Fort Smith sets May tax vote

FORT SMITH — Voters in the Fort Smith School District will go to the polls May 22 to decide on a proposed 5.558-mill property tax increase to finance $120 million worth of districtwide improvements.

The School Board met Monday and set the election date. If it passes, it will be the first millage increase in Fort Smith since 1987 and will raise the School District’s property tax rate from 36.5 mills to 42.058.

If voters approve the millage increase, the improvements project will pay for expanding Northside and Southside high schools and building 2,500-seat competition gymnasiums for each school for an estimated cost of $78 million. The increase would also pay for a career and technology center

estimated at $13.7 million, renovation of four elementary schools and two junior high schools, upgrades in security for all schools and a technology replacement cycle.

The board spent a lot of time Monday reviewing and commenting on plans for safety and security upgrades. District Chief Operations Officer Terry Morawski said upgrades, as separate improvements or parts of other improvements, will total more than $25 million.

“If we don’t do anything else, we need to make this happen,” board member Bill Hanesworth said.

At their Feb. 26 meeting, School Board members expressed concern about security on the district’s campuses. That meeting was 12 days after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in which 17 students and staff members were shot by a former student. Some board members said people contacted them about school safety concerns.

Proposed security upgrades include controlled access systems at every campus, security entry storefronts at all elementary schools not equipped, exterior site lighting improvements on all campuses, exterior and limited interior Americans With Disabilities improvements at all campuses and alarm upgrades.

Plans to wall in open classroom space at Barling, Cook, Morrison and Woods elementary schools are also considered security improvements. Morawski said spaces containing two to four classrooms were in open areas that didn’t have doors that could be locked against intruders.

The improvement project is the recommendation of a 57-member residents committee that initially recommended the board seek a 6.88-mill increase. That measure would have paid for a $120 million improvements plan that also included hiring three school resource officers, a grant writer and seven school nurses,

and it would have given a 1.34 percent raise to district staff members.

The new staff positions and raises, which would have cost about $863,000 a year, were dropped from the recommendations. The recommendation for technology by the committee was cut in half, from $1.6 million a year to $825,000 annually. Morawski said money for those needs could be found elsewhere.

School officials were able to lower the millage increase sought by more than 1.3 mills and still generate the $120 million needed for the improvements, in part, because bonding officials believe the financing bonds can be sold at 4 percent interest instead of the initial estimated 4.5 percent interest rate, Morawski said.

The committee also recommended shifting the student population to make more room in the grade schools and reduce or eliminate the forced transfer each day of 450 students from their attendance area. School Superintendent Doug Brubaker said transferring the students each day was like moving an entire elementary school.

“Four hundred and fifty is a disgrace,” Board President Susan McFerran said.

Under the plan, sixth-graders would be moved from elementary school to create middle schools with seventhand eighth-graders. The district now has junior high schools for seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders. Under the committee’s plan, freshmen would move to the high school.

Plans to wall in open classroom space at Barling, Cook, Morrison and Woods elementary schools are also considered security improvements.