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Bond Issue to Include Day-to-Day Expenses

Posted on: Friday, 13 January 2006, 09:00 CST

By Jessamy Brown, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas

Jan. 13--SOUTHLAKE -- A history of accounting problems and the financial squeeze of Robin Hood have prompted the Carroll school district to shift some day-to-day expenses into a proposed $44 million bond package.

The package, which is split into two propositions, includes money for building additions, parking lot paving and new roofs, but there are also plans to buy library books and 9,648 printer toner cartridges.

Under Texas law, schools can issue bonds for new school buses and for "the construction, acquisition, and equipment of school buildings in the district." Harry Ingalls, Carroll assistant superintendent for operations, said that a broad range of projects and purchases can be considered equipment.

Ingalls said the district had worked with bond lawyers to make sure everything was allowed.

The budgeting shift will likely be a key factor in voter approval of the spending plan. The election is Feb. 4.

Supporters say Carroll has no choice if it wants to maintain high standards in the district's 11 campuses. But opponents call for a scaled-back plan that more closely follows traditional spending.

Carroll's maintenance and operations tax rate, which funds the day-to-day budget, is at the state cap of $1.50 per $100 of assessed property value. Carroll must send $17.5 million to the state this year under the Robin Hood share-the-wealth program. The district is rebuilding its reserve fund, depleted by years of high spending and lax accounting.

If voters reject the bond proposals, the district will have to cut programs and teachers to cover the costs of projects and equipment the bond package aims to pay for, officials say.

"We are trying to do the best we can do with the situation given to us," said new Carroll Superintendent David Faltys, who began work in the district last week.

Opponents say the package has fat in it because the district is trying to be fair by giving the same technology and facilities to all students and campuses.

"I don't agree with the premise that everything has to be equal in all classrooms," said Steven Anderson, who has five daughters, four of them in the Carroll schools. "There are different needs at different levels. There is an attitude in this community that we have to have the best just because we should."

For 10 years, the 7,500-student district had been rated exemplary -- the state's highest rating -- before falling a notch in August because of attendance rates and scores from a few students on the state standardized test. The district's scores on the SAT, which students must take for admission to most colleges, are above state and national averages. And the Carroll Senior High School football team won the Class 5A Division II state championship last month for the third time in four years.

Many families say they moved to Southlake, Carroll's primary city, because of the schools' reputation.

The average house in the district has an assessed value of $380,653, according to county records. That's the highest for a school district in Tarrant County. The district includes most of Southlake, where the average house value is $397,975, which is third behind Westlake and Westover Hills.

The bond plan would create "model classrooms" in every elementary school.

Each would be equipped with a laptop for every teacher, a scanner, a DVD/VCR machine, a digital camera, a document camera, an interactive writing device, a mounted projector, a laser printer and new student desktop computers -- one for every five students.

Secondary schools would have all those features except that desktop computers would be replaced by "rolling labs" of wireless laptop computers so every student in a class could use the technology

The bond package is intended to meet the district's technology needs for 10 years. The computers and other electronic equipment would be bought in two five-year intervals, which reflects the average lifespan of education technology, Ingalls said.

Carroll would pay off the items with bonds that match the lifespan of the equipment, he added.

Other Texas districts use that approach. Paying the bonds off as the equipment ages is a sound practice, said Rita Chase, acting manager for the Texas Education Agency's division of school financial audits.

"That's probably the best idea," Chase said. "Some districts have gotten themselves into trouble, especially with technology, because they become outdated so fast."

Bond opponents question whether all the technology will improve academics. They want voters to defeat the proposal to prompt the district to submit a more streamlined package.

"It just strikes me as unnecessary that each classroom would need all that," said Bill Zimmerman, a Southlake airline pilot who founded a political action committee called Helping Educators keep Learning a Priority, or HELP, that opposes the bond package.

But supporters say the technology is necessary to keep Carroll students competitive with other high-achieving districts across the country.

Students at Carroll High School, for example, are using 12-year-old computers that cannot use current software, said Ingrid DePinto, co-chair of the district's 57-person Bond Steering Committee.

"This is the age of technology," said DePinto, whose four sons attend Carroll schools. "The earlier you get exposed to it the better. It may sound like they're trying to be the fanciest school in the area, but in my mind they are actual tools that are helpful in education. Everything in that proposal we viewed as a real and immediate need."

ONLINE: www.southlakecarroll.edu

www.helpforcisd.com

IN THE KNOW

Bond proposal

Carroll voters will consider a $44 million bond proposal. The package has two propositions: $24.5 million for building additions, renovations and maintenance projects and security equipment, and $19.5 million for technology and computers.

Districtwide projects include:

92 laptop computers for campus labs

958 laptops for teachers and school-based administrators

3,622 desktop computers

1,656 color printer cartridges

9,648 laser printer cartridges

450 digital cameras

980 mounted video projectors

1,002 scanners

Diesel buses to replace 54 gasoline-powered buses by 2010

CARROLL BOND PRESENTATION

Voters can ask questions about the bond proposals.

When: 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday

Where: Carroll High School, 800 White Chapel Blvd., Southlake

Early voting: Wednesday-Jan. 31 at City Hall, 1400 Main St., Southlake, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Jan. 28

Election day: 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Feb. 4 at Carroll High School

Jessamy Brown, (817) 685-3876 jessamybrown@star-telegram.com

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Copyright (c) 2006, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, Texas)

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