Great communities start with great schools and that’s what members of Odessans for Education are striving to get across to residents, proponents of a May 7 bond election said this week.
Odessans for Education was formed to advocate for Ector County ISD’s $398,255,000 bond issue that comes up for a vote May 7.
Former Odessa Mayor Lorraine Perryman is co-chairing Odessans for Education with Chris Cole. She said a survey of 4,000 people by Opportunity Odessa found that ECISD is the No. 1 priority of the 12 that they established for the future growth and prosperity of the community.
“Another question asked what would be the one thing you would choose to get the biggest bang for your buck in Odessa, Texas. They overwhelmingly said the biggest bang for our buck is investing in education, so we know Odessans understand and support education and the improvement of our facilities in Ector County,” Perryman said.
“Facility conditions are a very powerful lens that we can look through about what a community thinks about itself by looking at our schools. If you look at our schools now, what do you see, we don’t think a whole lot of our kids. We don’t think a lot of our community and we don’t think a lot of our future,” she added.
Perryman said that does not balance with the attitude they know citizens have from the survey.
“They know how important education is, so we need to do something to fix those facilities in our community. These are needs, not wants. Every time a bond election is talked about people talk about how can we do this the cheapest? How can we do the least? This is what this is folks. These are needs, not wants. This is not embellished. There is not a lot of froof in this. These are the basic needs we have to have. Our sewer systems have to work; our infrastructure and our electrical systems; our roofs; our facilities have to work for our kids to be properly educated. These are our needs, not wants,” she said.
Perryman noted that another school will give students more chances at extracurricular activities, which research shows helps students stay in high school and get their diploma.
“We’ve got lines of kids waiting to do all of these programs (in CTE),” Perryman said.
“Our overcrowding affects our opportunity to give kids the incentive to want to stay in school, to love school by all of the other opportunities that they are given. We’ve talked about our past. This is our present. This bond is voting for our future. An investment in our schools is an investment in the future of Odessa for decades to come,” she said.
Perryman said oil and gas is the “epicenter of the local economy.”
“Oil and gas production in the Permian, Permian crude, is the epicenter of oil and gas production for the entire United States and outpaces most of the rest of the world. We are where it’s happening. Something that you may be interested in knowing is Permian crude has the lowest CO2 properties of any crude that is produced inland in the entire world. We are all concerned with the environment. There are many places around the world that produce what is called ‘dirty crude.’ We produce the cleanest crude on the planet. We need to be using that going forward in the United States and around the world. We are the epicenter and from Department of Energy studies, we will have a 30 percent increase by 2050 in the amount of oil and gas that is needed in the United States. That is taking into mind renewable energy as well. That is growing very quickly and the Permian Basin is emerging as a producer of the technology and the tools that are needed to produce renewable energy, as well,” Perryman said. “We are the energy leaders around the world right here. Right here in Odessa, Texas. And we need to train that workforce for the future. …”
She added that because of the growing demand around the United States and around the world, 50,000 more skilled workers will be needed in the Permian Basin alone during the next 30 years.
Perryman said it is not in the community’s best interest to import all of those people from other parts of the country.
“We certainly need workers to come from elsewhere, but we need to grow our own and how we grow our own in the Permian Basin is through education. We need to have technology improvements in every building, because the future of our community, the future of the world, and these kids’ communities depend on them learning, having the best technology available to them, and learning the state of the art technology in our schools, in our CTE so that they can go out and be the best trained workers that can be produced from any public education system.”
“It affects our pipeline to Odessa College, which is joined at this new CTE facility; our pipeline to UTPB. We need technology, so those kids are ready to move to the CTE and have state of the art equipment, state of the art facility so when they graduate, whether they graduate from that CTE facility, or Permian or OHS, they will have the training to walk into the next certification program at Odessa College, to a university at UTPB, or into the workforce. We owe it to the future of our community, those kids. We need to build another high school so that those kids have educational opportunities, leadership opportunities, sports opportunities, so that they have self-esteem and they know that our community values them and that we are building for their future,” Perryman said.
The total tax rate adopted by the school board Sept. 21, 2021, is $1.17792 per $100 valuation. The maintenance and operation tax rate is $1.05170 and debt service $0.12622 per $100 valuation. The increase would go to the debt service side.
District leaders anticipate this bond will create a tax rate increase of 15-cents. For a home with a taxable value of $100,000, would equate to a tax increase of about $12 per month. There would be no tax increase on residence homesteads for taxpayers 65 and older, as state law dictates that the tax rate and the amount paid, on a residence, are frozen when that person turns 65 years old, applies for the exemption and is approved by the Ector County Appraisal District. ECISD gives local taxpayers a 20% Homestead Exemption, which is the maximum allowed by law.
ECISD Bond
- Early voting: April 25 through May 3 at at the Ector County Courthouse Annex, 1010 E. Eighth St.
- Election Day: May 7
- Find out more: facebook.com/voteforecisd
