Guest column: Common sense questions I wish the board had asked along the way

Over the past six years, I have set and watched as the LISD school board rubber stamped item after item put forth on the agenda. Recently, I read back over the minutes of the board meetings and several common sense questions came to mind. Questions I wish the board members had asked.

In 2007, as the board was writing the proposal for the 2008 Bond election. I wished they had enough forward thought to ask that a timeline be put in place on where the $697 million would be spent. Instead, they were given cart blanche over those funds to use without direction. Consequently, we have seen more athletic facilities being built, while children are still housed in portable buildings and Flower Mound and Marcus high schools are busting with children while their 9th grade centers were put on the back burner.

In February of 2008 a resolution to purchase 84Lumber at 900 Mill Street for $2 million was presented to the board. No questions were asked about the value of the property which is sad because in 2007 Denton County appraised the property at $1.15 million. Why then did the district pay an extra $850,000 for this piece of land?

Another instance, in 2009 a contract was awarded to Glass Doctor to repair and replace glass windows and doors as needed throughout the district. I am sure Glass Doctor is a good company, but this was an open bid and Apple Glass was almost 50 percent cheaper on every item and service we might have needed that year. No questions were asked and the board approved unanimously.

In 2009 when the board OK’d the plans to open a third campus for LHS, I wish they would have asked how much it would cost to bus children up and down Valley Parkway and Summit. The answer we learned this year was almost 1 million dollars. At a cost of $1 million a year, how fast could we have paid for a rebuild of LHS that would hold all the children of LHS?

Once again our board in 2010 came to the community and asked us for more money in the form of a tax ratification election. I wish the sitting board would have looked at the budget and seen the same issues I had, it was over inflated. The board spent $40,000 asking the voters for more money the community knew we did not need. In fact, that year, after the TRE Failed, $12 million went back into the reserve fund. Why would you ask for more money if you had enough to balance the budget and still save that much money?

If elected, I promise to ask the questions our community deserves to have answered.

Paige Shoven

For LISD Board of Trustees, Place 1

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