HISD trustees deceive taxpayers
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Nearly three months ago, a slim majority of Houston School Board Members voted to rename Sidney Lanier Middle School.
Now we can prove HISD didn’t even investigate how much this unwanted decision would cost taxpayers.
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HOUSTON PRESS COVERAGE: Angry Parents Say HISD Deceiving Taxpayers Over Cost of Lanier Name Change
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On February 9th, two days before the vote, HISD Board Member Wanda Adams asked the Acting Superintendent by e-mail, “Have we looked at the budget cost for renaming schools?” The answer. “No, this is not a budgeted item.”
Two days later the HISD Board voted 5-4 to change the name without knowing any of the financial consequences. Look at the resolution they approved. It claims there would be NO COST.
Acting Superintendent Ken Hewitt was the Chief Financial Officer for HISD. He should know better.
Lanier Watchdogs, the parents group mobilizing to fight the unwanted name change, has done the math your elected officials refuse to do.
$275,000 just to carve out the name Sidney Lanier on the top of the school building, $60,000 more to re-do historic auditorium seats, $100,000 more in uniforms.
The total estimated price tag $474,000. Just one school. For a poet who only fought with his family to protect his land. Sidney Lanier wasn’t a hero or an officer in the Confederacy. He didn’t even own a slave.
HISD is a school district now $107 million dollars in the red. A school district that already squandered millions of dollars in the school bond program.
Tell your school board member a full investigation of the cost for renaming schools should happen before Sidney Lanier is touched. Enough is Enough.
“The real irony is that HISD Trustees say the renaming of Sidney Lanier is being done to improve public support of HISD,” says Wayne Dolcefino, President of Dolcefino Consulting. “No one asked for this, and it is clear the neighborhood is vehemently opposed to changing the name of the school at all. This is destroying public support. Taxpayers deserve to know what this will cost.”
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HISD RELEASE SUPPORT
