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FWISD's 2007 Bond Package On Time, Under Budget

Fort Worth ISD Interim Superintendent Walter Dansby
Fort Worth ISD Interim Superintendent Walter Dansby

By Bill Zeeble, KERA News

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-987360.mp3

Fort Worth, TX – Fort Worth's School District has completed its bond package voters approved in 2007, on time and under budget. KERA's Bill Zeeble reports that's a big change from the previous package that was plagued by fraud, scandal and jail sentences.

Fort Worth's Chamber of Commerce sponsored its lunch meeting in the gym at Jean McClung Middle School, one of Fort Worth's five brand new campuses built with some of the bond package's $594 million. Raising that money seemed iffy four years ago, after the scandalized tenure of then-Superintendent Thomas Tocco. Under his watch, the district lost at least $15 million in a billing and construction scam. Several guilty players went to jail. Tocco was reassigned until his contract ended. Despite that damage, the Chamber's Cynthia Fisher Miller, Director of Workforce and Education, says school needs remained, so they pushed the bond plan.

Cynthia Fisher Miller: It was not an easy sell, it never is an easy sell. The public needs to understand what the money is for and why they should be spending more money. And why on facilities, but it was a very big victory, and I think the largest that had been passed in the Fort Worth ISD in history.

Interim Superintendent Walter Dansby held a different role four years ago. He led the 2007 Capital Improvement Program and says the district did a lot of planning to avoid problems that scandalized previous construction plans.

Dansby: We passed with 70, 71 percent approval and it was due to all the planning and all the pre-planning that was taken before. Fort Worth ISD, the very next morning, Fort Worth ISD posted its RFQ for architects. By January, we were off and running. So we had a lot of money that we saved just by starting off the way we did.

Fort Worth Chamber President Bill Thornton says completion of the 2007 bond package can only help the students.

Thornton: Bill Thornton: There's enhanced credibility on the part of Fort Worth ISD and it bodes well, long term. To complete the program on time and under budget, it's almost unheard of.

The 2007 bond package resulted in not just the five new schools, but additions and upgrades at eight other campuses. Bill Zeeble KERA news.