The Pulaski County Special School District on Monday announced its most specific plan to date for asking voters to approve a tax increase next year to pay for the construction of two new high schools and other school renovations.
The building finance plan and a backup plan -- should a proposed increase of up to 5.6 mills fail to win voter support -- hinge on approval from the federal judge presiding in the 34-year-old school desegregation case.
Allen Roberts of Camden, an attorney for the school district, and state Rep. John Walker, D-Little Rock, an attorney for black students in the district known as the Joshua intervenors, sent to U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. a joint motion asking to revise the facilities section of the district's court-approved desegregation Plan 2000 to include plans for replacing the existing Mills High campus in southeast Pulaski County and Robinson High in the west.
The district and the Joshua intervenors also jointly asked the judge on Monday to declare the district unitary -- or in compliance with Plan 2000 and entitled to release from court supervision -- in regard to how the district identifies black students for special education services.
The requests on facilities and special education could be addressed by the judge as soon as this week.
Marshall has an already- scheduled status conference with representatives of the Pulaski County Special district and Joshua intervenors at 1:30 p.m. Thursday. However, Marshall had directed that documents to be considered at the status conference be submitted to him by last Thursday.
Walker and Roberts asked Marshall on Monday to waive that earlier deadline and consider their newly reached agreements on special education and facilities.
While the Little Rock and North Little Rock school districts have long been released from all court oversight of their desegregation obligations, the Pulaski County Special district remains under court supervision of its desegregation efforts in six areas of its operation. The six areas are: school facilities, special education, student discipline, staffing, student achievement and monitoring of its desegregation responsibilities.
Of the six, eliminating inequities in school facilities in the district was considered particularly challenging because of the expense. The district has a relatively new middle and high school in Maumelle and a new middle school in Sherwood, while schools in other parts of the district -- including the predominantly black southeast section -- are much older.
The building finance plan sent to the judge calls for asking voters in the Pulaski County Special district to approve increasing the district's current property tax rate of 40.7 mills by as much as 5.6 mills in the September 2015 school election.
A 5.6-mill tax increase would cost the owner of a $100,000 home an additional $112 a year. A mill is one-tenth of 1 cent. One mill levied on an assessed value of $1,000 yields $1 in property taxes due. Arkansas counties assess property at 20 percent of actual value, so a $100,000 house has an assessed value of $20,000. That $20,000 multiplied by 0.0056 would generate a $112 tax increase.
The district would seek to raise a total of $200 million for the building project. That would come from the money generated by the tax increase combined with $20.8 million the district is set to receive in state desegregation aid for facilities.
If it takes less than 5.6 mills to reach the necessary funding level, the district would seek a lesser increase. If short of the necessary funding level, the district would not seek a total millage rate that equals or exceeds the 46.4-mill tax rate in the neighboring Little Rock School District.
Under the plan, the district would spend about $50 million each on new facilities for Mills and Robinson high schools at locations as close as possible to the current school grounds. Mills now sits on Dixon Road, and Robinson is on Arkansas 10.
Mills High would be built first if the two schools couldn't be built simultaneously. The district also is committing to spend $5 million each on the existing Mills and Robinson high school facilities to convert them to middle schools.
An additional $50 million out of the $200 million envisioned for the building program would be used to modernize and expand Sylvan Hills High School in Sherwood.
"The remaining $40 million will be devoted to other deserving projects where and as needed, in the discretion of PCSSD," the attorneys wrote to the judge.
Roberts, the attorney for the Pulaski County Special district, said in an interview Monday that the joint proposal puts into writing the building plans that Pulaski County Special district Superintendent Jerry Guess has put forward over the past several months to the general public, to the Arkansas Board of Education and to the judge earlier this year.
"It also satisfies Joshua because it fixes some priorities that you wouldn't find written down anywhere else," Roberts said.
Those priorities include a binding commitment by the school district to build a new Mills High and renovate the current Mills campus into a middle school -- regardless of whether voters pass a tax increase.
"The parties agree that PCSSD's most pressing non-unitary facilities needs are in the predominantly black southeast quadrant of PCSSD," the motion to the judge said.
"Accordingly, PCSSD's quest for full unitary status through cooperation with Joshua demands an alternative commitment, a Plan B as it were, to remediate that need in the event of a negative vote on the aforesaid millage increase," the attorneys wrote. "Therefore, PCSSD commits to the circa $50 million Mills High School and the circa $5 million conversion of existing Mills to a middle school, regardless of the success of the millage election."
The document states that it is the intention of the Plan B "to bind PCSSD irrevocably, regardless of its future governance and administration, to the construction of a replacement facility for Mills High, to begin promptly after any millage election."
The combined $55 million for a new Mills High and a renovated middle school in the county's southeast section would be generated by issuing second lien bonds that do not require a popular vote plus the $20.8 million in state desegregation aid that is earmarked for facilities.
The attorneys also wrote that the Joshua intervenors will be involved in any planning and other activity undertaken regarding facilities.
The motion to the judge delves into the Pulaski County Special district's current status as a district under state control for fiscal distress and the apparent inconsistency with embarking on a $200 million facilities plan.
The attorneys pointed out that money raised by a bond sale would be new money and available only for construction and that the district's fiscal distress label is largely the result of mismanagement cited by auditors and declining fund balances, both of which have "by and large, been overcome."
However, the district faces newer financial challenges that include the loss of $20.8 million a year in state desegregation aid after the 2017-18 school year and the loss of the Jacksonville/North Pulaski area, which has become a new school district and will be separated from the Pulaski County Special district within two years.
The Pulaski County Special district will lose 25 percent of its students and 14 percent of its assessed value with the loss of the Jacksonville area. Student enrollment and assessed value are the two primary factors on which state and local funding is awarded to a school district.
The attorneys argued to the judge, however, that the district's efforts to attain unitary status in all areas of its operation by the end of 2015 -- including the facilities plan -- will actually help the district win release from state control and the fiscal distress label.
"Summarizing, while it is true that PCSSD faces substantial future financial hurdles, they will not, individually or collectively, prevent PCSSD completing the obligations it assumes above," the motion to the judge said.
Metro on 12/16/2014