Alma millage rate falls, but projects on tap for schools
FORT SMITH — Alma residents can look forward to a significant addition to their school district in the coming years.
Voters in the western Arkansas city approved a millage rate of 42.4 mills for the Alma School District during Tuesday’s general election. The current rate is 43.4 mills.
Complete but unofficial returns, according to the Crawford County clerk’s office, were:
For ................................ 3,562 Against ........................ 3,081
Superintendent David Woolly said Wednesday that the district appreciated the voters giving it this opportunity to build facilities that will benefit students, as well as to lower the voters’ tax rate.
“It was one of those situations that it was win-win, and when you can have that, it’s always a good thing,” Woolly said.
The 42.4-mill rate comprises the statewide uniform tax rate of 25 mills for general maintenance and operation and 17.4 mills for debt service, a sample ballot stated. These debt service mills will be a continuing tax until the retirement of bonds that
would be issued in the principal amount of $58.43 million and mature over a 35-year period for the purpose of “refunding all outstanding bonded indebtedness” and making improvements to the district.
Woolly said in October that by making this request to voters, the school district could generate the funds needed to construct some necessary buildings and make renovations and improvements to existing facilities.
One of the new buildings will be a 6,000-square-foot agriculture facility at Alma High School. A school district pamphlet explains that this will include two classrooms, a large shop area, a greenhouse, a barn, and other things that an agriculture program needs to have, Woolly said in October. The Alma School District had not had an agriculture program in recent years, until it was restarted in fall 2019. A multipurpose student activities center of about 35,000 square feet will also be built at the high school.
The school district’s administration building will be expanded by 3,600 square feet, according to the pamphlet, to provide space for district staff positions that have been added to maintain “school and facilities function” in the wake of student enrollment growth and additional requirements from the state in the time since the facility was originally built in 1980. Enrollment has grown by more than 1,300 students in that time.
Consequently, this moving of employees will allow for the building those people currently occupy, the administration annex, to be repurposed into a state-funded early childhood center through the Arkansas Better Chance program.
Parking lot resurfacing and repairs and upgrades of building roofs are also included in this effort.
Now that the millage rate has passed, Woolly said, the school district’s first step will be to sell the bonds. This is scheduled to take place before the end of the calendar year.
“Then, at the same time, our architect will be starting the work to draw the construction documents,” Woolly said. “The first phase will be the work at the high school, the agriculture building and the student activities center. That will be the first thing we do, and the architecture firm will be working on those starting as soon as they can get going on it.”
Woolly estimated that construction on those Alma High School projects will begin in late winter or early spring. Once the architecture firm, Fort Smith-based Architecture Plus, completes its work on those projects, it will start on the administration building.
“We probably won’t actually begin construction on the administration building until the high school project is wrapping up,” Woolly said. “Maybe not 100% complete, but getting close, which I would anticipate is sometime next fall.”
The Alma School District anticipates doing the parking lot resurfacing in the summer, according to Woolly. He also noted that the district will not do anything until the results of the election are certified.
The reduced millage rate will save a resident who owns a $100,000 home in the Alma School District $20 in taxes each year. A mill is one-tenth of a cent, with each mill producing $1 in taxes for every $1,000 of assessed valuation. Counties assess real property at 20% of its appraised value. That value is then multiplied by the millage rate to determine taxes.
With the understanding that a $100,000 home would come with an assessed value of $20,000, at 42.4 mills, that $20,000 would be multiplied by .0424 to determine a tax of $848 on the home. Under the current rate of 43.4 mills, that same $20,000 in assessed value would be multiplied by .0434 to get a tax of $868.