students first. Given the timing of the bond election, she said she felt it was important that the board voted unanimously to call for it.
“The timing of some of those things has been really unfortunate,” she said. “I want the voters to look at the whole picture. We’re much bigger than the four or five things going on. We’ve always been about the work and about the students.”
The $124.9 million bond package would build a middle school and an elementary school, as well as pay for designs for another elementary campus and high school improvements. The proposition includes funds for future schools and school buses. With the district projected to grow from 8,650 to nearly 12,000 students in the next five years, district officials acknowledged they likely will have to call for an additional bond election in two years.
Without the new buildings, schools would grow overcrowded. Financial advisers project the district would need to spend more than $1 million on portable buildings.
Officials say the bond election wouldn’t cause the district to raise its $1.515 tax rate. District officials haven’t called for a bond since 2007, and the area has had increased revenue due to its growing tax base.
But political watchers said voters might not feel confident enough about giving more money to those in control, which would hurt more than the district’s leadership.
“Passing bonds are very difficult things to do when the community and the trustees are pulling in the same direction,” said Mark Littlefield, an Austin-area political consultant. “A split board and split community is not the ideal situation you want in a bond campaign. It means a steep climb became a little steeper.”
Five weeks ago, about 100 parents and teachers who rallied to keep Brackmeyer were chanting, “You vote today, we vote in May” at a board meeting while trustees met in executive session regarding his fate. Three seats are up for election in May, but the sentiment could very well spill over into the bond election.
Behind closed doors, trustees debated whether to approve Brackmeyer’s separation package, and it appears to have come down to the wire. In an email sent during a break of the school board’s executive session, Cornelius-Fisher wrote that Trustee Adriana Lapeyra-Gutierrez “is falling apart, she going to cave.”
Lapeyra-Gutierrez joined a four-vote majority to accept Brackmeyer’s resignation. “This wasn’t a decision I took lightly, and I was trying to make a decision in the best interest of the district,” she said.
Cornelius-Fisher had sent the email to Geovanna Ricaldi, the executive director at the district’s education foundation. Cornelius-Fisher said she instead meant to send a text to her husband, remarking that Lapeyra-Gutierrez wasn’t feeling well and that it wasn’t specific to the deliberations.
The district remains without a permanent leader. Trustees appointed a school principal as a temporary manager, and this week appointed an interim superintendent.
An American-Statesman investigation showed the reasons for Brackmeyer’s departure weren’t based on his job performance. Some board members faulted him for failing to have a state certificate in his first six months as interim superintendent. They made him pay back a $2,400 a car allowance he collected that wasn’t in his contract. And they questioned why he purchased $1,700 in office furniture for his wife, who works for the district.
In the past few days, the Travis County district attorney’s Public Integrity Unit has opened an investigation “related to complaints received regarding the school district and some of the people involved,” said Gregg Cox, the unit’s director. He wouldn’t say whether the investigation is focused on the school board, specific trustees or district employees.
At board meetings in recent weeks, a parent — a local attorney who applied for, but wasn’t appointed to, a board seat in 2009 — publicly accused Cornelius-Fisher of misconduct. The allegations led to messy clashes on the dais among trustees. In a split vote, the board initially decided to allow an independent investigator to look into the misconduct allegations. But last week, in another split vote, the board decided instead to ask the Texas Education Agency to investigate all members of the school board.
Cornelius-Fisher has said that an investigation was needed to be transparent with the public and to prove there has been no wrongdoing.
Also in recent days, Brackmeyer’s attorney sent a cease-and-desist letter to the trustees regarding comments Cornelius-Fisher made to the American-Statesman on why Brackmeyer’s performance evaluation ended with his resignation.
The escalating controversy has meant a fast fall for a district that hosted President Barack Obama last spring, when Manor New Tech High was praised as a national leader in preparing poor and minority students for college and careers in technology.
“In many instances these bond campaigns can be won or lost before an election is even called,” Littlefield, the political consultant, said. “The less community buy-in and support, it makes your steep climb even steeper. A rudderless ship that is under investigation may not be the warship you would take into a bond campaign.”