Thanks to the support of our community, voters in the Boerne ISD boundaries voted to pass BISD bond propositions 1 and 2 in May. We are very grateful to the voters for supporting this bond, as it was truly a grassroots effort, led by the Long Range Steering Committee. We are greatly appreciative to the total of over 80 parents, students, staff, and community members who served on the committee, and worked hard to help pass this bond.
Almost immediately upon the passage of the bond we transitioned to the next step, which is working to execute the completion of these important projects.
Proposition 1 includes building our eighth elementary school and expansions at most secondary campuses to accommodate growth. At their November meeting, our Board of Trustees appointed Bandy Constructors as the contractor to build Elementary School #8.
The Bandy Constructors bid totaled $36 million dollars at $365 per square foot, which was the lowest bid of any contractor and is the best value for Boerne ISD. Other school districts in our area recently paid over $420 per square foot to build new schools.
We have a groundbreaking ceremony planned in mid-January for Elementary #8, which is scheduled to open in August 2024.
Other important first-year projects in Proposition 1 are the expansion of Boerne and Champion High School buildings, priority maintenance at all 12 district campuses, renovating the old Central Office building into an expanded 18+ program for our special needs students and to meet the growing needs of the Boerne Academy, along with refresh of classroom audio visual technology, and more.
We have completed the audio visual upgrade by placing new SmartBoards in every classroom at our legacy campuses. We were also able to add Smart-Boards to the gyms at all of our Elementary campuses.
The majority of our data center refresh will be completed this month while the district is on Winter Break.
Two campuses will receive a network refresh in December. Kendall Elementary and Boerne Middle School South will have all of their old network switches replaced. These campuses currently have the oldest network technology in the district.
All of the projects in Proposition 1 are scheduled to be complete and the buildings/expansions open by August 2024.
Our Operations and Bond Construction Department has been working tirelessly with architects, meeting with contractors, and ensuring we are in lockstep with the City of Boerne and Kendall County.
Proposition 2 solely focuses on the purchase of student and staff devices district-wide, as well as a general refresh and update of devices at all campuses.
This school year we deployed 1,000 chromebooks and 100 iPads to all campuses. These devices replaced obsolete student devices in the classrooms. These funds will be used over the life of the bond to refresh technology as it ages and to supply new devices to support growth.
We have always been extremely fiscally responsible with taxpayer dollars.This proves to be true with this bond as well. The first bond sale of the 2022 Authorization occurred in August 2022 (“Building Series 2022”). Approximately $45 million dollars was sold in anticipation of work occurring on bond projects between May 2022 through May 2023. Building Series 2022 was constructed with a substantial short term principal payment due December 1, 2022. A little over $12 million dollars was paid on December 1st representing 27% of the principal of the $45 million dollar bond issue.
Paying this much principal less than four months from the issuance of the debt ensures that Boerne ISD taxpayers pay as little interest as possible. It also ensures that the term of the principal is substantially shorter than the useful life of some of the assets purchased with these funds like buses and technology. In short, our goal is to pay off bond debt for buses and technology within the lifespan of those purchases, not over a 30-year period.
Throughout this process we are meeting with our Bond Oversight Committee, whose responsibility is to ensure we are keeping the promises that were made when presenting bond information to the community. This serves as a checks and balances system to keep us accountable.
As you visit our campuses or drive around the district you will be seeing visible signs of progress as it relates to our bond projects. We look forward to keeping you updated on these important and exciting changes.
As always, thank you for your support.
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