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Flooding at the Mertzon City Park after about 3.5 inches of rain on October 24-25, 2023. That's the football stadium on the right. Here is the agenda for the October 30, 2023 special School Board meeting, with my comments below: Here are my comments: This is a fine example of a special meeting agenda with only one topic - safety. "Special" in this case only means that it is not the regular monthly board meeting. And, unlike that last meeting, this is not an "emergency" meeting held within the 72 hour posting deadline. (More than 72 hours will have elapsed from the time it was posted on October 26 at 2:30.) Most of the meeting will be held in closed session. No problems with that, though when it comes to safety, particularly after the Uvalde school shooting, I think the District needs to balance secrecy with open government. Again, huge dollars are involved, and there needs to be some check on school districts so that school boards also think about costs to their taxpayers. Here is the website for Gallagher Construction Services. Note at agenda item 2 there is an "Open Forum" portion. This is because, yes, even during a special meeting, as in regular and emergency meetings, there has to be part of the meeting dedicated to the governmental body receiving public comments. There was a time under the leadership of prior Superintendent Ray DeSpain and prior board President Vicente Flores that this portion of the meeting was taken off the agenda. I protested, and the agenda item was eventually put back on all meeting notices. Do not ever, ever take your First Amendment rights in a public meeting for granted. Always read to make sure there is an open forum on the agenda. If one isn't on the agenda, find the presiding officer or staff member before the meeting and ask to be recognized for a public comment during the meeting. For more on your statutory rights to speak at an open meeting, see Texas Government Code 551.007. Watch for an update after the meeting.

Updates: Four days after this meeting, the Board held an emergency meeting and approved a $109,190 contract for video security surveillance at the campus. For the specifics on how Texas law changed in 2023 related to school safety, see HB 3 and its $327+ million fiscal note. Here are my comments for the October 16, 2023 Irion County ISD School Board meeting: School safety goes underground. The Board used its executive session in this meeting to discuss the results from the unannounced safety inspection done by the ESC, Region 15. Then upon entering open session they voted to "approve the 3 year safety audit and move forward with recommendations" without any discussion. Taxpayers should receive more information than this. School safety has become a huge expense for Texas taxpayers. In late 2022, before the 2023 legislative session, I objected to TEA's proposed school safety rules (19 TAC 61.1031) that, once implemented, were to have cost Texas schools $2.1 billion. The Texas legislature appropriated hundreds of millions in 2023. And, at ICISD, there was also a $30,000 budget amendment in the 22-23 budget for additional safety expenses. And for all this expense, our community gets a watered down motion to approve a surprise safety audit, discussed in private and with no discussion in public, that was done by a quasi governmental body (ESC 15) that has no enforcement authority to regulate its findings?! And, it is a 3 year audit, meaning the next one won't occur for another three years?! School safety has turned into big dollars, and I believe this is the consequence of our state legislature and Congress being unwilling to regulate gun control. These expenses are largely the legislative response to school shootings. See this comprehensive list of shootings in Texas, including schools. If we don't regulate guns, we have to regulate, and pay, to keep them out of our schools. (My views on gun laws are nuanced, so don't leap to conclusions here. I sure enjoyed going dove hunting last week...) My interest in school safety originates from ICISD using safety as a dog whistle to justify closing 4th Street and its alley to plant City Gym where it is, not from gun control. There was absolutely no evidence of a child ever being injured from crossing the street; the gym's location was really just a matter of convenience to the athletic program, and the public's safety was entirely disregarded even though the District knew about the flood risks. And, one can only wonder whether the on campus stormwater flooding created by the new gym was addressed in the safety audit because that also was not discussed publicly. Financial Report. CFO Helms reported that TEA returned $70,000 recapture overpayment from last year, and Moak Casey finally came back with a revenue estimate for the current fiscal year for the wind farm agreements at $100,000. OPEN RECORDS UPDATE ABOUT MOAK CASEY'S ESTIMATES: Last month I did an open records request for the District to provide me with a copy of any document from Moak Casey explaining their miscalculation on revenue last year. See this page for background on the $800,000 shortfall. No documents were provided because Moak Casey did not put anything in writing. There is clearly no accountability for these wind farm agreements, and there is therefore reason to consider even this $100,000 figure suspect. Remember, as I explained here, what was then considered to be lucrative wind farm agreements were the economic justification ICISD leadership used for the affordability of the 2019 bonds. My comfort level for any 2024 bonds has just decreased. Continued silence on monthly expenses. The Board failed at both Helm's report and during the consent agenda to ask anything, anything, about the monthly expenses report. This is very uncharacteristic, as I reported here last month. I am currently reviewing several months worth of monthly expense reports that I received from my Open Records request last month, and my early impression is that no one wants to talk because the new budget is already getting blown up. When things are going well it is easy for board members to laugh about the inspection expense of an elevator, but when things get rough its hard to laugh away an almost $22,000 a month electric bill. Accountability/STAAR Rankings: Superintendent Moore's report included the litigation against TEA brought by a number of school districts regarding the latest accountability standards that I addressed last month here at # 3. There is a possibility she said that districts might go without standards for 4 years, but ICISD is acting as if standards are in place. I'm not sure of her basis for the 4 years, but any appeal of the case to the Texas Supreme Court could last that long if the parties don't settle. Here's another article that addresses what the kerfuffle is all about. The original petition can be found here. That's "original", meaning "first", and I'm sure it has had lots of revisions since that was posted. I am trying to get more information on the status of the case. Since it was filed only in August, consider it to be in its infancy. Pending.

The sky wasn't falling, best I could tell, immediately prior to the Oct. 20, 2023 ICISD school board meeting. But, the City of Mertzon was in process of paving parts of 5th Street at Fayette, just above the GMPL. I just attended the ICISD emergency meeting, discussed by me earlier here. Frankly, my "the sky must be falling" standard for whether there was a true emergency failed. I couldn't tell whether the sky was falling! The most important issue was approval to purchase (through a new company, Ener-Tel) security audio/video monitoring. While no one ever mentioned any explicit "emergency", Superintendent Moore appeared to talk around the issue of a particular area on campus that was insecure, as determined in the recent safety audit. So, perhaps, perhaps, the Board and Superintendent were being speedy with correcting the deficiencies from the safety audit, and the safety audit itself was the basis for the emergency. But, as criticized here in School Safety Goes Underground, it's impossible to know anything about the safety audit because it wasn't addressed publicly. Was the sky falling? I can't say. But, the Board thought enough of it was falling to approve a $109,190 contract for 10 years with Ener-Tel. A budget amendment wasn't required because the District had available some school safety grant money. Apparently the Ener-Tel services are quite robust, which raises all sorts of issues. The example given by Supt. Moore was that if they wanted to search for a "red shirt" the software would be able to locate the red shirted students. What about facial and vocal recognition? Add AI to this mix and there's real potential...for good...and evil. More on AI in the future. I think we are all blindly walking into the unknown with AI and public education. The other issue on the emergency agenda was approving a DAEP campus. This is an easier call. There isn't a student currently, as in right now, immediately, requiring such a campus location. As such, the sky wasn't falling, and this wasn't an emergency. Was anyone harmed by this apparent failure to strictly follow the law? Probably not. But, it raises the issue of crying wolf that I mentioned before. More on AI and school security in later posts. If you are interested in AI issues, I recommend the Hard Fork podcast.

Here is an urgent special meeting agenda, also called an emergency meeting notice, with my comments below: My comments: This is indeed a rare example of an emergency meeting notice. School districts are required to post their meeting notices for 72 hours, and it appears this one was posted about 9 hours shy of that given that the meeting is at 8:00 am on Friday and the 72 hours would have run at 5:00 pm. Emergency meetings are governed by the Open Meetings Act at Gov't Code 551.045. When you get into the weeds, you will find: (b) An emergency or an urgent public necessity exists only if immediate action is required of a governmental body because of: (1) an imminent threat to public health and safety, including a threat described by Subdivision (2) if imminent; or (2) a reasonably unforeseeable situation, including: (A) fire, flood, earthquake, hurricane, tornado, or wind, rain, or snow storm; (B) power failure, transportation failure, or interruption of communication facilities; (C) epidemic; or (D) riot, civil disturbance, enemy attack, or other actual or threatened act of lawlessness or violence. And, then, there's this: (c) The governmental body shall clearly identify the emergency or urgent public necessity in the notice or supplemental notice under this section. The way I interpret all this, to boil it down, is to hold an emergency meeting the sky must be falling and...you have to say the sky is falling in your notice. On its face, I'm not sure this agenda does that. Why does 9 hours matter? Well, in the big picture it probably doesn't. But, it still has to be an emergency, a true emergency, and one thing is for certain - the unavailability of board members or missed deadlines, for example, shouldn't be the basis of emergencies. And, of course, if a school gets to cry wolf all the time, then when a serious public emergency is happening no one will take the notice seriously. As to "Discuss/Approve budget amendment as presented", again, I think this is insufficient notice. What is this amendment about? And, if this is indeed an emergency, I think that being specific about the amendment is all the more compelling. True emergencies cost money, and an emergency budget amendment ought to be spelled out so taxpayers know how their money is being diverted. I may update these comments up until meeting time...

You'll be seeing the Flame Leaf Sumac next month on the highway between Mertzon and Eldorado. Texas writer Lawrence Wright said this in a recent interview with Fresh Air: "A state has really two obligations. One is to create opportunities. And in that I would say making it possible for businesses to work, making sure our justice system works, making sure our children are educated, you know, these are all ways of creating opportunity. But the other thing that a state, or a city, or any political entity is supposed to do is to create community. And that is where Texas is falling down. And, its not just Texas, it's happening all over the country. But, Texas sets an example that is very contagious, and I think Texas is responsible for a lot of that, and it accounts for the reason people hate Texas so much in way they don't hate Wisconsin or Michigan or places where you have also, you know, radical elements raging out of control. But Texas stands for all that disunity and so we have to shoulder the responsibility of the kind of culture we have been creating." Fresh Air at 31:00 And so, I refer you back to my About page where I mention that Irion County ISD and the City of Mertzon are unique microcosms for our country's experiment with democracy. Here's the question: are ICISD and the City of Mertzon satisfactorily creating opportunity and community? Let me know what you think.

Here is the agenda for the October 16 2023 Mertzon City Council meeting, with a few comments below: Comments: The meeting starts at 6:30, so there is overlap with the ICISD School Board meeting that starts at 6:00. If you miss this meeting, you'll have to physically go to City Hall and listen to the recording. The District has recently started posting its board meetings on this page, but you have to act fast. They have coded their links to expire after a few days! The better approach for the City and District would be to post meeting audio/video on YouTube so that it is easily accessible, particularly on mobile devices. The Council appears to be sticking to their guns on the language prohibiting the attack on character during public comments, and so am I. The language is overbroad and begs for a 1st Amendment challenge if they ever try to enforce it. The District recently abandoned the language on its agendas. The bond matter is for improvements to the drinking water. My understanding is these are no cost bonds, and we will not see an increase in taxes. The insurance item relates to employee health care, based on my recollection the last time this item came up. Government employees need and deserve good insurance, as it is one of the few perks to the job. The Council should be prudent but not over think the costs here. This page may be updated up until the time of the meeting.

As is often the case, the important matters are discussed in private. Here is the agenda for this meeting, with my comments below. Comments: The meeting is at 6:00 pm, and coincides with the Mertzon City Council meeting that starts at 6:30. Athletic Director Conner is listed as giving an administrative report. His appearance at board meetings in the past has been sporadic, even though he commands a large slice of the budget, received most of the 2019 bond funds and the athletic program clearly has the board's attention. He needs to report at every board meeting or have a sub to report if necessary. Reporting publicly creates accountability, and win, lose or draw, Athletic Director Conner is a public servant. The consent agenda is chock full of potentially controversial issues that might go without discussion - sex ed, legal fees and mounting maintenance and operation costs. Similarly the closed session has plenty of meat on it. First, sun worshippers can only hope at this point that the District makes known publicly something about the safety audit. I'm not concerned with the opinion of the Safety and Security Specialist, presumably at Region 15; certainly not everything in the audit is protected. Second, note the bond workshop. To my knowledge, this is the first public notice of a potential new school bond package. Why "health insurance" is worthy of a closed session isn't clear to me. Caveat: my review of any of these closed session matters is not an opinion on whether they do or do not qualify for a closed session. One reason citizens need to observe public meetings through to the end are items like item 11, "Action items from Closed Session". Presumably this section allows the Board to vote on matters discussed in closed session. In practice, at least under Supt. DeSpain, the Board was clearly conducting business in closed session to avoid taking votes in public. (If you've been to as many public meetings and executive sessions as I have, you learn to read a room, if you know what I mean.) In addition, the agenda item is potentially a missed opportunity for the board to make public things it discussed in closed. For example, the Board might want to announce publicly that it did well on its safety audit, or portions of the audit. A different way to address this agenda item would be to revise it to read, "Discuss or take action on items in closed session" or something to that effect. This page may be updated up until the time of this meeting.

Did you know there is more water flowing in Spring Creek in Irion County than the Pedernales River in Travis County? The Pedernales is bone dry. I can't recall a time that I have ever seen Spring Creek dry. Update: This page has been updated. Having been a state employee for 24 years (some of that time as an Assistant Attorney General under Gov. Abbott when he was our Attorney General), I think it is wrong, terribly wrong, for Gov. Abbott to hold teacher pay hostage in order to get the vouchers he seeks, as described in this Texas Tribune article. Government employees, including and especially teachers, are not pawns. The State gets what it pays for, and if the Gov. doesn't value the human element of the teaching profession, the consequence is less qualified teachers. Our state needs to finance permanent funding for teacher pay so that exactly this kind of political leveraging can't occur. Say what you will about the inefficiencies of public education (and I do in this website!) treating teachers in this way underscores our state's lack of dedication to public education. Whatever the solutions proposed in the "voucher like" savings plan the Governor wants, what it will do is take more government out of the sunshine.* My solution, instead, is to increase the sun light and create public accountability where none exists. Creating a permanent funding source dedicated solely for teacher pay is a better approach here. Teachers should not be leveraged this way. *Update. As of the time of this posting, October 15, 2023, the latest version of SB 1 makes absolutely no reference to the Public Information Act or the Open Meetings Act (chapters 552 and 551 of the Texas Government Code). The legislation also allows for gifts, grants and donations (at 29.353). My experience at Irion County ISD is that school districts DO NOT want to disclose their private donors, even to the point of defying specific Attorney General opinions on the matter. Any voucher system ought to require the highest level of public scrutiny. Taxpayers deserve greater accountability, and a private voucher system without safeguards for sunlight for where the funds are coming from will allow corrupt influence and inefficient use of funds. Here is the current version of SB 1. This will, of course, change, and here is where you can monitor its legislative history. The bill that takes teacher pay hostage is SB 2, and you can follow its history here. As discussed above, this bill goes no where if the Governor doesn't get what he wants in SB 1.

The Sacahuista is common throughout the higher elevations in Irion County. I've heard tell that rattlesnakes hide under them, but I've never seen one around. Even so, you won't find me sticking my boot under one to see what's down there. In a special called Mertzon City Council meeting lasting less than 5 minutes, Mayor Aubrey Stewart got a waiver of council pay approval vote from the council members. The meeting held on September 25, 2023 was called for the pro forma reason of approving the 2023 tax roll. The only other voting matter on the agenda was "Discuss council waiving their pay for this meeting". I reported on the issue of council pay on this blog here last month. Mayor Stewart did not have the support from his council to eliminate council pay from the upcoming budget. No doubt seizing the fiscally conservative high road in this meeting, he introduced the agenda item by saying, "I think this meeting is going to last less than 5 minutes, and it is a huge misappropriation of funds to get paid". As he was saying this Council Member Councilman piped in "We are at two [minutes]". Upon the Mayor's calling for a motion, Council Member Micah Elliot made the motion to waive. The council, after a second and without discussion, then voted unanimously to approve. Back in the August budget meeting, Mayor Stewart's only support was Micah Elliot. But, at this vote he received support on the waiver, at least for this meeting, from Randy Councilman, Jayton Lindley and Danny Crutchfield. Council Member Charlene Holland, the most outspoken critic of taking pay out of the budget at the August budget meeting, did not attend the meeting. Her sentiment at that meeting was that the Mayor should stop bringing the pay issue up, and so the mere fact of the matter being on the agenda to vote upon was a clear message. This was a good call on Mayor Stewart's part. The timing was right. My estimate of cost savings is roughly $1,250.00. Elected officials ought to regularly consider whether their presence is a drain on public funds. Regular consideration is a necessary reminder that they serve at taxpayer expense. This also is a fine example of selfless leadership in government, which is something we need more of. Contrast this with what is going on in Washington this week. As our federal government teeters on a shut down from a failure of congressional leaders to reach a budget agreement, one thing not up for debate is their salary. Congress has established a permanent funding mechanism for itself that means that our senators and representatives will get paid even if they allow the federal government to shut down. Good governance is selfless. And, selflessness transcends party affiliation.

Irion County at the surface is a desert borderland near the Chihuahuan Desert. But, its subsurface is on the eastern shelf of the Permian Basin, a massive oil reserve that is the funding source of roughly 75% of the $21+ million ICISD budget...and a funding source for a $15+ million contribution to poor school districts. One question posed by this site is whether ICISD is squandering that wealth while the State looks the other way. This photo is just west of Cowboy Hill. Updates: This page was initially posted on September 19, 2023. It is being updated. The latest update, see number 4 "Budget Report", was around 6:00 am on September 21, 2023. My comments for the September 18, 2023 ICISD regular board meeting are below: Praise. This board deserves high praise for implementing at this meeting, yes, for the first time in years, a meeting opener that includes pledges of allegiance to the U.S. and Texas flags. I first protested the Board's failure to have this common open meeting practice during my open forum comments back in July 2020, and I was literally scoffed at by certain board members and Supt. DeSpain at the time. I have also criticized this failure on this website. I will be addressing the importance of the pledges in other posts down the road (affirmation of our flags is symbolic for affirming an education in civics and the rule of law), so watch for more on this issue. Now, to be perfectly clear, I have never protested this board's failure to have an opening prayer at their meetings. The Board's opening ceremonies also included an opening prayer for the first time. In a legal sense, it is extremely challenging to do an opening prayer properly under the Constitution, and I have always recommended against one. For more on this, refer to TASB's article, Prayer at School Board Meetings, on the TASB site. A prayer opens the District up for a legal challenge. My own interests, however, are more with the problems inherent with the new "In God We Trust" sign on City Gym than with the prayer. (Now that runoff from City Gym has flooded my property repeatedly during these September storms, I am more certain than ever that the school leaders who approved the sign were not genuine about their "trust". They knew I would be flooded - and that the school would be flooding itself - before construction even started on the gym. Where is God in all that?) We consent not to discuss. On the heels of my post last month about the budget, the Board used its consent agenda tool at this meeting to approve the checks and monthly revenue to expenditure reports without a single comment or question. In the now 3 years that I have regularly attended their meetings, the Board has never dismissed this agenda item in this way. It was as if they were, in unison, really saying: We consent not to discuss how we spend taxpayer dollars. As I warned here, the "consent agenda" tool is both good and bad. It can move meetings along faster, but it can also be used as an "out" to avoid publicly discussing the elephant in the room. How and where this board is spending money is indeed the elephant in the room. The consent agenda is not a substitute for sunshine. Failing to discuss the checks and revenue/expenditure after the many failings have been publicly brought to light is no solution. STAAR results. Perhaps not politic but certainly honest, Principal Parker said "Hopefully the Accountability will be washed for this year, but who knows, they are going to let us know in a few months" after disclosing her elementary campus TEA projected Accountability rating of B. TEA is under fire this year statewide for changing the rating system, and some districts are even suing the agency over the matter. (For background reading see this TEA release, this Texas Tribune article and this Education Week article.) Parker gets an "A" here for her straightforward honesty because no doubt the process of washing the results is underway at TEA. The "F" here goes to the Board for failing to even discuss this controversy after Parker's presentation. In fact, there were no questions for Parker after her presentation and no discussion of the ratings change. This board is ill equipped to demand academic excellence from its principals. Their total silence on Parker's performance amid the statewide uproar is deafening. Painfully deafening. I will be updating this portion of this page, to include the audio of Parker's presentation, in the near future. Coincidentally, Principal Chapman's Accountability score for the high school campus STAAR results is projected by her to be an "A". In her report, she went out of her way to point out the significant improvement from last year's performance in 8th grade social studies. Last year I publicly lambasted their failing performance on this portion of STAAR test because the class was taught by an absentee coach who took the basketball team to State. (Coaches, especially, must be held to the highest standards of academic excellence, otherwise their superior facilities look like a sham.) I will also be posting the audio of Principal Chapman's presentation in the near future. Budget report. It can't get more scaled back than this. Helm's report was, "At the end of August, our total general fund revenue for 22-23 was $21,578,00. That's 97.9% of budgeted, and considering the issue with the 313 agreements that's still hanging in there pretty good. On the expenditure side for 22-23, for expenditures $21,885,000. That's 97.3% of budgeted, and so we really nailed the budget on the expenditure side. Kept it a little bit under what we projected." The Board's silence after Helms' report, like on the monthly checks in note 2 above, was unusual and has never happened before. They know, as I have reported here, that it was dumb luck that the high interest rates saved their bacon in 22-23, and even still teachers were effectively given a pay cut for 23-24. On the backside of the 2019 bond build out (that went over budget and was delayed), the Board certainly can't be proud of these figures. And, talk about washing, I am still getting washed down to Spring Creek, both as a taxpayer and a neighbor, with each of these September rains. Even more. Pending.

September often brings rains, and this year we've had modest amounts so far. Here is what an inch of rain at 4:00 am looks like. Pickups can manage this, but if you are in a car I recommend going around. Below is the agenda for the September 18, 2023 6:00pm board meeting, with a few of my highlights/comments on the agenda. To get good at reading agendas, I recommend that you contrast the agenda with prior ones to see where they differ. Here is last month's agenda. And, here are a few comments on this agenda: Agenda item 2 adding "Opening Ceremonies" is new. If this is what I've argued elsewhere in this site that the Board should be doing, I'll be heaping praise on the Board in my follow up post. Stay tuned. Note the earlier start time at 6:00. Agenda Item 6 on Student Code of Conduct: Have you ever found a student who didn't have a beef with some portion of a Code of Conduct? Seriously, it's a rite of passage to take issue with those things. Here's what I wish an adult had told me in high school, especially knowing what I know now about open government laws (that didn't exist back then!): Go to the school board meeting and, before they adopt it, Consent agenda item 6 d on the BoardBook service will bring the Board current on digitizing its meeting records. This is a good thing. It was, frankly, embarrassing to watch Supt. DeSpain scramble for paper copies at meetings during his tenure. Listing closed session items separately carries with it burden of identifying the closed session exception that applies. I don't have an opinion about these at this time, except with this caveat: the Board is spending the public's money, and anything they feel comfortable enough to say about money in closed session they should discuss in open session. Clearly, one of the reasons it was impossible to decipher, for example, the $98,000 budget amendment for athletics was that none of that was discussed during an open meeting...and Athletic Director Conner was never asked to justify the spending before the money was spent. Any department head wanting more money should be required by administration to come to the board meeting and justify it, especially given the reduced budget just approved. More comments may be posted here before meeting time.

The above caliche berm on the left side of this alley between 4th and 5th streets represents the sole flood control structure built by ICISD on its campus as part of the 2019 bonds. The school board budgeted no money in the 2023-24 budget to protect the community from the storm water runoff originating from their campus, even though they have had over 7 years of notice that runoff was a problem. Moreover, their own engineer stated that more stormwater is going into the basin after construction than before construction. Update: This page was first posted on August 29, 2023 around 5:30 am and updated last on August 31 around 6:00 am. Here are some of my comments regarding this meeting, divided first with the new budget and last with the budget amendments for the prior budget. Please note that I was the only member of the public present at the meeting, and I am available for discussion of this page so long as you contact me using your real name. 2023-24 Budget (See here for the District's comparison of the 2022-23 budget with the 2023-24 budget.) The District is running an almost $23 million dollar budget with an approximate $101,000 deficit. A huge shift is underway because the District was so badly burned by the $840,000 shortfall from its 313 agreements that it decided this year to not even budget that source in as income. Any revenue in 23-24 from wind farms will be unplanned gravy. HERE IS ONE REASON OUR COMMUNITY NEEDS TO NOT BE COMPLACENT ABOUT SCHOOL FUNDING: I attended two of the three 2019 pre election bond meetings and then Supt. Brian Gray (with former Board President Vicente Flores) represented to our community that the 313 wind farm revenue was THE reason the proposed $18 million dollar bond was a no brainer. That money was represented as the economic justification for the bonds. Now, as we enter the first full budget cycle after the completion of the bond build out, the District is sucking wind from it being an unreliable source! That source of revenue, to the extent it exists, also dries up after 15 years. So, what we now have is City Gym, which is going to suck from M&O funds for its lifetime, and at most be used for competitive sports by students 3 months out of the year! Payroll increased about 4% overall, and that includes benefits and anything payroll related. It's impossible, without drilling down with an Open Records request, to get anywhere close to a high level of reliability on this number given the lack of information provided at the board meeting. But, it is safe to say that a 4% pay raise in this economy, especially if it included benefits, is a pay decrease for teachers. "At least we are trying to stop the bleeding" was the only thing CFO Robert Helms could say about it. Helms didn't say the "layoff" word, but he did say the "overstaffed" word. It is transparent that more cuts are being considered. Extra-curricular activities (largely athletics) received a reduction of approximately 30%, going from $1,730 per student to $1,169 per student. If anything, this shows a re-alignment in values that should have taken place well before the 2019 bonds. Those bonds placed such an excessive priority on athletic facilities. Remember: not a single classroom was built with the 2019 bonds! (Before Supt. DeSpain was a superintendent, he was a football coach. And before him, Supt. Gray, who spearheaded the new gym, came to the District with a prior professional relationship with Jeff Potter, Architect. Potter designed City Gym and the gym where Gray was previously the supt., Union Grove ISD.) Helms's report also included that the one area that could not be cut was Plant M&O. Two reasons the District is experiencing explosive cost increases are from electricity and AC repair expenses. The budget here has increased roughly $270,000! Taxpayers deserve a Bill of Rights for school bonds that includes the anticipated M&O expenses over the lifetime of any capital improvement paid for by public bonds. Debt service on the bonds compared to Instruction: This budget shows the District is now paying more to service its debt than on instruction of its students. The budget for debt service is $3,760,206 and the budget for instruction is $3,396,692. That is $363,514 more for debt service than instruction. Toss in there an overall M&O budget of almost $942,000, and that adds up to a plant heavy, teacher poor school district. 2022-23 Budget Amendments The Board approved a slate of year end budget amendments, and, as I objected here and here, they were passed "as presented". After attending the meeting and even listening to the audio of the meeting multiple times, I cannot synthesize down the slate of amendments to funding categories with dollar amounts. A cost conscious taxpayer cannot get a complete picture of how the budget is being amended by merely attending the board meeting. The District needs to make the financial data its CFO makes available to Board at the meeting public on its website before the meeting and have copies available for members of the public who attend the meeting. Otherwise, an open records request is necessary, and that takes months and burns up resources. All that said, here are a few highlights: The District is having to reach into its savings account (Fund Balance) at year end $559,000. My recollection is that the fund balance is over 9 million, so this is a sizeable reach. Interest revenue and less than expected "recapture" dollars (funds the State gets because of the mineral wealth in the county) significantly reduced an over $900,000 deficit. It's dumb luck that interest rates were high and recapture was overbudgeted so that the $840,000 wind farm and $98,000 athletic department deficits were offset. The District is spending down bonds at year end $4 million. It's not correct to say, in my opinion, that this is money the District got to "keep" and avoid recapture by the State because the capital improvements are like lead weight on the District's Maintenance and Operations budget. What looks like a wise recapture avoidance tool turns into an albatross. Athletics received another budget amendment, $25,000. Grand total for the year in Athletics amendments is roughly $123,000. Electricity costs had been budgeted at about $18,000 a month, but now with increased rates and City Gym the District is paying a whopping $23,000 a month. New construction had $400,000 budgeted and received a budget amendment of $30,000, apparently for wiring and "safety". (Alarm bells should go off when the "safety" word is used. The District's Safety and Security Committee has not met publicly in over a year, so it is impossible to say whether the safety expenses here are justifiable. An entire street and alley were closed to build a new gym on unsubstantiated "safety" reasons! "Safety" in the school setting is often a dog whistle.) The Board had an important discussion on proposing a "rolling bond" as a way to get some funding relief. If they pursue this, watch for a bond election in the Spring of 2024. I am suspending judgment on such a proposal, with the exception of this caveat: CFO Robert Helms' comment to the Board that it is easy to pass a bond because oil companies pay for most of it is oversimplistic and short sighted. If anything, Government In Sun is showing that this Board is tone deaf when it comes to taxpayers and landowners...and the financial condition of the District post 2019 bonds has been misrepresented, while its funding values are entirely misplaced. Concluding thoughts on the budget: Find me a high school student inspired to go to college because of a campus building, and I'll show you an architect major. Most college students are not architect majors. But, find me a high school student inspired to go to college because of a special teacher they once had, and I'll show you a meaningful education. And finally, what this page is about: Find me a community willing and able to justly question, in public and without fear of retribution or alienation, the decisions of its elected school board members, and I'll show you a vibrant democracy. "The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next," said Abraham Lincoln. Always, always, always pay attention when no one shows up at school board meetings. That failure to appear is evidence of the disfunction of our educational system and our government. And, that community silence is deafening at ICISD.