001So, we'll get that We're good. We're ready? Yes. Okay. I'm just going to get get it to them ready. Yes. Okay, it's a little after 6:00, about 6:03, and we'll go ahead and get started with the bond presentation. My name is Michael Hill, chief operations officer for the district, and I appreciate everyone joining us in person, as well as those that are watching the the live stream. So, here's just to give a little bit information about the bond, and present that to you, and then see if there are any questions, and then we'll just be ready to get going. So, we'll jump right into it. So, this bond was called by Board of Trustees. We all know the Board of Trustees. Here they are. Mr. Chopper, the president, and you see the names there. I
002won't have to read them for you. But, the the board has recently adopted a vision for the district, which basically says Arlington ISD creates exceptional learning experiences that inspire all students, empower their dreams, and prepare them for the future. And so, it is through that lens that the bond was built. It is through that lens that all the work we do within the district, that's that's how how we kind of got our work. That work is also guided by our values and beliefs, and we truly believe that students learning experiences, we believe in inclusive culture. We believe in a strong thriving staff. Strong partnerships are important, maximizing resources, and learning environments. All of these things again kind of undergird what we do as a district and kind of helps us plan that road map. To
003go along with that, we have five priorities within the district, and they are strictly first and foremost academic growth. That's important. Culture, how we do business is just sometimes is a more important than what we do in itself. Safety and discipline always a priority for the district, and that is evident in some of our internal and external uh measures for student and staff safety. Marketing and engagement, and then talent and resources. These five priorities are again how we manage and kind of stay focused on the work that we do within the district. So, Arlington ISD at a glance, established in 1903, it's a huge district, 50-plus thousand students that we serve and their families over a 99-square-mile uh footprint. Over 8,500 employees with majority of them, roughly a little bit more than 4,000, being uh
004teachers. We are 76 campuses, K-12 or pre-K-12, and we're the 13th largest district in the state. Just a little background information on the district. So, what we want to cover today are these uh checkpoints here. We want to give you the bond information, the financial impact, and the tax rate information. We want to share with you uh the process that we went through to build the bond, talk about the propositions. There are three of them that are explained in detail, and then just give you additional information about where you may be able to find uh more information about the bond. And then last but not least, uh dates to remember regarding voter uh uh election day. So, just a little bit of bond about a bond, it's school bonds uh are basically loans that the
005citizens have to approve for the district to go forward and take out a loan basically for some capital improvements, uh major improvements. And so, it's similar to what you do at your home. If you buy something big, a home, a car, or something like that, you got to get a loan for it. If you're paying day-to-day bills, you really don't have to do a loan for that. And so, we'll talk a little bit more about that uh here a second. That is similar to what we've done in uh this exactly what we've done in in the past with regard to bonds. There are two buckets of money that school districts operate out of, one being interest and sinking, and the other in being maintenance and operations. We'll start on the left with the maintenance and
006operations. These are the actual uh things, if you will, that you can spend maintenance and operations money on. Salaries, teachers, staff, bus driver, uh custodian, everybody that works for the district, their salary is paid out of maintenance and operations. We also buy uh supplies, utilities, transportation. That is the maintenance of the buses and the fleet, as well as the fuel for the buses and the fleet. And then, technology and then, general maintenance. On the other side, I&S, or interest and sinking, that's the debt service fund. That's how we borrow money to do uh to make large uh one-time purchases or purchases that are going to be over for a period of time. Thing like capital expenditures, land, construction, new buses, and technology. If you noticed, in order to move toward the debt the I I&S,
007it has to have voter approval. The voters have to say, "Yes, we approve for you to basically Arlington ISD to go out and take this loan." And that uh requires uh voter approval. And it's important to know that you cannot mix You can't spend money across different buckets. You have to stay within that same bucket. This is a little bit about the tax rate information. I'll breeze through this in real quickly. Uh three points I want to make. Uh one, the property values. So, Tarrant Appraisal District sets the value of the property in the city of Arlington and in Tarrant County. The school board, those seven members that you saw earlier, they're the board of trustees, they actually set the tax rate. And that's the rate by which you will be taxed. And then you,
008the homeowner, pays those taxes. And so, appraisal district sets the value, the district sets or the board sets the rate, and then taxes are levied and paid by the property owner. This uh visual here shows that since 2005-2006, the property I'm sorry, the tax rate has continually been on the decline. And that's as you can see here, the I&S and the M&O. The I&S is the smaller one. And the M&O is a larger one, but together they have continually declined over the rate of since 2005-06. We anticipate that if a bond passes, which will call for a 1 cent tax increase, that that's what the tax rate would be in 2026-2027. That's just a projection. Okay? So, building the bond program. The district has traditionally uh gone out to the community and and installed or
009or put in place what we call a capital needs steering committee, and that is a uh committee of uh citizens, uh others within the district, parents, uh staff members, all coming together to basically identify what needs uh are prevalent in the district. That is consistent with what was done in 2014 and in 2019, and again here in 2026. Uh this capital needs steering committee in action, they've had a lot of meetings. We had meetings for over about It was several months at several different sites to review data, review facilities, to look at reports, to just really try to understand what the needs are throughout the district. Uh we're looking at long-range planning. Again, it was a 40-member committee, more than 60 feedback responses, and 480 volunteer hours. Uh the committee provided regular updates to the
010board, and by majority vote, they finalized the recommendations to the board for the bond uh proposal that will be on the May 2nd ballot. Again, that's the work of the Capital Needs Steering Committee. So, Arlington ISD Bond 2026. So, if you voted in Arlington, or if you've been previous uh previous to previous bond uh referendums, you know that in the past, we've only had one proposition, one one one ballot language. Uh the state legislature has uh changed the law, as you can see there, and required districts to separate anything that's on a bond into different propositions. Thus, we have Proposition A, B, and C. Proposition A, 438 million and some change, that's for facilities and school buses. Proposition B, little under 31 million, that's for technology. Proposition C, 31.5 million, roughly, for athletic facilities. And
011so, again, the law changes changed, which required us to put them into those three propositions, as you can see. Little bit about Proposition A, what's included in it. I won't go into all of this, but uh we'll go with the replacement of South Davis Elementary School as one. Again, the Capital Needs Steering Committee reviewed a lot of data to determine uh what would go into the bond. South Davis is one of the schools that was determined to be basically past its useful life. It would cost more to bring that school up to our new standard just about more to bring it up to our new standard than it would to build a new school. And so, uh Uh, the committee recommended a new South Davis. You will also see that there's a replacement of an
012additional elementary school. Uh, that site has not or that school has not been determined at this point and I'll tell you why. There are a couple of things that are going on. Uh, we are we have a couple of decisions that to make that are coming before the board in the coming weeks. Uh, one of them being whether we do what we do with sixth grade. Right now it's an elementary. There's conversations about where the sixth grade would be moved up to the junior high uh, to create a middle school model. That's not been determined yet. We also have a demographer report that's coming and demographer report basically looks at our projected enrollment 5, 10, 12 years down the road and that would help determine where we have capacity and where we might be able
013to do some consolidation. And so once we get the sixth grade decision, once we get the demographer report, and maybe some other important information that we come through, we will then determine where this additional school will be built pending the passage of the bond. Okay? So that's where that was. Modernization of facilities, a district wide 18 plus program, security and safety updates, 45 brand new school buses, and you can see the rest. But this is all proposition A which basically deals with facilities and buses. Prop B, uh, 30.9 million is basically for student and staff devices replacement and uh, technology infrastructure. So we know that a computer or any technology device has a lifespan of probably 5 years at most. And we have to have them uh, actually to operate uh, with with our that
014learning environment that we want to create for our students. And so this uh, proposition proposition would uh, replace devices for both students and staff within that within that realm. And then prop C is the athletic uh, uh proposition 30 31 million 31 and a half million and that is to install synthetic turf at our baseball and softball fields at our six high schools. It is also to replace the turf at our multi-purpose activity centers which are part of the 2014 bond. They that carpet if you will has been down on that floor for 12 years and it's time to replace that for student safety and because it's getting a lot of use and then just athletic storage for our outside sports, track and field, uh soccer, all of those things that have equipment for outside
015getting that equipment in and outside of the out of the elements so that we can extend the life of that equipment. And that's proposition C. So, we'll talk about tax rate impact. All of this uh proposition would uh call for a tax rate increase of about 1 cent. Uh if you're over 65 or 65 and older then your taxes are frozen according to uh the the the the appraisal district uh well, just that's the law. If you're 65 and older taxes are frozen. Uh next we'll talk about what it would cost the average homeowner. So, in Arlington according to the Tarrant Appraisal District, the average home is right under $300,000. The value of the average home is right under $300,000. Some much more than that. Some less than that, but on an average according to
016the appraisal district right under $300,000. What a 1 cent tax increase would cost would be about $1.50 a month on the average homeowner or about $18 a year on the average homeowner. That's what that 1 cent tax increase would cost. And then the other point here that we want to talk about is that because the district has been I guess aggressive or vigilant in paying off its debt, we've basically saved $119 million in interest savings uh through bond refinancing. So, not that we have $119 million in in the bank, it's $119 million that we did not have to pay because we were aggressive in paying off our debt. So, that's the tax rate impact and then just kind of a little history about how the district's been doing financially. So, again, the three propositions A,
017B, and C uh proposition A, B, and C totaling you can get the number there of 500 million or so. Uh the passage of all three will result in a 1 cent tax increase for the taxpayers to consider uh going forward. And if I need to go back for that, we will, but there's more information on the bond website. You can get it through that QR code or just go to aisd.net/bond26 bond 2026. Tons of information about the bond and all the things that it encompasses. Uh you can get into a lot more detail. And uh early voting starts on May 2 May I'm sorry, April 20th and it goes through April 28th and then election day on Saturday, May 2nd. So, that's it as far as uh voting and early voting. Note that uh
018polls are going to be closed on April 24th for Fiesta San Antonio Day. And some more information about voter registration, but voter uh registration that timeline is day is already passed, and so that's uh it's not relevant at this point. So, that's in general what we have with regard to the bond presentation. Uh I can be available for questions if you may have any. Uh Just in general, so. I want to ask about the proposition C. Prop C, yes. Yes, so uh Prop C talks about a synthetic turf at the high school baseball and softball fields and replacing and upgrading athletic equipment. So, right now we spend several thousands of dollars maintaining uh baseball fields and softball fields, mowing, weed eating, uh watering, fertilizing, all of the things that it takes to to keep those
019fields up and going. Uh that's a maintenance cost that's ongoing for as long as long as we have them. If we were to put the turf down, then that maintenance cost goes away. It just that's something that we don't have to to deal with, and we can then spend those man hours and uh resources doing something else uh like That's Yes. Exactly. So, the the the money to maintain those fields comes out of this maintenance and operations bucket. Okay? If we were to put down turf fields, then that's comes over here and then that maintenance and operations bucket just got bigger with more free money to do things like this with teacher salaries, classroom supplies, and things like that. So, that's a good question. Thank you. All right. Other questions? No. So, each proposition stands
020on its own. So, as a voter, you you have you will go to the polls and you will have three choices. You will say yes or no to prop A, yes or no to prop B, yes or no to prop C. Keep in mind that if prop A is the is the the one that really carries the tax rate increase. If you say yes to prop A, no to B and C, then it's still a 1-cent increase. If you say no to A and yes to either of the others by theirself, that's no tax rate increase at all. So, A by itself or all three has a 1-cent increase. Without A, no tax rate increase. Thank you for the good question for clarification. Yeah. So, understood that there's potentially more million or so more in
021prop C than B. Again, that's the need that was identified. So, that's the need that's what it yielded. That's what it After we did the assessment, that's what we need at this point for that. Proposition C, that's what we need at this point. Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less, but that's good observation, yeah. Okay, her question is >> [clears throat] >> about um you know, on the proposition A, uh it's talking about um fixing campuses buildings Mhm. and uh replacing school buildings, schools. Uh and and she said on her experience uh being a parent um Blanton parent Mhm. you know, uh if um the district invest more money in these campuses that they need something to be fixed and then at the end, you know, that money is like going to the trash uh because
022at the end of the day, the buildings they're not um um like what happened in Blanton, they invested money and then uh now that the school is going to be gone. Uh-huh, and she said majority of the campuses are old. And that that that's true. Uh this whole process, we we've looked at like over time, there are much probably much more needs identified than the 500 million that's brought to you at this time. Uh schools in general are built to last roughly 50 years. Uh what we try to do is take care of them along the way and that's what you see some of some of the things in prop A uh taking care of some of the uh maintenance along the way. There are points just like houses and cars and everything else where
023it just gets to its end of its useful life and then we have to make a decision. But we we don't neglect maintenance along the way things still just they they reach an end of life and that's what's happened at some of our buildings. We can invest money in them along the way to make them last a little bit longer because we can't afford to just stop down and just build brand new schools across the system at one time. She said it's taking me to another question. Yes. Okay. She said that uh since they're talking about repairing repairing the campuses uh she said she remembers that um they were told that it's more expensive to repair an old building than um build a new a new one. In some cases, that is true. The older
024the building is, the more repairs that are there. Again, we created this standard that we wanted every building to be met measured by. And then we had a third party come in and assess every building against that standard. And then that that assessment yielded a number. It's called an FCI, facility condition index. And that basically says how much does it cost to bring this building up to our new standard. In a school that is got a lot of needs, it takes more money to bring that school up to the new standard. So, we made a decision in this case to just tear that school down. I.e., South Davis. Which is what's been identified here. Yeah, I was going I wanted to ask about the Yes. Mhm. You're talking about the district standard, but when you
025modify or update a building, you also have to update the building code. That is exactly right. So, when there is there's a district standard, and then there is this unified development code, or whatever you may call it that where you have to bring them up to that standard as well. Uh and that can be very expensive uh when you're talking about fire suppression systems, a ramp accessibility, which we have accessibility. That that's going to be there, but older buildings, sometimes because they are so old, they are kind of grandfathered away from certain codes, but if you start modifying them, then you have to bring everything up to that code, which is very expensive. And then are you are you better off just starting over? Thank you. All right. Others? Did you have questions? Oh, no.
026I'm just curious then. Okay. All right. I just want to make sure we kind of share the Yeah. Okay, she said she's taking another question. When uh they when it was pro prognosticated that Did I say it right? What you know that the population is going down? Mhm. And then predict predict Yeah. Projected. Yeah. I'm sorry. My brain >> No, you're good. good. I'm I'm tracking you. Thank you. So, the prediction was that probably the student population is going down. She said if it's um uh what if it's possible that um two campuses can consolidate, that way it was done with um Thornton and um Villa Nixa. Berry. Oh, and Berry. Thornton and Berry. >> Mhm. Like Thornton consolidated Villa Nixa and Berry. Rorack. >> Rorack. Yes. Yeah. So, that's a part of that Remember
027we talked about that that uh demographer study and the sixth grade decision. And so, once we get that demographer study back and they look at what our enrollment looks like per school down the road and then we determine what we're going to do with sixth grade down the road, we'll bring all of that information together and then determine if it's best to consolidate, I don't know what two schools, but to consolidate schools, redraw boundaries, uh and determine where we would put that extra elementary. So, you're exactly right. That's what we would consider once we get additional information. Similar to that what we did with Berry, Nixa, Thornton, uh Rorack. Sim- similar. Yes. Do you think it was similar process what they did with uh Thornton, Berry, Rorack? >> So, in case the bond if the
028voters say no, then these needs still are there. And so we would just have to re-pivot and and determine how we would assess the needs and how we could potentially reframe the bond and just but the needs still are there. These needs don't go away. We still have aging buildings. We still have needs for buses. We still have a need for a South Davis. So, we would just have to come back to the drawing board, get back with the community and understand try to understand what the reservation was and then try to pivot and and address it, but yeah. All right. No, you're good. I appreciate the questions. Yeah, we we're here. This is to really get the information out to you so we can understand the package and be informed on May 2nd, so.
029If there are question Okay. If there are no other questions, then again, we appreciate you being out and words to anything, Spencer, Greg? Right? Then that will conclude the session and thank you all for showing up. Yes. >> Thank you. Thank you.