Jacksonville board OKs school site, 7.6-mill vote

The Jacksonville/North Pulaski School Board on Monday voted unanimously to build a new high school on downtown property that is home to the vacant Jacksonville Middle School.

That new high school as well as a new elementary school to replace the Tolleson and Arnold Drive elementaries and upgrades at other campuses all hinge on the outcome of a special election early next year on a proposed property tax increase.

In addition to selecting the high school site, the School Board voted 7-0 Monday to ask voters for the 7.6-mill tax increase to support the construction projects at a Feb. 9 election.

If the 7.6-mill increase is approved by voters, the tax rate in the fledgling school district will increase from 40.7 mills to 48.3 mills, which would cost the owner of a $100,000 home an additional $152 a year and the owner of a $50,000 home an additional $76 a year. Money generated by the new mills would be used to finance over 25 years a $46 million bond issue for the construction projects.

The site for the new high school, which would serve all ninth- through 12th-graders in the district, generated the most discussion among the board members, who were only meeting for the second time since their elections in September.

The Jacksonville/North Pulaski district was created just last year out of the Pulaski County Special School District, and it won’t begin operating independently until next July 1.

The School Board members’ choice of the 35-acre site at 1320 School St. was somewhat of a surprise over the slightly larger tract at the existing Jacksonville High School site at 2400 Linda Lane and an undeveloped site of 50 or more acres owned by Little Rock Air Force Base and adjacent to North Pulaski High on Harris Road.

Board members spoke about their sleepless nights and frequent mind-changing as they weighed concerns such as school history, accessibility, expansion potential and economic implications.

Even at Monday’s meeting, Col. William Brooks, commander of the 19th Mission Support Group at Little Rock Air Force Base and ex officio member of the board, and Jacksonville Mayor Gary Fletcher pulled the board in two directions.

Brooks campaigned for the base site, urging the board to think big and into the future and to see the site “as an opportunity to reach for the brass ring and have a good chance of reaching it.”

Fletcher, who earlier favored the base site, told the board that he changed his mind after meeting with city planners from across the country. The planners,

he said, adamantly advised in favor of a new school in the downtown area as a way to revitalize the city.

While there were initial doubts about the feasibility of closing the part of Sharp Street that goes through the middle school campus, Fletcher and other city leaders said Monday that they would begin the process of evaluating the street closure and didn’t see that as an obstacle. The School Board’s approval of the School Street site is contingent on the closing of Sharp Street.

Board member Ron McDaniel made the motion for the School Street site, in part because of its easy accessibility to Jacksonville residents who live east of U.S. 67/167.

“Wherever we build, the education of the kids is what is going to be important,” School Board member Marcia Dornblaser concluded about the site selection. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s on the federal land, at the middle school or the high school, the education is going to be the same and we are going to do our best to provide that for them.”

Dornblaser, a graduate of Jacksonville High, acknowledged that some community members favor building the school at the current site because of the history of the school. But she also noted that the middle school site was the home to Jacksonville High before 1969, so it has some history, as well. She said that if the site could accommodate the high school and be a boon to the city’s economy, it was a win-win

situation.

“What we build is more important than where we build it,” Board President Daniel Gray agreed. “It’s going to serve our kids, and our kids are going to benefit.”

In making his selection, he said he sought to keep student interests at the forefront and decided early on that the Little Rock Air Force Base site was a great opportunity but worried that its location far from the heart of the city would “disenfranchise half of our town.”

“That’s a legitimate concern,” he said.

Gray said he initially favored the existing high school site at least in part because it was technically larger — but said 20 acres are occupied by the current operating school and that students at the school during the construction would not be well served.

He said the School Street site was also the most cost-effective choice and offers an opportunity for economic development of downtown.

“Finally, I think about where is the biggest ‘wow’ factor as we start anew. What gives us the coolest [look] as you are driving down the freeway. What makes you say, ‘Hey, Jacksonville has it going on.’”

The special tax election in February would be the only school election in 2016 in the new district, Scott Beardsley, a financial adviser to the district, said Monday night. That’s because a school district can only have one election a year on the millage rate and there are no School

Board positions up for election in the district next year.

The proposed 7.6 mills combined with the existing 14.8 mills dedicated to debt service would finance the $46 million bond issue. That, combined with state aid for school construction, would be used to build the new high school, the new elementary school and allow for the construction of multipurpose rooms at the four other elementary schools: Bayou Meto, Murrell Taylor, Pinewood and Warren Dupree.

The district also is anticipating some financial aid from the U.S. Department of Defense to help with the cost of the new elementary

school that is being planned for about 20 acres near the Little Rock Air Force Base.

The proposed 48.3-mill tax rate in the Jacksonville/ North Pulaski district would be equal to North Little Rock School District’s tax rate.

A mill is one-tenth of 1 cent. One mill levied on an assessed value of $1,000 yields $1 in property taxes. Arkansas counties tax property at 20 percent of appraised or market value, so a $100,000 house has a taxable value of $20,000. That $20,000 multiplied by a 0.0076 increase would result in a $152 tax increase on a $100,000 home.