Early voting opens for school election
Polls open today at the Garland County Election Commission for the annual school election, with voters being asked to decide one millage measure and contested school board races in two districts.
Early voting will be held in the election commission building at 649-A Ouachita Ave. from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. today through Friday and on Monday. Sept. 19 is election day.
The Cutter Morning Star School District is seeking 8.4 new debt service mills and a 12-year extension of 15.5 existing mills. The increase would fund the construction of a new high school and basketball arena to replace the current high school and gymnasium built in 1960 and 1969, respectively.
Voting on election day will be held in the district’s multipurpose building on campus from 7:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m.
Lake Hamilton School Board President Mike Tucker is seeking a third term. He is opposed by first-time candidate Nicole Freeman for the seat in Position 55.
Tucker is a graduate of Fort Smith Southside High School and the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. He is a senior agency field specialist for State Farm, where he has worked for more than 20 years.
His wife, a first-grade teacher at Lake Hamilton Primary School, joined the district before Tucker joined the board in 2007. Their children are graduates of Lake Hamilton High School.
Freeman is a graduate of Arkadelphia High School and Henderson State University. She is currently a cashier for Oaklawn Racing and Gaming and is working toward completing requirements to be eligible to teach in Arkansas.
Her background is in education with four years of instructing biology labs at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and two years leading educational programs for Lake Ouachita State Park. Freeman said she chose to live in the Lake Hamilton School District because
of the quality of its schools.
Lake Hamilton voters will be able to cast ballots on election day at First Baptist Church of Royal, 7402 Albert Pike Road, and Piney Grove United Methodist Church, 2963 Airport Road, between 7:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m.
The Mountain Pine School Board president is opposed by a former board member for the Position 5 seat. The two Mountain Pine High School alumni and longtime friends have combined for more than two decades of experience on the board.
Clayton Miller lost his first bid to join the board, but ran unopposed in
2007 and again in 2012. His wife and three children are also Mountain Pine alumni, and his grandchild recently began prekindergarten at Mountain Pine. Miller’s previous employer, General Cable, relocated in June and he is currently unemployed.
Mike Smith served on the board for
11 years until 2004. Both of his children were valedictorians at Mountain Pine and he said his grandson will enroll at Mountain Pine when he starts school. Smith is a graduate of Mountain Pine, Garland County Community College, Quapaw Technical Institute and Andersonville Theological Seminary in Camilla, Ga. He is a military veteran, retiree from the Hot Springs Police Department and pastor for Rector Heights Baptist Church in Hot Springs.
Election day voting in Mountain Pine will be held in the old gymnasium at 199 Third St. from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Fountain Lake, Hot Springs, Jessieville and Lakeside will only hold early voting with no active millage measures or contested school board races on the ballot.
Cutter Morning Star is eligible to receive more than $7.8 million from the state’s Academic Facilities Partnership Program, including $6.255 million toward construction of the high school and arena. The project’s total cost is almost $14.5 million, but the district would be responsible for less than $8.2 million.
The district has planned another $3.5 million in campus improvements if the millage increase is approved. Superintendent Nancy Anderson said improvements are necessary with or without the millage increase, but the district would be responsible for 100 percent of the costs if the measure fails.
Arkansas law requires every public school district in the state to maintain a minimum of 25 mills, known as the uniform rate of tax, for maintenance and operation. The increase would give the district 48.9 mills with 23.9 debt service mills generating only
$1,047,560.90 per year.
The large increase is sought because each mill for Cutter Morning Star only produces $43,831 in revenue. Approximate revenue per mill for Garland County’s other school districts is $54,529 in Mountain Pine,
$131,366 in Jessieville, $393,015 for Fountain Lake, $426,038 for Lake Hamilton, $454,873 for Lakeside and
$594,762 for Hot Springs.