QUESTIONS BOND COMMITTEE MEMBERS SHOULD ASK:

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If you are on this 2014-2015 bond committee, I hope you will ask the tough questions--here are some sample ones--I'm sure you have plenty of your own, and you need to go ahead and ask them:

1.  Why are all our schools built by only two architectural firms (since 1999)? (SBWV builds all elementary schools and PBK builds all junior highs and high schools)  Does the District not look at other firms?

2.  Does PBK really pad their bids by 30% so that the District has excess funds (called "savings") to do with as they please? 

3.  Could the District explain to the committee why the District Astroturfed practice fields at all the high schools with some of these "saved" funds when no one had asked for that measure and many of them had just recently been "redone"?

4.  May the bond committee see the enrollment figures (for each school and the totals) on which the District bases the claim that the District needs some more new schools?

5.  Why won't the School Board rezone to fill up schools on the east side of the District that are emptying out? Will their refusal to do so cause KISD to wind up like Spring Branch ISD--having to tear down schools and leaving the homeowners holding the bag for all the debt when their student population decreased? Will they be filling up these schools with programs that are not regular education? Unlike Spring Branch ISD, homes at our east end continue to be more valuable each year and the people who move there tend not to have school age children.  Only about 200 elementary students live in the Wolfe Elementary zone.  The others are bused in from elsewhere.

6.  Does the School Board plan to put back elementary school bus service just next year so people will vote for the bond and then remove it again after the bond passes? [Good luck getting them on record on this one!]

7.  Can the District justify to the public buying land three times for a new stadium? How about even twice?

8.  Why did the District sell the stadium land that was next to Tompkins High School BEFORE the District got the bond passed? 

9.  Why did the School Board buy new land for a stadium BEFORE the bond passed? Where is the District looking to put the next proposed stadium? What will the District do with the land by Rhodes Stadium that now will not have a stadium on it?

10.  How much money had the District already paid PBK architects for stadium design work before the 2013 bond failed? How much money did they pay them as soon as the 2013 bond referendum failed?  Did the money to pay them come from the M&O fund?

11. How much money (estimated) will have been spent buying (two or) three pieces of property in anticipation of building another stadium?

12.  What is a construction manager at risk and if the District has those for every school building project, why do they need KISD Employee Peter McElwain (architect/facilities planner) who receives a salary of $142,750?  What does Mr. McElwain do, exactly, that the CMAR doesn't do?  Why isn't Mr. McElwain on this committee so we can talk to him?

13.  Why does the District have a demographic consultant on retainer when the District has its own demographer? What does KISD Employee Scott Dunlap do to earn the $98,000 that he is paid? Why isn't Mr. Dunlap on this committee so we can talk to him?

14.  How much does the District pay the retained demographer, Population and Survey Analysts?

15.  When the PSA demographer, Dr. Pat Guseman, claims to be only plus or minus 9% correct in her estimations, why would the District hire her? What good are enrollment projections that are only within 9% of being correct? Isn't nine percent of 67,000+ a rather large number to be off?

16.  Why won't the District itemize the bond and let the people of the District decide what they want to be taxed for?

17.  If Superintendent Frailey cannot get this bond passed, will he be leaving since he reportedly was brought here to pass bonds and build another stadium?

18.  Could the District justify for us the current practice of building new schools before there are any students to fill them in order to help developers sell their new homes?

19.  Can the District tell us how much more tax revenue they think the District will have next year because HCAD increased the value of just about everyone's home?

20.  Can the District tell us the total debt service is already, the debt service per student at this time, and the debt service if the bond passes (estimate)? When will property taxes need to be increased? Is it duplicitous to tell people over 65 that their taxes will not go up in order to get them to vote for a bond referendum, when no matter what, if they have claimed their "over 65 exemption" their taxes will never go up anyway as they are frozen at what they were at age 65? And shouldn't the district also tell them that their taxes will not go down if this bond referendum is passed?

21.  Is our population so wealthy that the District can promise every neighborhood group its own set of schools?

22.  Why did the School Board decide to go ahead with the STEM Center when the people who voted last November clearly said they did not want to spend money in this manner? Why do we have bond elections if the School Board is not going to abide by the results? Aren't they legally required to follow the decision of the voters? If the school district groups all items together on the bond and they are defeated, isn't that a clear message to the District that the voters do NOT want them to build the items that were on the bond referendum?  Isn't the logic of this sort of like what is used to put all the items on the bond referendum together instead of itemizing them? If they are approved together then if they fail, they should fail all together!

23.  Could the District please indicate for the committee the elementary schools that have students bused into them from out of the elementary's zone?  These would include bilingual students, students used to fill up a school that don't actually live in the zone (as at Wolfe), Special Education students, and any other students for whatever reason who are not actually a resident of that elementary school's zone.  Also please indicate the exact number of students from without the school's zone and the date of the accounting.

24.  What were the items on the 2010 Bond, and which of them were done and which were not? 

25.  Can you tell us (with numbers) if the Bond Committee "A" Team members reflect the ethnic and racial compositions of the Katy ISD student body?

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