$487 million CISD bond set for vote
The Conroe Independent School District’s $487 million bond is set to go to area residents for a vote on Nov. 3.
The Conroe Independent School District’s $487 million bond is set to go to area residents for a vote on Nov. 3.
The district hopes the bond will meet the growing pains the district is experiencing. This year alone, the district saw an influx of 1,800 new students. During the last several years, the district has regularly seen an annual uptick of 1,400 students, and enrollment has jumped from about 42,000 in 2005 to more than 56,000 students in 2015.
“I believe that the bond is extremely important for our students at Conroe ISD,” said CISD trustee Skeeter Hubert. “If you look at what a bond is designed to do, which is to build buildings, that’s what we’re doing.”
Early voting continues through Oct. 30.
Building for growth
The $487 million bond includes four new schools slated for the Oak Ridge feeder zone, which is the fastest-growing part of the district. Two elementary schools, an intermediate school and a second high school are expected to go up along Texas 242 and Riley Fuzzel Road. The 3,000-seat high school is to cost $141.5 million and is expected to open in time for the 2018-19 school year if the bond passes. The current Oak Ridge high school is the most overcrowded campus in CISD. The 10-12 grade campus is more than 550 students over capacity and has 22 temporary portable classrooms to keep up with the booming population. The freshman campus has four portables.
The projected price tag for construction of Oak Ridge area schools alone is about $224 million. A fifth school in the bond proposal is a junior high campus in Conroe.
“In the next five years, we’re projected to add 8,000 students. This year, we’re 500 students over our projection. This bond issue is all about capacity for students to go to school,” said CISD Superintendent Don Stockton. “If the bond issue doesn’t pass, those minimum 8,000 students are still coming to CISD. We’d have to very quickly make plans that would most likely impact all of our schools.”
Conroe ISD doesn’t anticipate more than a one-cent tax rate increase to fund its bond. The increase would mean an extra $10 for every $100,000 a homestead is worth. The property tax rate for the 2015-16 school year was approved at $1.28 per $100 of assessed property value, which was the same as last year.
The school district has one of the lowest tax rates of neighboring school districts. In comparison, Klein ISD has a tax rate of $1.41 per $100 of assessed property value for the 201516 school year. Spring ISD had a tax rate of $1.47 per $100 of assessed property value during the same period.
“I believe our board has done a great job of only including the necessary items in the bond and being extremely conservative in our forecasting and making it as low of an impact as possible on the tax rate,” Hubert said. “Our school district has a reputation of being financially conservative and also financially responsible with tax dollars.”
Campus projects
Although a large chunk of the bond is focused on new construction in the Oak Ridge feeder zone — about 44 percent — much of the bond will be spent on major renovation and facility expansion projects.
Knox Junior High in The Woodlands College Park feeder zone is expected to undergo a $12.2 million expansion to add a facility for new science classrooms.
Stewart Elementary in Conroe will receive a small slice of the pie, about $1.2 million, to complete classroom build-out. Construction will begin in 2017.
Austin Elementary, a struggling school in the Conroe feeder zone, will receive $17.85 million for major renovations. The old east wing of the campus will be demolished and a new structure will be added on the south side. Construction is slated to begin in 2018.
The largest renovation project is at Conroe High School, coming in at $59 million. A three-phase school master plan was developed for the more than 50-year-old building to bring it up-to-date and maintain capacity for growth. The other phases, amounting to another $60 million, will be on the back burner for future bond packages.
On top of all the new construction and facility renovations, funds have been set aside for districtwide upgrades, like safety and security and facility life cycle maintenance.
The bond was first proposed to be $511 million. But $24 million was chopped off, which included bond funds for new buses, some technology upgrades and “priority one” projects — electrical, plumbing, roofing, etc. However, the removed projects will still be funded through district budget surplus.
As part of the bond package, the board accepted a $5 million recommendation from Stockton.
Of that addition, $2 million is expected to go to technical education improvements for cosmetology and welding programs at Caney Creek High School and Oak Ridge High School Ninth Grade center.
An additional $3 million will go to building a robotics lab at The Woodlands College Park High School and Caney Creek High School.
If the bond passes, CISD’s principal bond debt will be $1.46 billion with an additional $511.9 million of outstanding interest. The addition of future outstanding interest could put the district well past $2 billion in overall debt obligations.
School districts are expected to balance their debt to the value of their tax base. The net bonded debt-to-assessed value ratio for districts in Texas is generally limited to 10 percent, according to Texas’ Revised Civil Statutes. The total assessed property values in CISD’s taxable area is worth $29.8 billion, so its principal debt can’t exceed $2.98 billion at this time.
Currently, CISD’s debt-to-assessed value ratio is a little more than 3 percent of its taxable base.
More information on the bond in online at bond. conroeisd.net.