Irion County ISD Board Meeting January 14 2026
- G. Noelke
- 5 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
Agenda Analysis | Meeting Review | Meeting Documents | Commentary | Last Meeting
A. Agenda Analysis
Location change: Note the meeting is at the cafeteria.
Pending construction and bond purchasing, item 6: This item has become a placeholder/catch all for any bond matters that are timely.
Administrative reports, item 7: I went back and reviewed a handful of previous meeting minutes to see the detail for this part of the meeting. I've not paid much attention to the minutes for this part in the past, but it confirms my belief that attending - or listening if posted - to a meeting is the best way to get at what is going on. The minutes on administrative reports are sparse... Anyway, this is a vital part of every meeting.
Discuss next projects, item 8: My reading standard for each and every agenda I read is this simple: If I don’t understand it, I am interested. I am interested in this item.
Joint election with City of Mertzon, item 9: School board and city council elections land on the same day. There is a probability that candidates for both will run unopposed. If so, there will be a decoupling of the joint election approved here because no election is required when only one candidate runs. All that is known publicly to date is that now former City Council Member / Mayor Pro Tem Jayton Lindley is running for a school board position. Here is a bit more info.
Special Ed compliance audit, item 10: Keep a light on special ed.
Supt. evaluation tool, item 11: My understanding is that superintendents must be evaluated yearly, though this might not be the evaluation meeting. This item is about the "tool" or standards document by which she will be measured.
Closed session and action, items 15 and 17: "Personnel" is a constant for closed session. It is unclear from the agenda whether this could also include the Superintendent's eval since it is covered in item 11.
The money, item 13 b: The monthly outgo happens in the consent agenda with little, if any, discussion. Though total bond expenditures haven't come up during a meeting, I am looking at that in the background using the PIA.
B. Meeting Review
Discuss next projects, item 8: This item gives me yet another opportunity to puzzle about the historical lack of community engagement with the IC ISD Board. This item was an open ended discussion about additional projects that bond monies might be spent on. Part of the discussion, for example, was about the need for storage space and whether to build additional storage. No vote was taken, though there was an some indication that specific project items might be on next month's agenda. The community gets a say in how any unused bond money, if any, gets spent. The tenor of this part of the meeting wasn't a shut out of the community, but it is an area of great import to the community, in my opinion. See my commentary below.
Pending construction projects/purchasing, item 6: there were no votes on the award of any bond money here.
Administrative reports, item 7: Supt. Moore gave several bond updates, notably including that cement foundation of the flood detention wall would be poured this week (see photo at bottom of page), and the elementary would be poured at the end of this month. The new transportation building has been inspected and new equipment is being ordered.
Joint election, item 9: The Board approved the joint election with the City of Mertzon. I had hoped that any of the 3 holders of the open seats might make a public announcement of their intentions, but none did.
Special Ed Compliance Audit, item 10: The District has successfully completed the corrective actions required as part of this audit. If I understood correctly, the next audit is not until 2029. A lot of water can flow under the bridge in that time frame, particularly with the Dept. of Education being in a state of intentional disrepair.
Supt. evaluation tool, item 12: The Board approved the document she submitted. As noted above, this wasn't a public review.
Closed session, item 15: There was a closed session, but I was informed that it was a "no action" closed session. (Note that the agenda also lacks their typical "action on closed agenda" item at the end.)
C. Commentary
It is articles like this, Nearly $100 million gone. How Austin ISD spent bond money on schools it will soon close, that cause me to be concerned about IC ISD’s rolling bond approach to funding capital, technology and transportation improvements. There’s no indication that IC ISD is about to close a school. But, the Texas legislature loves to hate on Austin, and this will cross their radar screens as bond misappropriation…potentially putting a spotlight on bonds statewide. No one should assume that the loophole allowing wealthy school districts like IC ISD to retain local tax revenue for bonds is going to last forever.
Yet another reasons for community engagement with the school board is this: how the money is spent does not end with the bond election. Bond project parameters change with the wind and the availability of funds. The issue of unspent funds is regulated by the Texas Education Code:
Sec. 45.1105. USE OF UNSPENT GENERAL OBLIGATION BOND PROCEEDS. (a) A school district may use the unspent proceeds of issued general obligation bonds only:(1) for the specific purposes for which the bonds were authorized;(2) to retire the bonds; or(3) for a purpose other than the specific purposes for which the bonds were authorized if:(A) the specific purposes are accomplished or abandoned; and(B) the board of trustees at a public meeting held only for the purpose of considering the use of the unspent bond proceeds approves in separate votes the use of the proceeds for:(i) a purpose other than to retire the bonds; and(ii) the purpose specified at the time the vote is taken.(b) In addition to other requirements of law, notice of a public meeting held under this section must include a statement that the board of trustees will consider the use of unspent bond proceeds for a purpose other than the specific purposes for which the bonds were authorized.(c) A public meeting held under this section must provide the public an opportunity to address the board of trustees on the question of using the unspent bond proceeds for a purpose other than the specific purposes for which the bonds were authorized.
Notably here, there has to be a public hearing so the public can have their say.
It's too early to say definitively that the agenda item "discuss next projects" is about unspent funds. The community, however, should be alert and forever vigilant and present. Why?
First, a present community helps keep board members honest about spending the bond money for the projects the voters approved.
Second, the community is a spending stopgap. We are a reminder that the Board is spending our tax dollars.
And, third, the community needs to be present for accountability at the end before all the money is spent. One goal of course is to not overspend, as was done with the previous administration and the 2019 bond funds. I am in particular interested in avoiding the Grand Mistake - failing to proactively maintain budgeted funds to correct for environmental mistakes made during development. (Just because, for example, the District's engineers have designed a plan to alter the roadway on 4th street so that runoff flows into the flood detention area instead of onto my property does not necessarily mean their plan will work. "The Grand Mistake is particularly pernicious with flood control because forecasting the force and direction of floodwaters is often random," I wrote back in 2023. Such is the case with these floodwaters because the flow will be coming from two different directions.)
While sharing a table at this meeting with former Mayor Pro Tem and current school board candidate Jayton Lindley, he confided with me that he, too, played with mercury, Hg, during his science lab at IC ISD. See the last photo on this page about my experience with Hg at IC ISD. Go figure. Hg spans the generations at IC ISD.
This is a bit much: Texas A&M abruptly cancels ethics course over race, gender policy. The course is a graduate level course called “Ethics and Public Policy”. Why not instead outlaw the words “race” and “gender” altogether and have a government rewrite of history as if everyone is / was a white male?! (I reread Orwell’s 1984 last year…) Or, perhaps the next step is a government approved dictionary like the New Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Federation. These governmental efforts at attempting to control how race and gender are discussed will fail in time.
Here is the scene along 4th and W. Fleming the day after this meeting:
As I told the Gallagher rep at the location, in April I will have been working 10 years to get to this point where the street and my property were not being flooded by IC ISD.
Copyright 2025 G. Noelke
