Building to Flood Budgeting to Squeeze Teachers
- G. Noelke
- Aug 16, 2023
- 3 min read
Updated: Aug 18, 2023
The skeleton of the previous bus barn torn down to make way for City Gym lays rusting on the north side of the ICISD tennis courts. Ironically, the District is at total build out, so that if it creates any more impervious cover (like putting this barn back up) it worsens the flooding of itself...and its neighbors.
Updated: This page was last updated during the early a.m. hours of August 18, 2023.
I have uploaded some audio on the presentation given by CFO Robert Helms, and you can access that here: August 14, 2023 ICISD Financial Report with video of stormwater sources at new gym:
You can see earlier video of the same area under floodwaters on this page.
Take away the silos - what income from taxes and expenses are mandated and untouchable - in any government budget and what you'll get is a more wholistic view of community values. The same goes for the report given by Irion County CFO Robert Helms this month. Take away the silos he discusses and you can ferret out our community values. If you listen closely what you hear is that the District is going to have more than enough to pay on its bonds next year. In fact, the District is going to be able to pay off extra, on top of the minimum.
But, the District will only be able to give an embarrassingly small raise to its teachers next year. Which is to say, it will most likely be a pay cut because it won't keep up with inflation.
And, what about that $840,000 projected deficit that was disclosed last month? That has been whittled down to about $145,000 by mere luck more than anything else. High interest rates. Interest income from investing the bond money was higher than expected because of higher interest rates, creating more interest income than previously budgeted.
"It is what it is," said Helms.
But, is it?
What is the "it"?
The "it" that is not readily transparent (but no doubt tangibly felt by our teachers and their families) is that our funding system and budgetary values have created an incentive to build buildings, particularly for athletics, at the expense of paying higher teacher salaries. Imagine a Helms' report that went something like this: "We have enough money in the budget to give every teacher a 5 percent raise, plus a cushion for the next budgeting cycle because we have dedicated teacher salary investments; we will always have money for teacher pay raises." This just won't happen. There are silos to build buildings, but no silos to pay for teachers.
Buildings and budgets represent community values. It is really that simple. ICISD's 2019 bond build out was indeed building athletic facilities to knowingly flood itself, our streets, property, park and even its prize football stadium, while at the same time the District's 23-24 budget will squeeze teachers essentially to the point of forcing them to take a pay cut. All the while the District plans for the future by paying off its bonds early so that it can go into debt again.
(And, don't miss this in Helms' report: the District was rated "Superior" in TEA's Financial Integrity System of Texas (FIRST). This is in spite of my notifying TEA from the very beginning of the great flood potential from using the 2019 bond funds to build the gym. I have yet to hear a single response from TEA.)
These are strange values. Add to this that children are going to have to navigate the District created floodwaters and, well, this all qualifies as something totally bizarre. Just as I said here, you can't make this stuff up.
If Texas and this community want a better education for our children, we will place a greater value on paying our teachers, and a lesser value on paying our coaches to do things like ICISD has knowingly done - build a gym that floods the community and ICISD itself. The gym, City Gym as I call it, is clearly a symbol for our misplaced values.
