Blytheville to settle millage issue

Early voting this week on teacher pay, sports venue plan

A proposed 7.11-mill increase in the Blytheville School District would raise funds to increase teacher salaries, build a new gymnasium and improve athletic venues, school officials said.

Voters will decide the issue in a June 13 special election. Early voting in the Mississippi County city of 18,884 people begins Tuesday in the county’s election commission center, a deputy clerk said.

If passed, the millage rate for the district of about 2,400 students would increase from 33.39 mills to 40.50 mills. Property is assessed at 20 percent of its appraised value. A mill is one-tenth of a cent.

The millage increase would raise the property taxes on a home assessed at $80,000 by about $9.50 a month.

Superintendent Richard Atwill did not return messages left at the school Friday.

“We are in desperate need,” Blytheville School Board member Tobey Johnson said. “We can’t compete with any schools in the area. Our teachers haven’t gotten a raise in three or four years, and we have a gymnasium

over 50 years old.”

Plans call for replacing the gymnasium, installing artificial turf on the football field and resurfacing the track. The projects will cost about $12.7 million.

The millage increase also would help fund a new 28-year pay plan for teachers that would be based on years of experience, said board member Henrietta Watt.

Currently, starting teachers with no experience make $39,000 a year, she said. The Blytheville School District employs about 23 teachers.

Gosnell School District, about 10 miles north of Blytheville, pays its starting teachers about $43,000 a year.

“Once our teachers get their training here, they go somewhere else,” Watt said. “If they can go to another school district without even having to move their home and earn $4,000 more … well, there you go.”

Blytheville city leaders used similar arguments during a special election last month to pass a one-half percent sales tax that will be used to raise salaries for the city’s police and firefighters. Mayor James Sanders said police officers would gain experience in Blytheville for a few years and then leave for higher pay elsewhere.

Voters approved that tax by a vote of 633-400. The citywide sales tax will bring in about $1.4 million a year.

There is no organized opposition to the proposed millage increase, Watt said.

“There will be people voting against it,” she said. “Not everyone always wants to pay an increase.”

Liz Smith, executive director of the Greater Blytheville Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber supports the millage increase because it will help recruit and retain teachers in the city.

“Our salaries are not competitive with other schools,” she said. “If we pass this, we can minimize the turnover.”

She said a new gymnasium and athletic improvements also would help recruit businesses to the city.

“Our gym is the symbol of the school,” Smith said. “Teams come here and for some, it’s the only thing of the school they see. It’s its own tourist site.

“It’s a healthy little tax,” Smith said of the 7.11-mill increase. “People will notice it, but it’s something that we need.”

Watt also said the millage increase will help with the school’s image.

The high school was recently taken off the state’s academically distressed list, but the middle school remains on the list.

A school is placed on the list if less than 49.5 percent of its students show proficiency in math and literature testing over three consecutive years.

“People need to come see the school,” Watt said. “We are improving in all areas.

“I feel this millage increase is a positive thing. We’ll have more teachers with better pay and better athletic facilities. It will make a difference in how we are perceived.”