$42M in state aid to fix up schools
Facilities panel OKs 29 projects
The Commission for Arkansas Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation on Friday approved the distribution of more than $42 million in state aid to help pay for 29 school building improvements across the state.
The projects include new and replacement spaces, such as a new elementary school in Springdale, and warm, safe and dry system replacements — such as a new heating and air conditioning system at West Fork Elementary.
The state is paying a share of the projects — in this second year of the 201719 biennium — through the Academic Facilities PartAttorney
nership Program. The partnership program was started in 2006 to modernize public schools in response to a state Supreme Court decision that had declared Arkansas’ public schools inequitable, inadequate and unconstitutional.
To date, more than $3 billion has been spent on academic space in the state’s traditional public school districts, with more than $1 billion of that coming from the state.
The commission’s vote on the 2018-19 projects comes at a time when Gov. Asa Hutchinson has asked that education leaders and others to look at ways of altering the partnership program with the idea that the state can’t continue to spend as much as it has on school construction.
An advisory committee has been meeting since last year to develop recommendations to be considered by lawmakers who will meet again in a regular legislative session in 2019.
For the 2018-19 year, there was more money than applications made by the districts for new spaces and replacement spaces, Brad Montgomery, director of the state Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation Division, said Friday.
The state had a total of $87.7 million available for all projects and is committing a total of $42,356,793. The excess will be carried forward for use in the 2019-21 biennium, he said.
On the other hand, school districts submitted applications for warm, safe and dry system replacements that totaled in excess of the $10 million available for those purposes, resulting in several applications not receiving state aid this year.
Montgomery said that only $7.3 million is earmarked now for the warm, safe and dry projects because there was a tie in the ranking of the next two projects in line for funding. To award money to both of those projects — one in Pottsville and another in Charleston — would have put the state over the $10 million cap.
The state’s share of a building project or replacement system is based on a school district’s property-tax wealth, with wealthier districts qualifying for smaller percentages of state aid.
In addition to the new Springdale elementary school to which the state will contribute $8.2 million, some of the other buildings projects include:
A new kindergarten through fourth-grade school in Pocahontas, $9.6 million.
A seventh- and eighth-grade junior high in Bentonville, $2.6 million.
A high school auditorium and media center in Pea Ridge, $2 million.
A ninth-grade expansion in the Benton School District, $3 million.
A primary school addition in De Queen, $1 million.
A new kindergarten through sixth-grade school in the Lee County School District, $603,579.
Daryl Blaxton, superintendent of the Pocahontas School District, said the state aid is the first of its size to the 2,046-student district. It will require the district to raise money at a tax election later this year to pay its share of what is expected to be a $20.1 million school, including furnishings, technology and playground equipment, to house as many as 700 children.
The current campus, built in the early 1960s, is projected to be undersized for the enrollment growth that is occurring in Pocahontas. The district has 150 more students now than it did in January 2017, he said.
“It’s good news,” Blaxton said about the state aid. “It will be a very good thing for our kids and our community if we can go go ahead and raise the millage and build the facility.”
Other projects that are to receive state Partnership Program aid include an electrical system and heating/air conditioning system at Glen Rose High, $1 million; renovations to the heating/air conditioning, electrical system, plumbing, fire alarms, emergency lighting and exit signs at the Cutter Morning Star Elementary School campus, $1 million; a roof at Hoxie High School, $722,428; an electrical system project at Cedarville High, $508,771; and cafeteria and gym roof renovations at Tyronza Elementary in the East Poinsett County School District, $228,188.
The list of 2018-19 biennium projects — both funded and unfunded — can be viewed under the “Commission” link on the Division of Public School Academic Facilities web site: arkansasfacilities.arkansas.gov.