[ In response to a comment made to the Waggoner 2-Step letter to editor blog in Hill Country News http://www.hillcountrynews.com/articles/2008/03/19/opinion/letter_to_editor/letter18.txt ]

Where am I at election time? That's a reasonable question. Thank you for asking. First, it does not follow that someone who enjoys research and analysis would necessarily be a good political candidate. Do people deride [film critic] Roger Ebert because he doesn't make movies too? My role is to provide a balance that the press and school board are unable or unwilling to provide. The qualifications of a gadfly are not high...just the capacity to research, think critically, and write. Should I run for board too, when so many in our community have far better qualifications and temperament for the job? I don't think so.

But just for fun, let's say I did run. Surely none of the following stances would trouble traditional thinkers? For example...

Would you vote for a board member who thinks all operating data of the district (not employee or student files) should be made transparent in online repositories? Someone who thinks simple tools and reports should provide understandable analysis of that data? Someone who thinks every dollar taken in from taxes and interest should be traceable until it leaves the district? Someone who would like to see the Public Information Act become unnecessary in school districts?

Consider for a moment an LISD school board trustee running for state representative and school board trustee at the same time. Six years ago Pam Waggoner was elected to make a difference. Six years later we thank her for her service. So why is it she has decided to run for reelection while she simultaneously pursues her campaign for Texas house seat while other qualified members of the community are ready to take her place on the board. Is this an effort to prevent other interested community members from making a difference too?

Why is Pam Waggoner placing the stone of her incumbency into the gears of progress, in a very real way locking out realistic chances for a new contributor? Perhaps from an insurance angle it makes sense, but where is her allegiance? Is this her version of a political hedge fund?

Pam, make the jump but don't hold the district back while you do it. Don't make our children your backup plan. Please let the voting citizens of our district move on as you are: withdraw your candidacy for school board.

~Pete Isburgh

[Bret Champion Ed.D, LISD Asst. Superintendent, upon his announcement today as Superintendent finalist after a national search]

Bret,

I can't deny the stubborn dismay that initially clouds nights like tonight. I guess that's what happens when you see a chance to land on the moon, only to return to earth once again in a status quo cocoon.

A higher thought finally dawns... Did I mention Congratulations? Did I mention the board may accidentally be right, regardless of their arrogance and deceit, and you have the chance to prove it?

Pick a Superintendent "hero" to become. No more past, just future. Will you get the 10th fast growing district nationally to the next level? That's what matters.

~Pete Isburgh

Now that the bond has passed, what next?

What can the bond PAC do now to follow through after the gathering phase, to make certain our bond money is spent as wisely as it was planned?

What can the district do to continue improving, providing a place the right kind of Superintendent will want to call home?

Simple. Start with transparency. Transparency defuses anger and suspicion, letting in the fresh winds of credibility. Transparency brings good, intelligent, caring people into the kitchen where they can help. Given the data and opportunity to describe the future, true transparency would beget a renaissance.

What is transparency? First, it's an underlying proactive philosophy that exposes as much public data as possible without being asked. It's a fundamental shift in attitude away from the defensive "we know best" to "we need your help". We all make mistakes. Transparency makes mistakes easier to get over. True transparency gives stewardship back to the public. We all become stewards of the mission.

Transparency means starting small repositories of core financial, construction, and performance data in a way that people can manipulate and make sense of it. For example, it means an open zoning process where all documents are shared on a web site, not an ftp site. It means giving seminars on the financials of the district. It means posting a complete register in spreadsheet format month after month and leaving it online for historical use.

• Per the Texas Bond Review Board, we have $1.824 billion of existing school bond debt ($617M principal, $1.2B interest as of August 31 2006) making Leander the 4th highest in Texas. This is partially due to high growth, but (3) other large, comparable Texas school districts had higher growth from 2001-2006 without the high debt: McKinney has 1/3 as much debt, Mansfield has 1/2 as much debt, and Frisco has 2/3 as much debt (Frisco has had a much higher growth rate than Leander, and is getting ready to sell more bonds.) In the cases of Mansfield and McKinney, their tax rate is noticeably higher. They seem to pay as they go.




• As of May 22 2007 the district bond company quotes the Leander debt at $2.085 billion ($914M principal, $1.17B interest - see below)




• Thirteen other school districts housed more kids in new schools than Leander from 2001-2006, yet all but one (CyFair which is 4 times larger than LISD) have less debt (highlighted orange on the Texas Bond Review Board report).




• The Debt Service to Assessed Valuation in Leander ISD is noticeably higher than other districts. This is debt in comparison to the total property value in the district. The good news: increasing property values still occurring in the Austin area should improve this ratio.




• We added a couple other interesting metrics to the "Top 10" highest debt districts report from the TBRB: debt/student and debt/tax revenues . See below.

This information is not widely known or advertised, but we feel voters should know. Each fact has questions associated with it: How much debt is appropriate? How will our tax rates be affected in the long run? Is the interest component of our debt high? What happens if the economy goes into a recession and growth goes negative? Is this bond too big? Should such a large bond be split into multiple propositions to give voters choices? etc.

The 2006 bond plan had (3) propositions and was advertised as a three year plan (main bond passed, Bible stadium upgrades and natatorium props failed) . The proposed 2007 bond ($559M in a single proposition) came about when parents in the middle and southern parts of the district called on the board to accelerate the building of a high school in the south. Not only is that high school included, a second high school and many other things are too. The same Bible Stadium proposition defeated last year re-appears in 2007, but this time cannot be separately voted on. In addition, money for Elementary 23 which was canceled due to cost overruns in other projects is part of this bond.

Here are the 2007 bond line items, debt statistics, 2006 bond line items for comparison, demographic information on growth, and finally, videos of a school board meeting held to discuss the bond:

2007 Bond Facts, and Texas Bond Review Board reports (Districts composing half the state school bond debt, and Top 10 Districts)

May 2007 Bond Debt Principal and Interest Payment Schedule

2006 Bond Facts

Latest Demographics Report (PASA, 2006)

Videos of school board discussion on bond 8/28/07

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Esteemed Trustees:

I stand tonight to comment on a great opportunity which has arisen in our community. For the past 20 years, a strong leader has seen the district through a variety of challenges and opportunities. Such a lengthy tenure at this post is highly unusual in our time. Selecting his successor presents us with a terribly important moment of decision. Trustees, I urge you to recognize that it has been 20 years since this community has had the opportunity to come together and discuss the qualities and characteristics it prizes most in this critical leadership position. In all you do for the district, year in and year out, there is no other more important decision a trustee makes than who will lead the district. I don’t believe any one of you have served long enough on this board to have engaged in this process before. If I am wrong, I apologize, but even in that case, the experience is now 20 years old. The community around you recognizes the significance of this responsibility and I stand tonight to request that you share a leadership role in this process with the community.

1. Seek to give the most context data possible to the committee, such as all demographer (PASA) documents (not a subset). Full 2006 Report Here (129MB) ... Full 2007 Report Here (49MB)

2. Establish better two-way communication between board and committee. The notion that the committee must complete its mission without further input from the board was a show stopper.

3. Enumerate the list of important principles and assumptions that *can* and (very importantly) *cannot* be considered in making a recommendation, much like a judge tells a jury. For example, if the district and board decide (as they did) that mobility is not a factor, that needs to be opened for public comment beforehand to reach agreement on the ground rules.

4. Methodology of making NBCD's should be documented for public comment and made into policy. Does a more useful way of establishing votes exist, such as by "logical neighborhood"? Should Steiner have (9) votes as it does now, for instance, when it may be just one "logical neighborhood"?

5. High density dwelling representation on the committee should be improved.

6. The scenario generation tool should integrate all known data elements, such as apartment dwellers, walkers, transfers, last moved, building capacity, free/reduced lunch, etc. Having to refer to multiple spreadsheets for this data should not be necessary (poor human engineering).