Campaign begins for school projects
LR group supports millage extension
Civic and Little Rock School District leaders on Wednesday announced a campaign for extending the district’s current debt-service tax rate by 14 years to generate $160 million for school construction and repairs.
The election will be May 9 on extending the levy of 12.4 debt-service mills — due to expire in 2033 — to 2047. If the extended collection of the tax is approved by voters, there would be no increase to the district’s total 46.4-mill property tax rate. But taxpayers would continue to pay the same rate for more years.
Little Rock businessman Gary Smith, chairman of the millage campaign “Rebuild Our Schools Now!,” said the funding plan will allow for “long overdue” rehabilitation work at nearly every campus, plus the building of a new southwest Little Rock high school without raising taxes.
“This is an easy one — it ought to be an easy one for our community to come together,” Smith told about 75 people at the campaign
launch event in front of the school district’s 810 W. Markham St. headquarters. “You cannot have a great city, you cannot have a great community, without a strong, viable school district.”
Smith, who was joined at the podium by student speakers as well as district employees and a district parent, called himself a “homer” for Little Rock who has watched nearby districts pass millage increases and build new schools.
“I don’t want to be that doughnut hole,” he said. “I don’t want to be the core in the center that hasn’t taken care of business. We have a chance to make a difference. We don’t have to wait on anything.”
The election on the millage extension for buildings comes at a time when the state’s largest school district of about 24,000 students is in its third year of operating under state control without a locally elected school board because three of its schools — down from six initially — are classified by the state as academically distressed for chronically low test scores.
The district is also dealing with loss of special state aid. Three schools will be closed next year and a fourth one repurposed — over the opposition of some community members — as a way to cut expenses in the face of losing $37.3 million a year in state desegregation aid after the 2017-18 school year.
The May 9 millage plan has drawn opposition. The “No Taxation without Representation” campaign will kick off its anti-millage-extension campaign with a public event at 4:45 p.m. today outside the district’s Cloverdale Middle School.
Smith on Wednesday made a brief reference to the opposition, which is largely fueled by anger over the state takeover.
“I don’t know of a better form of representation than a vote of the people,” Smith said. “That’s what we are going to have. That’s pretty good representation. We are focused on moving forward, not backward. We are focused on these 24,000 kids that are in the district. We are not focused on anything else.
“If you are frustrated with the academic-distress process, let’s don’t penalize the kids,” he continued. “Let’s don’t just stop. Somebody is going to go to school tomorrow in a school that desperately needs help. This is something we can control and I hope you will help me take control … to create a better atmosphere for our kids.”
Mac Bell, father of three, warned that any delay in improving school buildings will cause students to suffer, and “they deserve better.”
Darian Smith, principal at Mabelvale Elementary School, said it is time to set aside differences of opinion to focus on the facts, which include a leaky roof at his school and a rainy forecast.
He said a favorable vote on the millage plan will result in a new high school for the pupils now at his school and will help eliminate what he called “the Interstate 30-West exodus” of people who move to Bryant and Benton. The renewal of the existing McClellan High School campus would be another benefit, he said.
Faith Madkins, a McClellan senior, said she has loved her time as a district student but a new campus to replace McClellan — which has hallways open to the weather and gaps between classroom walls and floors — would provide so many more opportunities to her younger brothers.
Kiana Frierson, a senior at J.A. Fair High, which is also to be replaced by the new high school on 55 acres between Mann Road and Mabelvale Pike, told the crowd that a vote for the millage extension is not only for facilities but also for the future of each student. Investments in new facilities will result in inspiring more students into careers as doctors, lawyers, teachers and police officers, she said.
Doris Garcia, a food service department employee at Dodd Elementary, spoke about the need for an upgrade to the poorly performing air conditioning in the school’s kitchen.
The Little Rock district levies 32 of its total 46.4 mills for maintenance and operation of the district, the revenue from which is used to pay salaries and bills. The district also levies 2 mills dedicated to the upkeep of technology systems.
With voter approval of the 14-year extension of the 12.4 debt-service mills, the district would be committed to using $202,645,000 to support bonds that would be paid off over 30 years, according to information compiled earlier this year by the district.
About $160 million of that would be new money that could go toward the construction of a $90 million high school and improvements elsewhere in the state’s largest school district. The remainder of the $202.6 million would be used to pay off previously issued bonds and support second-lien bonds in the future.
The 12.4 debt-service mills generate about $43 million a year in revenue based on the district’s $3.47 billion assessment. Any of that annual income not earmarked for paying the yearly bond debt payment could be used for district operating costs.
District leaders are working with the Polk, Stanley, Wilcox architecture firm on the design of the high school for as many as 2,250 ninththrough 12th-graders.
Pulaski County Justice of the Peace Donna Massey, a member of the No Taxation Without Representation campaign, said this week that she has no trust in Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key, who serves as the school board in the state-controlled district, or in state-appointed Superintendent Mike Poore to follow through with the new school and upgrades.
“They are closing our schools and now asking us to give them millions more to build a new school. It makes no sense,” she said.
She questioned why the district is increasing its debt if it is in a budget crisis. She warned that the extended debt, paired with the loss of district students to independently run charter public schools, could cause the district to fall into fiscal distress.
Poore said in an interview Wednesday that he has worked to be very transparent about the district’s work and that he wants the district to return to local control as much as anyone. That is a task assigned to him by Key.
“I still have work to do in that area and I need everybody’s help. I think this is a part of helping us get our local control back,” he said about the proposed millage extension.
Poore said the allegations by some that the district won’t build the high school “shows you the desperation of those folks when we have already gone to architects and had community meetings where students and staff and parents have contributed. Our intent is to build the high school. It was promised to the community.”
Gary Smith said the campaign for the millage extension to date has been funded with $1,000 contributions from himself and retired Central Arkansas Library System Director Bobby Roberts. Smith said the campaign in the coming weeks will include talks and appeals to neighborhood associations and school parent organizations, as well as some mailings to school district residents.
The Little Rock district last asked for voter approval of a change of any kind in property-tax rate or tax-rate structure in May 2000. That was a 5-mill tax increase that helped pay for school building improvements and technology over the next several years.