DALLAS - After failing to win voter approval for $150 million of bonds in May, Marshall Independent School District officials are considering another proposal in November.
Superintendent Marc Smith urged trustees to take another look at bond projects that were on the May 10 ballot and determine how to win passage by focusing on the biggest needs before another election.
"Our needs are still great, and we will continue to examine ways to address these needs," Smith said in a prepared statement after the bond proposal failed. "My pledge as superintendent is to continue the progress we have started in MISD."
Marshall ISD board members agreed to work with voters who opposed the May bond proposal in an effort to determine how to win more support for issuing bonds from community members.
The district's first bond proposal in nearly 30 years was narrowly defeated with 51.7% of the 6,276 votes opposed to the measure.
The proposal called for four new kindergarten- to fifth-grade elementary schools for an estimated total of $66 million. A new middle school for students in sixth through eighth grades would have cost about $38 million, while renovations to Marshall High School were estimated at $30 million.
With no debt outstanding, Marshall ISD was last rated A2 by Moody's Investors Service in 2003.
Located in northeast Texas on the border with Louisiana, Marshall ISD has seen its tax base grow steadily with oil and gas production in recent years, but its enrollment fell 5.4% between 2003 and 2012. Enrollment in 2013 was 5,554, spread across 11 campuses.
The last time MISD held a bond election to build a completely new school was in 1976, when a $10 million bond was passed to build Marshall High School at its current location. Marshall has not built a new elementary school since 1959, and the current Marshall Junior High was originally constructed in 1924 as Marshall High School.
