HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — A newly formed political action committee is raising a lot of money in support of HISD’s proposed $4.4 billion bond, and much of that money comes from supporters of a pro-charter school group.
According to the latest campaign finance report, Houstonians for Safe and Healthy Schools took in more than $755,000 since it was formed in August.
More than half of that money — $420,000 – came from just six donors who donated a combined $115,000 to the Charter Schools Now PAC.
Members of the anti-bond group Community Voices for Public Education picketed a fundraiser for Houstonians for Safe and Healthy Schools Wednesday evening.
It cost as much as $100,000 to attend the fundraiser. The guest list included a number of people connected to the building industry, according to a flyer obtained by Eyewitness News.
That’s notable since almost $4 billion of the bond money would go to rebuilding and renovating multiple HISD campuses.
“They can be, in the future, potentially leased or sold to charter schools, so this is yet another way of taking public money and putting it in private pockets,” Sarah Terrell said.
“Houston has never seen anything so bad and so crass before,” she added.
Critics say the bond’s price tag is too high, even though HISD insists it won’t have to raise taxes to take on the additional debt.
“We’ve had five different companies and financial institutions look at that, and somewhere around $5 billion is where we can go without raising taxes,” Superintendent Mike Miles said in a previous interview.
However, without the new bond, HISD’s current tax rate would eventually come down after it pays off old debt.
“It’s gonna be a whole lot of extra that’s gonna be going to a whole lot of people’s pockets, and we’re not gonna be able to figure that out until it’s gone,” Ruth Hoffman-Lach said.
The bond will appear as Propositions A and B on the Nov. 5 ballot.
