ECISD BOARD HEARS FLOODING REPORT FOR ENHS, PROGRESS ON FORENSIC AUDIT

Edinburg CISD, Education, School Board, Flooding, Forensic Audit, School Improvement, Personnel

Arnoldo Mata

Edinburg TX – The Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District Board of Trustees on Tuesday approved a first reading of a policy change to shift the district’s fiscal year end from Aug. 31 to June 30 and received a detailed engineering report on flooding at Edinburg North High School stemming from a Oct. 2 rainstorm, while also advancing a forensic audit and taking personnel action during its October regular meeting.

Edinburg North Flooding

The most extensive discussion of the evening focused on the Oct. 2 flooding incident at Edinburg North High School, where two to three inches of water accumulated in the breezeway near the gym and rotunda during a 30-minute rainstorm that struck at the same time students were being dismissed from class.

Engineer Juan Posadas of SEI Engineering, invited by Superintendent Dr. Dominguez to address the board and community directly, walked trustees through a detailed timeline and engineering assessment of the event.

“We had a rainstorm that lasted approximately 30 minutes, from 4:15 in the afternoon until about 4:45,” Posadas said. “It actually chose to come out right when the students were coming out of class. That was kind of an interesting — almost a repeat of two years ago.”

Security camera footage showed water reaching its highest point between 4:30 and 4:44 p.m. Posadas said water had already begun receding by 4:50 and the sidewalk was fully clear by 5:20 p.m.

“This came from two sources,” he said. “One from the rotunda — we had an issue with the drainage system there that had some debris. And also from the north side, where we had some wind-driven rain coming into the rotunda from the roof.”

The cause was traced to a clogged 10-inch drainage line beneath the rotunda that had accumulated sedimentation and debris since the school was originally constructed. The district, in partnership with the City of Edinburg, used a jetter truck to clean out the line following the storm.

“We pulled out all this rock and debris out of that line,” Posadas said. “The line that services the rotunda is a 10-inch line. The backflow preventers were operational. Our piping, for the most part, was clear. It was just a very heavy storm in a very short period of time.”

Posadas presented the flooding in the context of a larger, ongoing drainage improvement project that totaled $1.7 million. Of that, the district paid $741,000 in direct funds. Hidalgo County Precinct 4 and the Drainage District contributed approximately $778,000, and the City of Edinburg contributed $237,000.

He reminded the board that Edinburg North sits in a geographic bowl, with surrounding neighborhoods to the west running three to five feet higher than the school’s finished floor elevation.

“The school sits in the lowest part of the campus,” Posadas said. “We’re in a bowl. We can’t prevent all events. We don’t design for anomalies or hurricanes. But we try to mitigate and lessen it.”

A six-acre detention pond built on the northwest portion of campus as part of the earlier project performed as designed during the Oct. 2 storm, filling to within two feet of its capacity but never breaching. Detention ponds on the south side of campus prevented flooding in the cafeteria and student gathering areas, which historically had flooded during heavy rain events.

A second, 3.5-acre detention pond on the band practice area was discussed during the original project but was not built due to funding constraints and scheduling conflicts. Posadas said that site is now being explored as a future phase.

“Like I said, we’ve mitigated, we’ve lessened the effects of these storms,” he said. “But that’s not to say that we solved all the problems. Barring us lifting the entire school, which is not possible, we’ve got to work with what we have.”

A board member asked whether the district had communicated the situation to the community.

“We did actually post on our webpage a short video that explained exactly the timeline and what happened, and a memo,” Superintendent Dr. Dominguez said. “We posted both items on the public-facing webpage for our school district to share out with the community, and on the Edinburg North webpage as well.”

The board discussed pursuing an interlocal agreement with the City of Edinburg to conduct pre-season inspections of the district’s drainage system annually, using city equipment. A board member also noted that Hidalgo County Precinct 4 Commissioner Ellie Torres reached out following the storm to offer assistance with future projects.

“Commissioner Torres also reached out to us,” Posadas said. “She was also concerned about what happened because she was a partner, and also offered ‘what can we do to assist in future projects as well?’”

Forensic Audit

Superintendent Dr. Dominguez told the board that the district’s forensic audit process is “well underway,” with responses to a request for qualifications already received and evaluated. She said an agenda item will be included at the board’s Nov. 17 meeting to finalize the scope of the audit and select a vendor.

“November 17 will be our board meeting for the month of November,” she said. “That’s when the canvass of the votes will be completed, and we’ll conduct our regular meeting at that time as well. We’ll have an agenda item to finalize the next steps in the forensic audit process, where we’ll define scope and look at quotes for the vendor that came out on top in that process.”

School Improvement Campuses

Seven district campuses are currently operating under some phase of required improvement under state or federal accountability standards, the superintendent reported.

The most urgent situation involves De Zavala Elementary, which carries both a state D rating in its second consecutive year and a federal targeted school improvement designation. Superintendent Dr. Dominguez warned that a third consecutive D rating would automatically trigger an F designation for the campus.

“This is probably the most concerning area: is that we really need to make sure that this campus pops up in accountability in this school year,” she said. “Three years as a D equals an F, and we definitely don’t want our campus in that situation.”

The other campuses under improvement designations are Hargill Elementary, under state identification as a D-rated campus with a focus on mathematics growth; Lee Elementary, under federal targeted support for its special education population, focusing on reading and growth; Kennedy Elementary, under federal additional targeted support for continuously enrolled students, focusing on math and growth; Avila Elementary, under federal additional targeted support for continuously enrolled students, focusing on math and growth; McGee Elementary, under federal comprehensive support and improvement, the most urgent federal tier, focusing on math and growth; and Esparza Elementary, also under federal comprehensive support and improvement, which the superintendent noted improved substantially in the last school year.

The superintendent said the district is working with Region One through the Esparza Elementary Lift Grant, deploying district staff strategically to the seven campuses, and implementing high-quality instructional materials and data-driven progress monitoring at each site.

Personnel

Following a closed session, the board approved the following personnel actions:

• Sean Landez as Boys Athletic Coordinator and Head Football Coach at Robert Vela High School
• Ruth Torres as Director of Transportation
• Employment of professional applicants as discussed in closed session, including assignments, reassignments, resignations, and retirements
• Proposed termination of at-will employee Alejo Casarino
• Proposed termination of at-will employee Adrian Luna
• Proposed termination of at-will employee Eberto Salinas

Delinquent Tax Collections

Jimmy Gonzalez of Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson reported the district’s delinquent tax collection totals for fiscal year Sept. 1, 2025, through Aug. 31, 2026. The firm collected $3.79 million, compared to $3.1 million the prior year — an increase of more than $631,000, or 3.7%.

“Our goal is very simple with Linebarger: to get in contact with your taxpayers, and to explain what their options are, what their payment options are, different payment plans to resolve their delinquencies,” Gonzalez said.

The firm made more than 21,000 demand mail statements, more than 8,000 phone calls, more than 13,000 text messages, and more than 600 home visits during the year. It also filed 217 lawsuits and conducted six tax sales and one resale totaling more than $210,000.

Gonzalez said the firm also successfully challenged the state comptroller’s property value estimate, reducing it by more than $223 million for the district. Since 1998, Linebarger has achieved nearly $1.62 billion in total value reductions for Edinburg ISD, netting an estimated $25.49 million in additional state aid.

Fiscal Year Change

The board approved first readings of two items related to the proposed change of the district’s fiscal year end from Aug. 31 to June 30. A second reading is required at the November meeting before the change takes effect.

Dr. Dominguez said the change aligns the budget cycle with the school calendar, improves cash flow related to Teacher Incentive Allotment reimbursements from TEA, and matches the practice of 20 of the 37 districts in the region that have already transitioned.

“When you have to wait till September 1st, it’s very frustrating sometimes because students already are starting with us in August,” she said. “This will give schools and departments the budget right when they come back from our July break.”

She said the transition will require the board to adopt a 10-month transitional budget to close out the current fiscal year but will not change the amount of funding the district receives.

The board also heard a bilingual and ESL program evaluation from Bilingual Director Claudia Mata, who reported that 10,051 of the district’s 32,502 students — about 31% — are classified as emergent bilinguals. A total of 909 students were reclassified and exited the program during the 2025-26 school year. The district paid 642 teachers bilingual stipends totaling $1,026,041.

The board also observed three moments of silence — for former agricultural teacher Mr. Bonson, who passed away the previous weekend; former coach Coach Cuellar, who passed away that week; and former second-grade teacher Miss Torres.

No public comments were received.