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The Sweet Sounds of Summer

The Seguin High School Matador Band continues to put in the work as they prepare for the upcoming season. The band can be seen hard at work each day outside the central office building at Oak Park Mall. Photo courtesy of Seguin Matador Band.

City proposes FY 2019-20 budget of $87 million

By Darren Dunn

(Seguin) -- The city of Seguin is growing, and with that growth comes a greater demand for services. The city is now preparing its budget to help meet those demands.

The city is proposing a budget of just over $87 million for fiscal year 2019-20.That's approximately $3 million more than what the Seguin City Council adopted in the current year's budget.

Seguin City Manager Doug Faseler says there are a number of capital improvement projects included in next year's budget. Faseler says one of the larger projects will be the total reconstruction of North Milam Street.

"Which will totally reconstruct Milam from Mountain Street to

Kingsbury Street. This year, we are currently doing the engineering on that project. So, on the construction of that roadway, that's just over $5 million. We also have a project replacing utilities as well. So that's another about $800,000 to do that. Meadow Lake Drive between 123 Business and 123 Bypass, we are looking at doing a major in-house improvement with our Zipper with our crew there. We have other monies budgeted for street rehab and chip reseal which we do annually. We are trying to make an impact on our local roadways," said Faseler.

A project that's been discussed for years is also included in next year's budget. Faseler says they are finally moving forward with reconstruction of the Max Starcke Park Golf Course Pro Shop.

"That would not be funded from property tax dollars or the general fund. That's based upon a fee at the golf course that's part of the green fee that goes into our building fund and that project is about $1.5 million. The building dates back many years and of course, it's been flooded before. It has ADA issues. The roof leaks so there's issues in that pro shop and we get rave reviews of our golf course but we also get negative comments about our pro shop so it's time to address that," said Faseler.

Next year's budget also includes expenditures to cover an expansion of the Walnut Springs Hike/Bike Trail. Phase two of the project is to be partially funded using money from the metropolitan planning organization (MPO). The trail, which currently ends near downtown Seguin, will eventually make its way all the way down to Max Starcke Park.

"Engineering is underway right now for that project that is being funded by the MPO but our city share is about $850,000 for the actual construction and that will run from Convent Street to Starcke Park East so we will have a continuous trail from Highway 78 all the way through the city down to Starcke Park with that project. Radio technology for public safety and our city wide radio system is needing replacement.

We've looked at various options -- some as much as $4 million. We are looking at going with the Lower Colorado River Authority's communication system and where they have that extensive tower system throughout Central Texas and we'll be upgrading our communications, our dispatch consoles and our radios and that will improve our interoperability communications with other agencies in the area," said Faseler.

Faseler says that the city will have some additional personnel costs in next year's budget. It includes a two percent cost of living increase for all city employees, and it also calls for several new positions next year.

"The last couple of years, we have not added many positions but we are in position now that I think we are at the point where it is needed due to the workload that we have," said Faseler.

On the revenue side, the city will fund the general fund portion of the budget using the existing tax rate of 54.12 cents per $100 of property value. It's higher than the effective tax rate for next year, but its identical to what the city has adopted for the last few years.

"The current tax rate is 54.12 cents. Our effective tax rate is 53.51 cents. But we are recommending staying with the same tax rate and if approved, this will be

the fourth year in a row that we have maintained the same tax rate," said Faseler.

The tax rate will remain the same, but there will be some increases in some of the utility rates next year. Faseler says electrical rates will mostly hold steady for most residents, but water and sewer rates are going up next year.

"The residential (electric) customers should not see an increase in (electric) rates. We did some shifting of the rates. You've got an energy component. You've got a PCRF component. We did some shifting there, but they should not see an impact on the residential side (of the electric rate). On water and wastewater (side), each year we go back and look our rates and make adjustments. We have made adjustments in our water and wastewater (rates), and we have tied our five-year capital improvement plan to our rate study, so that we will have funding for those projects," said Faseler.

Staff presented the proposed budget and tax rate during Tuesday's meeting of the Seguin City Council. The council will have workshops on the budget and it works through the overall budget process. The budget and tax rate will need to be adopted before the next fiscal year starts on October 1.

Seguin ISD takes steps to maintain the integrity of an investigation of a former school bus driver accused of indecency with a child

By Cindy Aguirre-Herrera

(Seguin) -- The Seguin ISD is sharing more details behind the arrest and indictment of one of its former school bus drivers accused and charged with indecency with a child.

The details being released primarily relate more to why the district didn't publically announce the incident early on during the initial outcry of the student or the investigation of 76-year-old Collin Burgoon by the Guadalupe County Sheriff's Office and Texas Rangers.

In a written statement released to Seguin Radio KWED, the district states "at the onset of the investigation, the district provided law enforcement a list of students who rode Burgoon's bus. The parents were notified so that the students could be interviewed in conjunction with law enforcement's investigation."

They go on to explain the reasons why the district did not make a public announcement at the time of Burgoon's termination on April 3 of this year.

One of the reasons was reportedly to protect the identity and privacy of the student. District officials say this was extremely important because she is a student with special needs and based on the internal investigation at the time, a possible victim of sexual contact with an adult.

They say if the district had made a public announcement that Burgoon was terminated for inappropriate contact with a child on April 3, then they believe that this information could have easily led to the student being identified by the public.

That's because Burgoon drove a special needs bus that routinely transported five to six students. The victim sat behind Burgoon and as revealed in the district's investigation, Burgoon often sat with the victim when the bus was stopped at a campus. They say this alone would have made it fairly easy for the public and those around her on a daily basis to identify the victim.

They also say that a public statement such as a letter sent home to parents was not made in April in hopes of maintaining the integrity of the law enforcement investigation into these allegations.

District officials say the Guadalupe County Sheriffs Office did multiple interviews, gathered evidence and spent a considerable amount of time to the tune of four months on this case.

As for the district's cooperation, officials say they did everything to not jeopardize the investigation including not releasing information about the case. Plus as reported earlier, the district immediately responded to the accusations made on Friday, March 29,2019 and handled what they could at the time. That included placing Burgoon on leave on Monday, April 1, 2019 and then terminating him two days later on Wednesday, April 3, 2019.

Burgoon had been employed with the school district since March 1, 2005. He was arrested and booked into jail on Aug. 5

Law enforcement and district officials say anyone with additional information on Burgoon should contact the Guadalupe County Sheriff's Office at (830) 379-1224 or the Seguin Police Department at (830) 379-2123.

Seguin ISD still to determine timeline for all future bond projects

By Cindy Aguirre-Herrera

(Seguin) -- The Seguin ISD's recent action to hire a contractor and move forward with the construction of the new Seguin High School Matador Stadium has many people asking, what's next?

The excitement surrounding the start of a brand new school year appears to also be fueling the need to know which of the voter approved bond projects will be next on the list for the Seguin ISD.

Superintendent Dr. Matthew Gutierrez says first things first when it comes to planning. He says the focus at least for now will remain on the stadium. After that, then a similar process will be used to determine all the other projects that were approved in May.

"It's one chunk at a time and of course, we started the work with the stadium back in the fall of 2018 by going out for an architect and so, we are a little bit ahead of the game on that and that's a different approach that we've taken and because of that approach, I think there's been

some advantages when you look at -- just right now, so far it's looking like we are going to be under budget on the stadium and so there's many factors that are attributing to that. One is going out for the architect early, the competitive bid proposal is making a difference. Well now that we've got that underway, we need to start looking at A.J. Briesemeister, Jefferson, the playscapes -- so it's about going through that process again -- going out and looking for an architect first and so, it's about just taking one step at a time. We can't do all of it at once. That's a huge undertaking for a limited staff that we have in a district our size," said Gutierrez.

Dr. Gutierrez says the selling of the bonds will also determine how the district rolls out the remainder of its plans.

"The selling of the bonds -- we are doing that over a period of two years and so what projects are going to be broken up, I mean it's going to take an estimated four or five years to complete the projects," said Gutierrez.

BOND continued from Page 2 At this point, the ideal plan for the district would be to move forward with the rebuild of A.J. Briesemeister Middle School and the construction of new classrooms at Jefferson Elementary. District officials say they expect the designs for those two projects to come in almost simultaneously. The addition of the playscapes at each elementary school is also expected to be a huge undertaking. Officials says not only do they have to be installed but each campus will have to be studied so that each play scape is placed in the perfect spot for that respective campus.

Voters in May approved a $64.7 million bond issue. Projects included in that vote were $39 million for the renovation of Briesemeister at its current site along with $3.9 million in renovations at Jefferson. A total of $1.8 million was also approved for outdoor ADA playscapes with multi sensory play areas and shade canopies for all Seguin ISD elementary schools along with $1 million for a land purchase to replace McQueeney Elementary School and $1.7 million for various campus improvements such as drainage, HVAC and plumbing.

A total of $17.3 million was also approved for the rebuild of Matador Stadium. Recent bid action has the project coming under budget approximately $4.5 million. Winning that contracting bid was F.A. Nunnelly.

District officials remind the public that a bond oversight committee is and will be in place to oversee these projects. Design and construction updates will also be provided on the district's website under the "Construction Updates" tab. The district's website is available at www.seguin.k12.tx.us.