DALLAS — The Austin Independent School District is considering calling for a $200 million bond issue for new schools, a performing arts center, and future building sites in a May 10 election.
The district board will hear a report from a 21-member committee next week on projects that should be included. To make the May ballot, the bond proposal must be approved by the school board by March 3. The committee has held a series of public meetings on the proposals and will continue to provide information on them until the election.
Principals are asking for basic needs, such as new carpets and phones, classrooms to replace portables, more restrooms, and new science classrooms, to meet tougher state requirements.
An all-girls schools named for the late-Gov. Ann Richards, housed at the former Porter Middle School, needs renovations to accommodate high school students, officials said.
The district is also considering about $36 million of additional funding for a performing arts center on Lady Bird Lake, formerly Town Lake. While the center received $8.8 million from the $519.5 million bond program that voters approved in 2004, anticipated private donations have not materialized.
Another big-ticket item on the list of proposed projects is $35 million for new science labs in several schools.
The district issued $135 million of general obligation debt last summer to take out commercial paper. The issue came from a $519.5 million voter authorization in 2004.
Austin ISD bonds carry a triple-A rating based on the backing of the Texas Permanent School Fund. Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s give the district a AA underlying rating with a stable outlook, and Moody’s Investors Service rates it Aa2.
Since 2001, Austin ISD has been classified as a property wealthy, or Chapter 41, school district, meaning it must share tax revenues with poorer districts. The district will have to remit more than $100 million of locally derived revenues to the state for redistribution in fiscal 2008. That is a decrease of more than $20 million from fiscal 2006 due to state legislative reforms to the Texas public school finance system enacted in 2006. The legislation reduced the maximum school district operating and maintenance property tax rate to 88.67% of the district’s 2006 property tax rate for fiscal 2007.
The district has shared in the growing economy of Austin and surrounding areas. The district’s fiscal 2007 assessed property value of $45.1 billion represents an increase of about 50% since 2000. Unofficial estimates put the fiscal 2008 property valuation at more than $50 billion, with continued growth in all sectors.
“The financial and operating challenges associated with the district’s continued status as a property wealthy, or Chapter 41, school district, constrain the rating,” Standard & Poor’s analysts noted last year.
Austin is also surrounded by rapidly growing districts that were large debt issuers last year. Voters in the nearby Leander Independent School District last year approved more than $500 million of general obligation bonds.
