MPSD seeks millage hike for projects
MOUNTAIN PINE — The Mountain Pine School District plans to construct an agriculture center and a safe room on campus if voters approve a millage increase and the extension of existing mills in this week’s annual school election.
The measure would result in a new investment of more than $9.6 million by district residents over the next 30 years.
The district is asking voters to approve
2 new debt service mills and extend
12.9 existing mills nine years beyond the current commitment.
Early voting began Tuesday and will continue today, Friday and Monday from
8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Garland County Election Commission building, 649-A Ouachita Ave. Voting on election day, Tuesday, will be held from 7:30 a.m. to
7:30 p.m. in the old gymnasium at 199 Third St.
Also on the ballot is a contested race for the Position 5 seat on the Mountain Pine School Board. Current board President Clayton Miller is running for re-election against former board member Mike Smith.
Jennifer Walker is unopposed for the Position 3 seat. She was originally defeated by Tammy Brown in 2015 by a vote of 147-67.
Brown resigned in May to be considered for a position with the district and Walker was appointed by the board a week later to fill her position. Walker will serve the final three years of the five-year term.
Mountain Pine currently maintains the state average of 37.9 total mills. Every public school district in the state is required by law to maintain a minimum of 25 mills, known as the uniform rate of tax, for maintenance and operation.
The district’s millage ranks third-lowest in Garland County. Only Fountain Lake, 34.8, and Lakeside, 37.7, are lower.
Other millage rates for Garland County public school districts are Hot Springs, 42.1; Lake Hamilton, 40.6; Cutter Morning Star, 40.5; and Jessieville,
38.7. Voters approved an increase in Hot Springs a year ago and Lake Hamilton’s increased after a special election in 2013. Cutter Morning Star is also seeking a millage increase in this month’s election.
Millage rates for other districts in the area include Poyen, 46.7; Arkadelphia,
44.85; Benton, 41.9; Bismarck, 41; Centerpoint, 41; Magnet Cove, 39.18; Malvern,
37.65; and Mount Ida, 34.
The 2 new mills are intended to be used to refund all outstanding bond indebtedness and fund the construction of the two new buildings. The district has planned $6.335 million in proposed bonds to mature over the next 30 years.
The increase is projected to produce about $2.345 million to construct and equip the new buildings. The district worked with Ray Beardsley, of First Security Beardsley Public Finance, for the financial planning.
No construction manager has been hired for the projects, but Superintendent B.J. Applegate said he hopes to break ground on the projects by next summer. Preliminary designs were produced by Steve Elliott, president of Lewis Architects Engineers in Little Rock.
Mountain Pine High School began an agri program this year with teacher Russell Glass. The $1.2 million building is planned to be built next to the current administration building.
The 8,000-square-foot facility would allow the school to add more programs, such as welding and plumbing, to the agriculture and plant science classes. Applegate said the programs would benefit the more than 70 percent of Mountain Pine graduates who do not enroll in college after high school.
“Most of them leave the school without anything to do,” Applegate said. “They don’t have certain skills to draw on after they graduate. We want to give these kids an opportunity to be able to weld or plumb or maybe find something they like doing, carry on and maybe go to community college.
“If not, they will at least know something. They will at least know how to weld, take care of animals or how to work on plumbing or electrical and find a job in fields like that. We just want kids to have some type of skill when they graduate from Mountain Pine.”
The 4,600-square-foot safe room is planned for both school and community use. Applegate said no construction funds were available from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The building would have a capacity of about 600 people and be built across the parking lot from the auditorium and cafeteria.
The safe room would be used for two community based instruction classrooms for 15-20 students with special needs. The millage measure includes the stipulation that “surplus revenues produced each year by debt service millage may be used by the district for other school purposes.”
Real estate and personal property taxes for Mountain Pine generates $54,529 per mill, the second-lowest in Garland County. Cutter Morning Star’s revenue is about $43,831 per mill.
Approximate revenue per mill for the other districts in Garland County 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.
The 2 new mills would produce
$109,058, for a total of $3,271,740 over the next 30 years at current property values. The nine additional years for the current 12.9 mills will produce another
$6,330,816.90. Applegate said the cost is about $4 per month for the owners of a house valued at $125,000.
“We try to stress that it is not going to cost a lot of money for this millage per person,” Applegate said.
Information from the district lists its average attendance at 498.81 during the
2016-17 school year. Official enrollment was 523 students, with 300 at the elementary school and 229 in high school.
Mountain Pine’s enrollment was 665 students in 2004, but the numbers have steadily decreased. The 2016-17 enrollment increase ended three consecutive years of declining numbers following a low of 513 in 2015-16.