Austin ISD's Board Gives Segura the Go-Ahead to Make Deals on Three Closed Campuses: Bedichek, Sunset Valley and Dawson
Thursday's vote lets the superintendent move forward on proposed sales and leases for the three schools. It is the next step after June's surplus declaration - and final sales still need a board vote of their own.
Austin ISD's empty schools are starting to move. The district's board of trustees voted Thursday to allow Superintendent Matias Segura to move forward on proposed deals for three closed campuses - Bedichek Middle School and Sunset Valley and Dawson elementary schools - KVUE reported, advancing the properties toward sale or lease.
The legal groundwork was laid in June. In a resolution passed June 18, the board declared six properties surplus - Becker, the excess land at Bedichek, Dawson, Ridgetop, Sunset Valley and Widen - finding they are not required for the district's current educational needs, and directed the superintendent to liquidate them through a sale, a ground lease or an adaptive reuse lease, soliciting bids for the purpose.
The money explains the pace. The Austin American-Statesman reported in July that the district expects to collect about $60 million by selling multiple properties - a one-time infusion against a budget deficit that has already forced painful cuts - while the closures themselves save about $21 million. The same report said the district plans to lease a 14-acre portion of the Bedichek property and put out a call for proposals, rather than selling the whole site.
Thursday's authorization is not a sale. As district spokeswoman Dacia Garcia has noted, the school board must vote on final sales, so each deal Segura assembles for Bedichek, Sunset Valley or Dawson comes back to the trustees - and to the neighborhoods around three campuses that taught Austin children for generations - before anything changes hands.
