McAllen school board may revisit $4M commitment to Quinta Mazatlan project

McAllen ISD board trustees may reconsider their $4 million commitment to the Quinta Mazatlan expansion project. Two trustees said at a budget workshop Monday that they thought the decision should be revisited and one said, given the district’s current budgetary struggles, he’d oppose the commitment this time around.

Made possible through federal ESSER funds, that commitment was billed as a way to capitalize on university-level collaboration that is part of the project.

“When the city of McAllen and UTRGV approached the school district it was a unanimous decision to invest and support the project by the entire board,” Board President Tony Forina wrote Tuesday. “As the months have come and the financial waters begin to clear up, there are members of the board that are now second guessing their initial vote. Overall we want what’s best for MISD, the city of McAllen and our region, not only today but into the future as well.”

Anticipated to cost about $34.5 million, the city commission rejected a sole bid of $59.846 million in April, hoping to find some cost-savings measures.

Although Quinta and the city aren’t planning on asking the district for more money, the board’s current struggles to fund pay raises has prompted it to scrimp for ready funds. “I think it’s a great project,” Mcallen ISD Trustee Conrado Alvarado said Monday. “But the city of McAllen’s budget for 2021 was $527 million. They have sales tax, they have hotel occupancy tax, they have funds from the city and state. They have parks grants. They have a lot more revenue sources than we do.”

Alvarado said he has “buyer’s remorse” about the Quinta commitment.

“I’m not trying to disparage any of our city, and I love this project, but if they’re short $20 million on their project and they can work to bring it down, they can find $4 million,” he said. “That $4 million’s critical to us, critical to students, to security.”

Trustee Sam Saldivar also said he thought the board could benefit from reflecting on the project some more.

“It could be redefined in some way, maybe spread it out,” he said. “Not totally opposed to it; I do think we need to talk about it.”

Alvarado also mentioned Monday that he’d heard the project may be delayed by as much as two years due to the high bid.

However, City Manager Roy Rodriguez said the project is not being delayed and that the city is currently trying to put the bid out as a combination of traditional bids and construction manager at risk.

“The architects and the engineers have met with us several times, probably five times since we rejected the bid, and I anticipate going back out before the end of the year,” he said.

From the outset, the Quinta expansion has been described as a cornerstone project for ecology, education and tourism.

When Quinta representatives pitched the district on contributing last year, they noted that the investment would pay naming rights and signage with the district logo. Students will also be eligible for reduced entry fees and — perhaps most significantly — access to one-of-a kind educational programs, some facilitated through another of the expansion’s backers, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

Rodriguez once again emphasized the importance of the project Tuesday.

“We’re going through the process,” he said. “This is a project that’s too important for us to throw up our hands. Our community is better than that, so we’re going to give it all we got and see if we can’t figure out how to get out the other end with a good product.”

Pointing out that the city of McAllen and McAllen ISD are partners in many areas, Rodriguez also noted that the city has stuck by the district on its commitments.

“So I hope that they hold strong. We expect them to,” he said. “You know, there’s other projects that we’re working together that sometimes take a little longer than others — ours is obvious, we rejected the bids and we’re kinda trying to refigure this. But there are others, you know. We’ve been talking about the press box that they’re working on now for several years. And we partnered with them several years ago, and we have no intention of changing our decision, so we hope they do the same. And I’m sure they will.”

It’s not clear whether revisiting the project would actually change anything; if there’s a majority supporting changes to the project, it certainly hasn’t been evident in budget talks. Superintendent J.A. Gonzalez has been a steadfast supporter of partnering with Quinta and on more than one occasion and Trustee Marco Suarez also seems prone to sticking with the commitment, noting that the city was taking steps to bring the cost of the project down and that the school district wouldn’t have to increase its commitment.

“What my understanding has been, talking to a couple of commissioners as well, is that even if the construction cost is higher for them, they will at no time ask the school district for more money,” he said.

What is clear from those talks is that trustees desperately want to increase salaries and address more pedestrian expenses at the district — and that they’re willing to make cuts to do so.

“Not necessarily that project, but I think at this point we need to find it in the budget,” Trustee Sofia Peña said. “We need to do better for teachers, and we need to do better.”

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