Without it, the school district would have been screwed. Especially my high school. We are over-crowded and the school is falling apart (think not working air-conditioning and bad plumbing - that sort of thing.

The way it's structured, it will only raise the hotel tax (by not even that much) as it will be paid off over time. It won't raise taxes for home owners!

chipotle said:

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HSFootballAg24 said:

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It won't raise taxes for home owners!

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For now. But the county appraisals on houses...conveniently....

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Yeah, the tax bill will definitely go up. Just the way it is.

The REAL problem is the robin hood bs where Austin sends more money to the state to be redistributed to other school districts than anybody else, yet we still have crap school campuses and athletic facilities. Pretty embarrassing going to games at other school districts and seeing what they have versus what we have in Austin. Yet, we are "wealthy" and have to give money away.

Much needed due to the scam that is Robin Hood. AISD sends the bond amount away every two years.

Admittedly, I haven't paid much attention to the back and forth around this bond (and forgot to vote yesterday), but the main opponents of the bond claim that AISD doesn't need more money, they need better management.

Looking at budget per student:
AISD - $9,971
De Valle ISD - $9,756
Pf ISD - $9,469
San Marcos CISD - $9,434
RRISD - $8,728
Liberty Hill ISD - $8,462
Leander ISD - $8,258

AISD has the highest budget per student out of all of these districts and 3rd largest in the state with enrollment over 50,000. This is all operating budget dollars after robin hood is removed. Why do these schools have so much better facilities? Why does AISD need $1,000,000,000 to keep our students from going to school in death traps without functioning plumbing, electricity, and with rusty nails sprinkled about?

Aggietaco said:

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Admittedly, I haven't paid much attention to the back and forth around this bond (and forgot to vote yesterday), but the main opponents of the bond claim that AISD doesn't need more money, they need better management.

Looking at budget per student:
AISD - $9,971
De Valle ISD - $9,756
Pf ISD - $9,469
San Marcos CISD - $9,434
RRISD - $8,728
Liberty Hill ISD - $8,462
Leander ISD - $8,258

AISD has the highest budget per student out of all of these districts and 3rd largest in the state with enrollment over 50,000. This is all operating budget dollars after robin hood is removed. Why do these schools have so much better facilities? Why does AISD need $1,000,000,000 to keep our students from going to school in death traps without functioning plumbing, electricity, and with rusty nails sprinkled about?

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Becuse land, construction, and teacher salaries (out of necessity) are more expensive than in any of those other districts. I do agree that AISD needs to get a bit better at managing money though.

HSFootballAg24 said:

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Without it, the school district would have been screwed. Especially my high school. We are over-crowded and the school is falling apart (think not working air-conditioning and bad plumbing - that sort of thing.

The way it's structured, it will only raise the hotel tax (by not even that much) as it will be paid off over time. It won't raise taxes for home owners!

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AISD doesn't levy a Hotel Occupancy Tax, only ad Ad Valorem tax.

And it will (and is going to) raise taxes for homeowners. Even though the ISD's interest and sinking tax rate may have not been "raised" the appraisal value of your property will almost certainly go up, so while the rate stays the same, the tax levy....which is what actually counts for taxpayers.....will go up.

They aren't building a new football stadium or anything (at least not the money going to my high school). By sports facilities, I'm talking about fixing showers that don't work, fixing lockers that are falling apart, making sure there is enough room in the weight room (not a huge practice facility - just an appropriate weight room), and having adequate sports medicine tools.

With the number of people that show up for our games, it would cost 20+ million (not including the price of the land) to build a new stadium that would be good enough. That isn't happening.

Also, what you are saying is a bit of a paradox. How can one afford to keep athletics going if they aren't given money to keep athletics going?

Furthermore, throwing money at "better teachers" won't help anything. We have good enough teachers (atleast at my school) with the money that AISD has allotted our school.

HSFootballAg24 said:

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Aggietaco said:

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Admittedly, I haven't paid much attention to the back and forth around this bond (and forgot to vote yesterday), but the main opponents of the bond claim that AISD doesn't need more money, they need better management.

Looking at budget per student:
AISD - $9,971
De Valle ISD - $9,756
Pf ISD - $9,469
San Marcos CISD - $9,434
RRISD - $8,728
Liberty Hill ISD - $8,462
Leander ISD - $8,258

AISD has the highest budget per student out of all of these districts and 3rd largest in the state with enrollment over 50,000. This is all operating budget dollars after robin hood is removed. Why do these schools have so much better facilities? Why does AISD need $1,000,000,000 to keep our students from going to school in death traps without functioning plumbing, electricity, and with rusty nails sprinkled about?

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Becuse land, construction, and teacher salaries (out of necessity) are more expensive than in any of those other districts. I do agree that AISD needs to get a bit better at managing money though.

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Cost of living in Austin and Round Rock are nearly identical. RRISD also operates with 40% less students, so a much smaller factor of that per kiddo budget.

And AISD has the 3rd highest per child budget of any school district over 50k kids in the state. There are plenty of districts in Texas that exceed Austin's cost of living, land, and construction.

Cost of living in round rock and Austin are not nearly identical. Move my 320k home in round rock into just about anywhere in Austin and it's worth a million bucks. AISDs costs are higher because their schools are much much older and more expensive to maintain. This bond is trying to address that.

tamutaylor12 said:

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Cost of living in round rock and Austin are not nearly identical. Move my 320k home in round rock into just about anywhere in Austin and it's worth a million bucks. AISDs costs are higher because their schools are much much older and more expensive to maintain. This bond is trying to address that.

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2% cheaper to live in Round Rock versus Austin according to the CoL data.

The more likely event is that you move your 320k home in Round Rock 15 miles North and it's worth $240k.

COL data is skewed by the number of apartments and small condos. If you are looking for family housing it's going to be 500k or head to the burbs.

So teachers are only allowed to live in single family homes and that makes sense of house AISD mismanages their budget?

Regardless, the bond passed and hopefully that money helps the district close some of the gaps in their expenses. I'm sure we'll be voting to throw more money at the problems again next year.

my dinky home in NW Austin is valued at over half a mill. Glad to be in RRISD.

I will say this, RRISD was one bond away from being on the same boat at AISD. Just glad that the Austin voters of RRISD voted DOWN the last RRISD bond.

Quote:

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Cost of living in Austin and Round Rock are nearly identical.

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Um, false. Especially when it comes to housing.

I'm here to learn as that's contrary to what I would have thought as well. Show me data.

Let's see some price per square foot data as well as empty lots for sale in both places.

We have 1965 3/2 that's just over 1000sqft in Austin proper (78757). The family we bought the house from was the original owner and they were a family of 5. What's considered a single family home is not on par with what the standard was 50 years ago when a lot of the homes were constructed.

A quick search shows that price per square foot is $208 in Austin and $126 in round rock. If you want the same house in Austin as in round rock it is going to cost you much more. That's a cost of living difference. This isn't that hard.

BQ75 said:

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AISD ain't got no time or money for improving schools! We have to change the names of all of them because some former esteemed state official was also a private in the Confederate Army.

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Over what? 1.2 million dollars to do this too. 1.2 mil that might be paid out in a number of ways.
Salary increases?
Fixing building issues?
Supplies for kids so teachers don't have to go out of pocket?
Upgrades so that schools aren't on par with places built in the 40s?
No....
We need to change the names so they are more hip and in line with the city's 'values.
Steaming pile of ****

Jawbreaker said:

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BQ75 said:

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AISD ain't got no time or money for improving schools! We have to change the names of all of them because some former esteemed state official was also a private in the Confederate Army.

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Over what? 1.2 million dollars to do this too. 1.2 mil that might be paid out in a number of ways.
Salary increases?
Fixing building issues?
Supplies for kids so teachers don't have to go out of pocket?
Upgrades so that schools aren't on par with places built in the 40s?
No....
We need to change the names so they are more hip and in line with the city's 'values.
Steaming pile of ****

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Yep, priorities need some readjusting.

I will just say I'm glad that when I have a child I can put them in a school that isn't in my neighborhood (Burnet MS to Lanier track). Which really sucks, because we love our neighborhood, but the fact that we're grouped in with the blackhole that is Lamar/Runberg makes it impossible to put a child through those schools.

We'll see if we can afford to pay for private school.

Who knows, might be living out in the country by the time it matters.

Isn't AISD open to allowing you to take your kid wherever you want them to go?

Charpie said:

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Isn't AISD open to allowing you to take your kid wherever you want them to go?

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Reread the first sentence of my post.

As I understand it, you can move a kid to any of the campuses that allow kids from outside of the geographical area of the school (probably Anderson in our case).

My personal life goal is to live in the middle of nowhere and be a hermit in the next 10 years, so we'll see how that works out.

I don't think Anderson is one of them, but certain schools that are over-crowded aren't necessarily open to transfers. I'm sure it is on the AISD website someplace, but I know that overcrowded schools either don't accept transfers or only limited ones that meet certain criteria.

Gotcha. Well that does suck

AISD puts out a list of schools closed for transfer each year. Most are open, including a lot of elementary schools that are 9/10 or 10/10 on great schools. I work at one and we let people in each year. You don't actually have to live in AISD boundaries to take advantage of it.

Frozen schools this year:
High Schools: Akins, Bowie, Lanier, McCallum
Middle Schools: Burnet, Lamar, Murchison
Elementary Schools: Baldwin, Baranoff, Blazier, Casis, Cowan, Doss, Graham, Gullett, Hill, ****r, Maplewood, Menchaca, Perez, Ridgetop, Wooten, Zilker

HSFootballAg24 said:

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Without it, the school district would have been screwed. Especially my high school. We are over-crowded and the school is falling apart (think not working air-conditioning and bad plumbing - that sort of thing.

The way it's structured, it will only raise the hotel tax (by not even that much) as it will be paid off over time. It won't raise taxes for home owners!

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You talking about Bowie?