BEAUMONT - School trustees Tuesday debated alternate, cost-cutting versions of a bond proposal to send to voters, but have yet to settle on one with only three weeks left until the deadline to call an election.

Superintendent Carrol Thomas offered four revised plans that would reduce the $443.9 million price tag on the scope of work recommended late last month by a citizens committee.

One plan would bring the package to $399.6 million, but would eliminate field house upgrades at Central and West Brook high schools

and reduce the capacity of planned auditoriums at West Brook and Ozen high schools well below the projected enrollment.

Thomas said staff members did not like the idea and some trustees said they disliked it too.

"If you go under $400 million, that's what you're going to have to do," Thomas said. "You're going to have some serious cuts, some of them distasteful."

The next cheapest option came in at $411.1 million but would renovate Dunbar and Ogden elementaries rather than replacing them with a single new school at Dunbar, as all other plans would.

Trustee Woodrow Reece, who lives in the area zoned to Ogden, voiced concern about losing a neighborhood school there, as he has at previous meetings.

However, Thomas said principals had spoken to people who live in both neighborhoods and they "unequivocally" prefer a new building to a renovated one, even if it means combining campuses. Paul Jones, a citizens committee member, also said residents of the area around Ogden seemed to have changed their minds in favor of a new school.

Option three would bring the price tag to $427.5 million. Like several of the other plans, it trims costs by building fewer new science classrooms, using a different system for roof replacements, reducing the size of a new South Park Middle School and using a four-year construction timetable instead of five years.

Option four, with a $436.2 million price tag, was the one suggested by Thomas. It resembles option three in most respects.

However, it would reduce the capacity of three West End elementary schools (Caldwood, Curtis and Regina-Howell) from 750 students to 550 students and build an additional elementary school in west Beaumont.

All four campuses would have new schools. New schools also are planned for six other elementaries:

Amelia and combined campuses for Dunbar/Ogden, Martin/Lucas, Price/Fehl, Bingman/Blanchette and French/Field.

Thomas said he suggested the size reduction in response to trustee concerns last week about rebuilding large schools on small pieces of property.

"To build larger at Sallie Curtis, we'd have to look at those baseball fields," Thomas said. "That property is BISD property, but it is used extensively by that community."

Trustee Martha Hicks had concerns about the new proposal, too. She said she would prefer to build Regina-Howell at a new site to the larger size rather than split students from that school to a new campus. Then the new school would not be necessary.

Hicks' suggestion would leave no room for growth in that area, Trustee William Nantz said. That's not its only disadvantage, committee member Oveal Walker pointed out.

"We're moving kids and splitting schools in other areas," Walker said. "So if we're partial to one area, there may be problems."

The question of how to handle the elementary schools remained undecided as the meeting ended.

At the request of trustees and committee members, Thomas said he would revisit the list and see if some projects could be postponed. The board meets again at 7 p.m. Thursday.

"I think I have your charge and I think by Thursday we'll be a lot closer than we are now," Thomas said.

Trustees must call an election by Sept. 5 in order to have a November vote.