Round Top-Carmine Considering Calling Bond Election for School Improvements

The first of a series of community meetings over a possible bond for Round Top-Carmine ISD took place on Tuesday, Aug. 4.

RTC ISD Superintendent Brandon Schovajsa said a bond committee has been formed, and the school hired a pre-bond development company. Schovajsa said the committee plans to hold community meetings monthly through December to gather input from the public.

“We’re just starting to talk with community members,” Schovajsa said in an interview with the Record last Wednesday. “We’re basically looking at what are the needs for the district. So we just started generating a list last night.”

Schovajsa said one item at the top of the list is a new multipurpose facility to replace the aging gym.

“The one big thing that came up as athletic facilities and a multipurpose-type facility for hosting events, any type of ceremonies, concerts and so on,” he said.

The old RTC Gymnasium dates to the 1940s.

“It was a World War II hangar that was taken apart and put back together,” Schovajsa said.

The school added locker rooms onto the gym in the 1990s, he said, and air conditioning wasn’t installed until 2011.

Another potential project could include a small practice track for running.

“We have to go to Giddings to practice for track,” Schovajsa said. “We really have no facilities for track purposes. Sometimes they run on the baseball field.”

In addition, Schovaksa said the school’s music program has outgrown its facilities.

“We require 7th and 8th graders to be in band,” he said. “And we’ve had a lot more kids who have stayed with it in high school.”

Other possible projects include lighting improvements at the baseball field and parking.

“Right now, we’re just looking at needs,” Schovajsa said. “The company will come back and based on everything listed, they’ll say, ‘This is probably a good estimate of what it would take.’ And then we’ll have to start looking at priorities and cutting it down, because we don’t want to go for an extremely high bond.

Schovajsa said there has been no discussion, so far, about a possible dollar amount for the bond or its impact on property taxes.

“We want to keep it respectful to the community and keep the tax rate low,” Schovajsa said.

RTC ISD imposes the lowest property tax rate out of all the public school districts in the County. Schovajsa said the school takes pride in its low tax rate. The district is also home to some of the highest-valued real estate in Fayette County. As a result, RTC has to pay the State millions of dollars every year due to Texas’ “recapture” law, which takes money from rich school districts to subsidize poor districts.

Schovajsa said RTC will send the State $2.8 million this year. He said the preliminary estimate of next year’s recapture cost is over $3 million.

Schovajsa said recapture costs make it extremely difficult for RTC to finance facility improvements.

“Without a bond, something like this is not even in question,” he said.