The upcoming Fort Stockton ISD bond projects moved a step closer to becoming a reality on Monday at the district’s regular school board meeting.

The school board approved a construction manager at risk (CMAR) for the projects and moved forward with the first round of bond sales in the amount of $35 million.

Twenty-five million of the initial bond money will be strictly allocated for general educational facilities and $10 million will be for stadium and general athletic facilities.

FSISD Superintendent Dr. Gabriel Zamora said at Monday’s meeting that the tax rate will not increase as a result of the bond sale, as previously promised by the school board.

“We got some good news today despite the interest rates. We were able to get an interest rate of 3.85%, so not bad considering the way the interest rates are overall and again, this is for the first round of bond sales,” he said. “It’s $35 million out of the $100 million. We are staggering so that we could live up to our promise of not exceeding that $1.10 (tax rate) and working to try and lower that.”

If all goes as planned with the bond paperwork and it receives approval from the attorney general, the $35 million will be received by the school district by Feb. 28, 2023.

The bond sale coincides with the selection of a construction manager for the bond projects.

BTC was approved by the school board as the project’s construction manager.

The Fort Worth-based company specializes in K-12 education construction and has provided services to Rankin ISD, Pecos ISD, along with many other districts across the state for over 40 years.

“BTC is exclusively a school builder, it’s really all we do. Most of our work is performed as a construction manager at risk. These projects line up with exactly the type of work that we do,” said Chris Louth, BTC Construction Manager. “

BTC will now work with (VLK) architects and different teams to determine what Fort Stockton ISD needs from the bond projects. BTC will then present proposals for each project to the board with maximum dollar amounts.

“We are not agreeing to anything per say right now other than to say that we’re looking at entering into negotiations with them to service our CMAR and if approved, then in the future they’d be coming back to us with the projects again in order to continue to pursue a specific project, like the fieldhouse, intermediate wing, etc.,” Zamora explained. “Once they undertake this role and have specifics, it would then fall on them to work locally or with other contractors throughout to provide services and subcontract out.”