Millions allotted to school projects

State’s program to aid 55 districts

Fifty-five Arkansas school districts will receive a total of $211.1 million in state aid to help finance construction of more than a dozen schools plus additions, renovations, roofs, storm shelters, and heating and air conditioning systems.

The Arkansas Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation Commission approved the funding for 78 projects to begin in 2017-18 in those districts, which are as large as Springdale, Fort Smith, Bentonville, Jonesboro and West Memphis, and as small

as Alpena, Earle, Lamar and Palestine-Wheatley.

The financial aid is the result of the Academic Facilities Partnership Program that 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, $3,250,432,486 has been spent on academic space in the state’s traditional public school districts, with $1.1 billion of that from the state, Brad Montgomery, director of the state Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation Division, told the commission Thursday.

The state’s share of a building project is based on a school district’s property-tax wealth, with wealthier districts qualifying for smaller percentages of state aid or even no state building aid.

The largest state contribution to a single project in this 2017-18 round of funding will be $20.2 million to the newly organized Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District for a new Jacksonville High School. Additionally, $6.49 million will go to the Jacksonville/ North Pulaski district for an elementary school to replace Tolleson and Arnold Drive elementaries, and $1.5 million is allotted to multipurpose rooms at Bayou Meto and Taylor elementaries.

“It’s just one more brick in the wall,” Jacksonville/North Pulaski Superintendent Tony Wood said about the commission’s decision and the school-building process.

“We have a big wall to build,” he said. “We’re very pleased.”

The Jacksonville district officially detached from the Pulaski County Special School District on July 1, in large part to qualify for state assistance in building replacement schools for aging campuses. Voters in the district passed a 7.6-mill tax increase in early 2016 to finance the local share of revenue for the new high school, elementary school and elementary school multipurpose rooms.

The state’s share of the Jacksonville/North Pulaski projects is about 47 percent of the projected cost, Wood said.

“The point of today is that we now have a concrete number that is part of our revenue stream to provide facilities for our kids,” he said.

Plans are to start construction of a $16 million elementary school in June so the school can open to pupils in August 2018. The high school, estimated to cost about $63 million, is scheduled to open in August 2019.

The Bryant School District will be the recipient of the largest total amount of the Facilities Partnership Program money.

A total of $35.8 million will go toward what is expected to be a $106 million cost for a new elementary school, a new junior high and additions to Bryant High School. The additions include a fine arts complex, a physical education facility and a new cafeteria to put an end to the current five lunch periods at the school.

The elementary should open in August 2018, and the other spaces will open in 2019.

Bryant voters earlier this year passed a 3.7-mill tax increase to be able to afford its share — a little less than 70 percent — of the state-approved projects.

Bryant Superintendent Tom Kimbrell was at the commission meeting to watch the vote.

“We knew we would be high in the prioritization because we are a rapidly growing school district,” Kimbrell said about the prospect of state funding. “That’s how the rules are set up — to ensure that you have got seats and roofs over kids’ heads.”

A former Arkansas education commissioner, Kimbrell praised the building aid program and the benefits it has provided to students in new schools throughout the state.

“Those kids are going to reap the benefit of what the state has done for them for years to come, and the state is going to reap the benefit,” he said.

The Lamar School District’s application for state aid for a new high school for about 500 students in grades nine through 12 was approved to the tune of almost $6.9 million.

“That is just awesome,” said Jay Holland, superintendent of the Lamar School District. “We are absolutely ecstatic, anxious. To us, this is historic. You don’t get to do this very often.”

The district will ask voters for a millage increase later this year, the amount of which is still to be determined, to support the building, Holland said.

With a new high school, the district is planning to convert its current high school building into a middle school and use the current middle school for elementary grades.

Another project that qualified for state funding in the first year of the two-year funding cycle is phase two of the Springdale School District’s School of Innovation, which is approved for $14.9 million.

Still other approved projects for funding are a new high school in Alpena; a new elementary and a new middle school in Bentonville; a new high school in De Queen; a new elementary school in Earle; a new high school in the Palestine-Wheatley district; a new elementary in Van Buren; a new high school in Valley Springs; a new junior high in Texarkana; and a new elementary school in West Memphis.

Not all approved projects were funded and not all projects were approved, Montgomery said.

State laws and rules allow no more than $10 million a year to be spent on what are identified as warm, safe and dry projects — such as roofs, heating and air systems, fire alarms, and building renovations. About 20 warm, safe and dry projects are being funded — 50 others will not funded in this round because they would put the state over the $10 million cap.

A total of 49 projects did not receive approval by the division staff, Montgomery said. Projects are typically disapproved for reasons such as incomplete applications, insufficient data, lack of schematic drawings or lack of suitability. Montgomery said the number of disapproved projects has dropped significantly compared with past years. He attributed that to review conferences held with school districts as required by a 2015 state law.

There are 83 projects approved for state aid in 2018-19, which is the second year of the funding cycle. The commission will finalize the funding for those projects in April 2018, Montgomery said.