State OKs $7 Million For Farmington School

FARMINGTON — Plans to build the second phase of a new Farmington High School will begin taking shape, now that the School District officially knows it will receive $7.1 million in state partnership money to help with the costs.

The Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation Commission voted to approve $127 million for 67 school projects at its April 30 meeting in Little Rock. Farmington’s high school project was included in this vote.

“Seven million is a good number for us to start with,” Bryan Law, superintendent of schools, said last week. “It is exactly what we hoped it would be.”

Farmington School District plans to build a new high school building with around 80,000-100,00 square feet, according to Law..

The total cost will depend on bids but Law estimates the new school will cost about $12 million, with the school responsible for about $5.5 million. Law said the district’s capital improvement fund has about $ 3.9 million and that leaves a shortage of $1.5 million.

The district will make up this shortage by refinancing a bond issue to save money on interest costs.

The overall effect will be an additional $100,000 per year in debt service, Law said.

Farmington has been able to build a new performing arts center, competitive basketball gym and now a new high school without raising its millage rate for property taxes.

Law said the credit for this goes back many years.

“I would be less than honest if I didn’t say that some of the credit for this goes back to Mike Gray (former superintendent). He established a CIP fund (Capital Improvement Projects) and was putting $50,000 a year in it.”

Former Superintendent Ron Wright continued transferring money into the capital improvements fund each year. For many years, the district increased the amount to $100,000 annually.

Over the years, this added up, Law said.

Another advantage, financially, is that many bonds were issued more

than 10 years ago when interest rates were higher.

“We’ve been able to restructure and refinance at a better rate,” Law said. “We are very fortunate interest rates moved down and have continued to stay down.”

Law also gave credit to the current Board of Education and past school board members for having the foresight to be ready for the future.

As far as a time frame for construction, Law said the school is going through a Program of Requirement, which is a document from the Arkansas Department of Education that details what the district will have to build to meet state standards. School officials are gathering preliminary papers for approval for construction.

The school’s goal is to start construction around Thanksgiving or Christmas and be finished in time for the 2017-18 school year. Students in grades 10 through 12 will attend the school.

Hight Jackson Associates is the architect for the new school. Law said the school board will have to decide whether to bid the project like it did for the basketball arena and PAC or use a construction manager format to build the school..

The district will not have much flexibility in what goes into the building because of what is mandated by the state. However, Law said staff are looking at three programs outside what’s required: broadcast journalism, a lab for the biomedical program and a business lab. These are costs that would be paid 100 percent by the school.

The new school will not include a new football stadium and track. These are part of phase 3.

“We’re excited,” Law said. “It certainly has picked up the pace at the end of the year.”