Flashback: Rice ISD $10 Million Bond Package: Bonds & Ballots

Originally Posted on The Navarro County Observer (Direct Link)

 

Under Construction: Be Glad the $10 Million Paid for This and Nothing Else

Bonds and ballots

We’ve noticed the uptick in the number of editorials from incumbent school board trustees and supporters of two school bond elections to the Ennis Daily News for Ennis and Rice, located south on Interstate Highway 45.

Ennis – a much larger 4A district and Rice – a smaller 1A district – each have bond elections Saturday, and both district’s voters should reject them. It’s not because we’re against education, but the mere language on the ballots alone is reason to vote “No.”

Case in point: last fall, Midlothian ISD submitted three propositions totaling $103 million to taxpayers, and the voters – upon learning what was in the ballot language, thanks to news editor Joey Dauben’s ballot-scrutinizing – rejected two of them, including one proposition that featured what was once thought of as a routine land purchase item.

Wrong. What districts and their attorneys keenly neglect to tell We The People – well, those that bother voting at least – is that definitions of words, phrases and terms are different to them than to us. MISD’s land purchase proposition stated: “The issuance of $1,700,000 of school building bonds for acquiring, constructing and equipping school buildings of the district and the purchase of necessary sites therefor, including acquiring land for future school sites; and the levying of a tax, unlimited as to rate or amount…”

See that? The $1.7 million was publicly linked to “land purchases,” but in reality, MISD wanted to pull a fast one on the taxpayers and instead construct and equip school buildings – and then later purchase the land. The proposition failed by a few votes.

The word “improvements” can mean something totally different to a lawyer than to Joe Taxpayer as well. That must explain why Waxahachie ISD trustee Max Simpson, who faces re-election on Saturday, voted with five other board members (Mark Price was the lone dissident) to change the public relations-led “intermediate school” to a sixth grade campus only. Or, it might explain why there exists a massive basketball arena behind Midlothian High School when voters never read a single thing about a basketball arena when they enacted “high school expansion” improvements several years ago.

Ennis ISD is asking taxpayers for $48 million – and they don’t tell the public what it’s for. Read this: “The issuance of $48,985,000 of bonds and levying the tax in payment thereof, including the costs of any credit agreements executed in connection with the bonds.”What are the taxpayers getting for that vague ballot terminology?

Rice ISD just wants taxpayers to blindly give them a blank check for $10 million. Don’t believe us? Read their ballot language: “The Issuance of $10,000,000 of School Building Bonds for Rice Independent School District and the levying of the tax in payment thereof.”

Rather than get to the meat of the issue, trustees and editorial writers from Rice malign what they call “misinformation” and other “it’s for the children” catch phrases. Based on their own ballot language, it appears the misinformation is coming from not just RISD, but Ennis ISD and these other school districts that ask for loads of taxpayer money and then reject their own PR in favor of “improvements” taxpayers were never even informed about.

On Saturday, May 10, voters in Ennis and Rice should reject their school bond packages and render those ballots null and void for vagueness.