Posted by
Deanna Peugeot on Thursday, November 02, 2006 9:05:50 PM
People living in Austin, TX may know that
Round Rock ISD is asking for
$267,660,000 in school bonds this election year. This is a lot of money, so I thought I'd check out what they've done with bond monies in the past. There have been two bonds in the past decade - in 1997 and 2000, so it's been a while since they asked for money.
When looking at the spending details of the 2000 bond, I came across this little gem:
New High School Design - $4,320,000. Wow! That $4 million sure is a lot of money for a high school design. Then I looked at the status which said:
Initial conceptual design work done. Work pending bond election.
Work Pending bond election? So this was done in the hopes that we'd pass another bond measure? And if we didn't, what happens to the design? Isn't this a bit like extorsion - "you want the pretty picture we're showing you to come real? The give us more money." Nice.
But my main question is: what is an initial conceptual design? Is this actually an architectural drawing? Or is this an artist's conception of what the high school should look like? How much more will this high school cost? Why create an initial conceptual design and go no farther? What am I missing here?