Terry County Commisioners Court Met, BISD Presents Bond Election

The Terry County Commissioners Court met today in a regularly scheduled meeting with a small agenda. After the call to order and bills being paid the Court jumped into item 6 which was a presentation by Brownfield ISD Superintendent Chris Smith regarding the bond election.

Smith took time to explain to the Court as a courtesy of why the $40 million bond is being asked for. Smith let the Court know that his intentions from the beginning of him coming to BISD was never to get a bond passed. According to Smith and others in the district, BISD did an assessment study on the current middle school 15 years ago and the study recommended that within ten years from that study the middle school would need to be demolished and a new building built, whether it was for the middle school or high school students.

Fast forward to today, BISD had a recent assessment study done on the current middle school and it showed that there will need to be $27 million in renovations and upgrades to the middle school right now and around $20 million more added to the middle school for the next ten years. The BISD School Board voted unanimously to place a $40 million bond on the May 4th ballot.

Smith told the Court that the district took a ten year average of the amount that BISD could afford and that amount came out to $40 million average. Like other school districts in the area, BISD could have taken out the maximum and taxes could have been much higher, however, the school board and administration opted to just take the ten-year average.

Terry County Judge Butch Wagner and Commissioner Mike Swain both let the Court and Smith know that they are in favor of the bond.

Moving on to the last item of business was a public hearing regarding the possibility of closing a road in Terry County. The road of discussion is County Road 280 in Precinct 2. This road stretches about a mile to the west off of North FM 168. Terry County Precinct 2 Commissioner told the court the purpose of this road closure is that it is not utilized as road as much as it is utilized as people placing trash on and around the road plus creating mischief. This was the first public hearing for the possibility to close this road. The public will get another hearing when the Court reconvenes on May 13th, 2019 at 10:00 AM at the Terry County Court House room 4B.

All four commissioners, County Clerk, County Auditor, and County Judge were present. The next meeting will be May 13th, 2019 at 10:00 AM at the Terry County Court House room 4B.