McAllen ISD Board Reviews $335 Million Bond 2026 Next Steps, Future Appointment of Bond Oversight Committee, August Pricing for First $100 Million Tranche

McAllen ISD, Bond 2026, School Construction, Tax Rate, Bond Oversight Committee, Project Management, McAllen TX

Arnoldo Mata

McALLEN TX - McAllen ISD’s Board of Trustees got down to business Tuesday night on how to actually spend the $335 million bond voters just approved ten days earlier, sitting through a lengthy and detailed presentations on bond sale strategy, who’s going to oversee the money, and how construction projects will be managed across the district.

All three sections came to the board for information only; no votes were taken on bond implementation. The one exception was a reimbursement resolution, which the board approved 7-0, locking in the district’s ability to pay itself back from bond proceeds for qualifying expenses it has already covered out of pocket.

Overview

Dr. Miguel de Los Santos of Estrada & Hinojosa, the district’s financial advisory firm, walked the board through how the first bond sale would work.

“Congratulations to the board and the community, especially for a very successful bond election,” de Los Santos said. “It’s tough. It’s always hard work to get a bond election through. It’s gonna be even harder work to execute it.”

Here’s where things stand on the sale:

• Total bond program: $335 million, broken into four tranches

• First tranche up for sale: $100 million

• Current tax rate: $0.9322, which the district has committed to keeping it there

• Proposed bond pricing date: Aug. 4, 2026

• Proposed closing and funding date: Sept. 1, 2026

• Board adopts tax rate: Sept. 8, 2026

• Earliest the board can act on the sale: June 9, 2026

• Timeline from board authorization to money in the bank: roughly 45 to 90 days

Once the funds arrive, de Los Santos said the district needs to be ready to move immediately. “The sooner they go into an investment, the better,” he said.

Selling the Bonds

De Los Santos laid out three ways to sell the bonds and made clear he prefers the first two over the third.

• Parameters Resolution: The board sets the ground rules, including maximum amount, maximum maturity, maximum interest rate, and then authorizes the superintendent and CFO to pull the trigger when conditions are right, without needing to call a special board meeting. Under state law, the district would have a full year from adoption to use that authority.

• Negotiated Sale: The district picks underwriters, watches the market, and holds a board meeting on pricing day to say yes or no.

• Competitive Sale: A date gets set, bids come in, and whatever the market offers at that moment is what the district gets. De Los Santos called this “the least flexible” option, especially in the kind of market they’re dealing with now.

Bond counsel Matt Lee, joining virtually, spelled out how the parameters resolution works in practice. “The board of trustees will adopt the order authorizing the issuance of bonds, and we’ll have certain parameters in there,” Lee said. He added that if the market turns unfavorable, the district can always hold off or scale back the sale.

Trustee Haddad pressed on what happens if interest rates come in higher than expected. De Los Santos confirmed the parameters order can be written so that the sale simply cannot happen if it would push the tax rate above the committed level.

Who’s Involved in Getting This Done

De Los Santos walked the board through the full cast of players in a bond sale:

• Issuer: McAllen ISD Board of Trustees, the ones selling the bonds

• Financial Advisor: Estrada & Hinojosa, representing the district’s best interests

• Bond Counsel: Matt Lee, prepares all legal documents

• Underwriters: To be selected; an RFQ went out the very next day, May 13, with board award expected June 23

• Underwriters Counsel: The underwriters’ own attorneys, independent of the district

• Texas Education Agency: Provides a Permanent School Fund guarantee — essentially the state of Texas co-signing the bonds, which makes them more attractive to investors and helps the district get better interest rates

• Paying Agent Bank: Handles the semiannual interest payments to investors

• Texas Attorney General’s Office has to sign off on everything before any sale is final

“TEA will grant a PSF, and the PSF is basically TEA is your cosigner on that loan,” de Los Santos explained. “It makes it a lot more attractive to investors because they know that you have the state of Texas behind your bonds, so your interest rates will be a little bit better.”

The board unanimously approved a resolution that protects the district’s ability to pay itself back from bond proceeds for money already spent on qualifying projects before the bonds are actually sold.

De Los Santos used a real example to explain why this matters. “Recently, you had some major issues with air conditioning to the tune of about $200,000,” he said. “The reimbursement resolution, in effect, would put you in a position so that when the bonds are sold, you will be able to reimburse that money to your fund balance.”

Bond counsel Lee confirmed the resolution covers spending going back 60 days from the date it was adopted.

Bond Oversight Committee

Deputy Superintendent for Business and Operations Lorena Garcia introduced plans for a Citizens Bond Oversight Committee, a community body whose job is to make sure the district does what it promised with the bond money.

“The Citizens Bond Oversight Committee is basically a committee that ensures that the district does as they had promised,” Garcia said. “They would meet on a quarterly basis and provide reports to the board and to the public.”

The board spent considerable time working through the details. Here’s what they landed on:

To be eligible, members would need to:

• Live within McAllen ISD boundaries

• Be a registered voter

• Be 18 or older

• Be current on property taxes

• Not be a district employee or immediate family member of one

• Not be a vendor or contractor with a potential conflict of interest

Preferred backgrounds include: construction, architecture, finance, accounting, information technology, and legal.

How the committee would work:

• Seven trustees each nominate two community members, for a total of 14

• Two-year staggered terms so the whole committee doesn’t turn over at once

• Quarterly reports to the board as trustees pushed back on the original once-a-year proposal

• Meetings open to the public and broadcast, same as board meetings

• A public-facing online dashboard showing up-to-the-minute expenditure data

One trustee made clear what the committee is and isn’t meant to do. “This board is not delegating authority to the oversight committee to make decisions,” the trustee said. “It’s truly an oversight committee of our community to ensure that we are being transparent in everything that we’re doing.”

Trustee Delgado Lopez raised a safety concern, recommending that committee members go through either a Raptor screening or a full background check before being seated. Chief Silva clarified that state rules already require Raptor screening for anyone on campus during school hours. Garcia confirmed the district has the authority to run background checks on volunteers.

Trustees also flagged the importance of making sure every nominee hears the same pitch about what the job actually is. With a lot of community interest already coming in, there was concern about expectations getting out of hand if the message isn’t consistent. A draft charter or written commitment outlining time expectations and the committee’s scope was suggested as a solution.

Who Manages the Construction To Be Worked Out

Garcia presented two models for managing bond projects, but the board sent staff back to draft a third.

The money breaks down like this:

• New construction projects: approximately $231 million

• Renovations and infrastructure (HVAC upgrades, paving, roofing, LED lighting, safety and access controls) at approximately $103 million

• Total: $335 million

Model A - Administration’s pick:

• One external bond project manager handles the $231 million in new construction

• District Facilities, Maintenance and Operations staff, led by Ruben Trevino, handles the $103 million in renovations in-house

• The thinking: it saves money on consulting fees and shows the district is willing to carry its share of the load

Model B:

• The bond gets split roughly in half between two external firms, one for new construction, one for renovations

• No in-house district management

Model C - Hybrid, what the board requested: Trustees weren’t fully satisfied with either option and directed staff to build a third model. The concept to include:

• Two external project managers split the $231 million in new construction by campus

• Any campus that has a new construction component gets all of its projects (HVAC, roofing, and everything else) bundled under that same external manager, so there’s one point of contact and no contractors pointing fingers at each other

• Campuses with only renovation work and no new construction get handled in-house by district staff

• The district may also hire one dedicated bond project manager position, paid from bond proceeds, to support the in-house workload

Trevino told the board his department can handle certain projects just fine on its own, citing LED lighting as an example. But he was direct about where things get complicated. Campuses like Morris Middle School, which will see a classroom expansion, cafeteria expansion, new roof, and HVAC upgrades all at once, are a different story.

“It makes more sense to have one point of contact, one contractor doing multiple different projects on that particular campus alone,” Trevino said.

Bond counsel Lee confirmed that a district employee hired solely for bond project management can be paid from bond proceeds, as long as their time is carefully tracked and tied specifically to bond work.

On the question of consistency across campuses, Garcia and Trevino assured trustees that CTE buildings, multipurpose fine arts facilities, and weight rooms are expected to follow identical designs at all three comprehensive high schools, keeping design and project management costs down and making sure no campus gets a better product than another.

RFQ Timeline for Project Managers

• Advertisement: May 22, 2026

• Second advertisement: May 29, 2026

• Solicitation closes: June 5, 2026

• Board approval: June 23, 2026

The board also wants selected project managers to present directly to trustees before a final selection is made and to participate in quarterly reporting to the oversight committee once it’s up and running.

Future Action

• May 13, 2026: RFQ for underwriters advertised

• June 9, 2026: Earliest possible board action on bond sale authorization

• June 23, 2026: Anticipated board award of underwriter RFQ; anticipated board approval of project manager RFQ

• August 4, 2026: Proposed bond pricing

• September 1, 2026: Proposed bond closing and funding, money in the bank

• September 8, 2026: Board adopts tax rate

• Coming board meetings: Hybrid Model C project management framework; bond oversight committee formation; underwriter selection