JONESBORO — Two school districts in Jonesboro are seeking millage increases today in the wake of a city sales-tax hike that voters approved in August.
Jonesboro School District voters will decide on a 3.1-mill school property tax increase that would fund several construction projects.
Voters in the Valley View School District, which is made up of southwest Jonesboro and the southern part of Craighead County, will cast ballots on a 4.8-mill school tax increase that would pay for building a new high school.
On Aug. 10, Jonesboro voters favored a half-cent sales tax to help pay salaries for firefighters and police officers, and avoid layoffs. The city sales tax is estimated to raise about $6 million for the four years it will be collected.
City officials spoke with administrators from both school districts earlier this spring and learned of their intentions to ask for school tax increases. The City Council went on with its own request, calling for a special election six weeks before the school district elections were held.
School officials hope that the approval of the city tax increase won’t sway voters negatively in today’s school tax elections.
“We don’t want to put an additional burden on taxpayers,” said Valley View School District Superintendent Radius Baker. “I wish there was another way we could do it. I wish we could wave a magic wand, but this is the only way to do it.”
It’s tough enough in the Jonesboro School District to pass a millage increase without a prior sales-tax hike during the same year.
The district has asked for three millage increases and failed to win any since 1988, when voters last approved raising the rate.
“The timing is bad,” said Jonesboro School District Superintendent Kim Wilbanks. “But we ran out of time.”
Both districts cite the need for new buildings to accommodate growth in enrollment.
Plans call for building a new $25 million two-story high school building on the southern edge of the Valley View campus. The existing high school, on the western entrance of the school campus, would be converted to a junior high school, Baker said.
Valley View, with about 2,320 students this year, anticipated an annual average growth of 4.5 percent.
During the last six years, the enrollment grew 6.8 percent each year, Baker said.
“If we do not gain a single student from outside, we’ll see an increase of 3 percent in our high school simply from those coming from the junior high,” he said.
The enrollment will continue to grow - 172 students began kindergarten this fall while 132 students graduated in the spring, a 40-student increase in the system, Baker said.
Mavis Forrest, a parent volunteer organizer for the Jonesboro School District, said the district is already using portable buildings for classrooms on two campuses.
If the millage passes, school district officials plan to build a new cafeteria on the Annie Camp Junior High School campus, a new fine arts auditorium at Jonesboro High school, and renovations to the high school’s gymnasium and classrooms at several campuses.
The Jonesboro district, which has about 5,100 students, saw an 11 percent increase in enrollment over the past two years.
“We’re out of space,” Forrest said.
“We hope we’ve made our case that we will use the money wisely,” she said. “The millage and the [city] sales tax are two separate issues. We hope that the people realize that the way the economy is, we are asking for an increase only because we really need it.”
Communication is the key to passing millage requests, said Suellen Vann, a spokesman for the Arkansas School Boards Association.
“It’s important that the school boards identify what the local needs are and then hold public meetings about that,” she said. “Most communities generally support their schools.
It’s imperative that the schools reach out to the communities and it’s critical school officials are transparent with what they plan to do with the money.”
Both districts have held meetings about the requested millage increases.
Both have made telephone calls to residents and sent emails.
Arkansas, Pages 8 on 09/21/2010