Katy Football Stadium Spending Leaves School Board In A Bind

[Satanica]

https://coveringkaty.com/2016/10/26/katy-football-stadium-spending-leaves-school-board-bind/

KATY (Covering Katy) – On the same day that Covering Katy discovered an additional $9 million was spent on the football stadium project with little fanfare, the school board was also attempting to figure out how to pay for school overcrowding that is either a problem now or will be a problem within the next year. The problem of overcrowding is so severe that Superintendent Lance Hindt would like to put Elementary School 41 on the fast track to relieve overcrowding at Randolph Elementary School in Fulshear.

Overcrowding is a problem that is systemic and something that was known at the time board members used $12 million in surplus money from previous bonds to upgrade the stadium and to fix mistakes made during the planning process. The district overlooked very basic elements of the construction project. It did not sufficiently plan for road improvement to properly address additional traffic. It even had to add nearly $1 million to the project to clear the property before construction could begin.
[....]
Hindt took office long after the board added more than 20 percent to the cost of the stadium, which is now considered the most expensive high school football stadium in the world. He also seems to have different priorities from the previous Frailey administration.

All the members of the school board, with the exception of newly elected member George Scott, voted to add $12 million to the cost of the stadium project. Scott was not on the board at the time those decisions were made. Nine million dollars of additional funding was quietly slipped by the general public during board meetings in 2015. It was done legally in open meetings but was somehow missed by the media, and the school district did not call attention to what was being done.
[....]
The $3 million additional stadium spending that did catch the attention of the media was used to address mistakes in the district’s planning process and to finish off the second floor of the field-house.

At Monday night’s board meeting Hindt seemed to favor putting another bond on the ballot in November of next year, but he signaled a very different philosophy from the previous Frailey administration when it comes to nonessential spending.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a bells and whistles type of bond. I don’t foresee that in the future. I foresee bonds for growth and bonds for equity.”

Chief Operations Officer Thomas Gunnell was asked for an estimation of how many schools will be needed in the short-term to address growth.

“Maybe four elementary schools. Maybe two junior highs and a high school,” Gunnell responded.

Board members seemed fully aware of the overcrowding issues. Veteran board member Brian Michalsky admitted that the board may have to take money out of the operating budget of the school district to address the issue.

“If we push this past 2017 for another year we are probably going to have to come up with funds from our general operating budget to bridge some of that. Or, we end up with schools that are well over their capacities, maybe at record levels,” Michalsky said.

Michalsky’s revelation means the board was fully aware that they were giving the stadium project an additional $12 million of unspent bond while there was a looming overcrowding problem that needed to be addressed. The move signaled that the board was more interested in dealing with stadium problems than overcrowding issues.
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While the school district is growing at a slower pace than predicted a year ago, it’s still growing. “We’re looking at 22-hundred to 25-hundred growth in a year,” Hindt said.

During the campaign Scott said, “The Football stadium is a $60 million solution to a $40 million problem.” Now that the stadium price tag has increased to about $72 million, Scott tells Covering Katy, “The facts have not changed, only the price tag went up.”

On Monday night Scott told the board that he understands the need for future bonds to address growth but he wants a much different approach in the future.

“I have concerns that when I look at stadiums that could be built for a lot less money and when I look at different projects as I’ve done over the years, I just want to have a better understanding of facilities and planning. That’s what I want, and that’s the approach I’m going to take if I have to pull the data myself,” he said.

 

[Muriel Schwenck]

Even if I did not already know where Katy is, I would know this is Texas.

A retired librarian left $4 million to his former employer, Univ of NH, and they spent $1million on a new football scoreboard. Only $100,000 of his bequest was specifically for the library. People are annoyed that the university is not honoring the memory of the employee by spending the money on more learning, or at least not squandering so much on a scoreboard. They have a point, but his bequest was not restricted.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news...stion-spending-librarians-donation-scoreboard

 

[Siobhan]

Having gone to Jr and Sr high school in Tarrant county Tx, I'm not surprised by this outrageous extravagance of a football field.
Football spending depleted the budget enough way back in the 80's, so that all of the schools in my city's district couldn't keep funding to art or photography classes. We barely had enough to keep band, choir and drama classes open. But by Dog, we damn well had a football team and cheerleaders!
I understand that sports are important, but alumni donate by the thousands individually for their old alma mater's sports teams, with the rest of extracurricular courses having to draw from budget allocations only, and a huge part of the budget is also used for sports, mainly football and student player insurance.
It saddens me to no end when I see first and second year college students who can't recognize a Mozart composition from Mussorgsky, or the known on sight the difference between a Monet painting from one by Manet - as for photography or cinematogrophy, if it isn't about selfie snaps and photoshop, they're completely clueless.
It seems that only when the sports spending depletes the future allowance of required basic educational curriculum for the needs of soon to be students to the point it has in Katy, is when the public and elected educational commissioners begin to notice the looming problem in the road immediately ahead.

 

[JackBurton]

Texas.

Such an ignorant, vile culture throughout the entire filthy state.