ODESSA, Texas (KMID/KPEJ) – Ector County ISD held their November Board meeting on Tuesday, November 14th, discussing a variety of topics from SAT scores to a successful financial report, to an update on the 2023 Bond that passed last week.

During Superintendent Dr. Scott Muri’s opening comments, he showed improvements in last year’s SAT scores for ECISD students. 

English/Reading/Writing increased from 476 to 479, seven points higher than the state score of 472. Math increased from 447 to 458, six points higher than the state score of 452. While the Mean score rose from 923 to 936, which is twelve points higher than the state score of 924.

Trustees later voted unanimously (4-0) to approve the annual financial report.

Every school district is required to prepare financial statements, have them audited by an external public accounting firm, and submit them to the state.

The auditor, Whitley Penn, issued an Unmodified Opinion, meaning a clean report with no internal control findings related to the financial report and no findings related to non-compliance. ECISD says this is a very good report on the district’s finances.

The financial report shows the largest areas of school district expenses by function in the general fund are Instruction, 59%, and Plant Maintenance and Operations, 10%.

The follows last month’s announcement of the district’s 100 on the state’s FIRST report for financial integrity.

Trustees also received an update on the 2023 Bond. Following the approval of Proposition A by voters last week, totaling more than $424 million, Dr. Muri reminded board members that this is the largest school bond in the school district’s history. The last successful bond was in 2012 for $129.75 million.

Dr. Muri says the timeline for the Bond projects will be for five years, with work already starting to prioritize projects, work out a schedule for buying bonds, and finalizing contracts for property.

Additionally, Muri talked about forming a Bond Oversight Committee, with each Trustee nominating a list of community members to serve in the role by December 5th. The Trustees will then vote to select 10 people to make up the committee for the next five years as bond projects are begun and completed.

A webpage will also be set up for the community to track progress of the work being completed.

You can learn more about what’s included in Proposition A here.