LITTLE ROCK -- Pulaski County Special School District leaders are recommending a 5.6-mill tax increase for school construction and renovation.
In December, district representatives told U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. that they would seek a property tax increase of up to that amount, the proceeds from which the district would use to finance the construction of two new high schools and other improvements throughout the school system.
Superintendent Jerry Guess and Chief Financial Officer Bill Goff will ask the district's Citizens Advisory Board at a meeting tentatively rescheduled for Monday to endorse sending the 5.6-mill tax increase to voters at the annual Sept. 15 school election.
A 5.6-mill increase would cost the owner of a $100,000 house an additional $112 a year; the owner of a $200,000 house would pay an additional $224 a year in taxes.
The advisory board will make its recommendation on the tax plan, pro or con, to Arkansas Education Commissioner Tony Wood. Wood acts in lieu of a locally elected school board in the Pulaski County Special district, which has operated under state control since June 2011 after being found in fiscal distress.
The building plan and proposed tax increase come at a time when the neighboring North Little Rock School District is in the midst of a capital improvement and renovation program of its own that will reduce the district's 21 campuses to 13 new or extensively renovated schools. Little Rock School District leaders also had made preliminary plans for some new schools and renovated campuses prior to the state taking control of the district Jan. 28.
"This is about two issues," Guess said Monday about the Pulaski County Special district, "giving the patrons of the district an opportunity to improve the facilities in the district ... and it's addressing the issue of getting unitary status on facilities."
The Pulaski County Special district -- a party in a 32-year-old federal school desegregation lawsuit -- remains under court supervision in regard to correcting inequities in the quality of school campuses, and meeting the requirements of its desegregation Plan 2000 in regard to student discipline, student achievement and monitoring its own desegregation efforts. Once the court finds the district to be in compliance with the building and desegregation plans, the district will be declared unitary and released from further court monitoring.
"We have to get unitary on facilities," Guess said. "We have to demonstrate to Judge Marshall our effort to do that. His response to our plan was to say 'that is a great idea.'"
The plan -- if supported with a tax increase -- calls for spending $50 million each on the construction of a new Mills High in the southeast part of the school district and a new Robinson High in west Pulaski County, plus $50 million for extensive renovation at Sylvan Hills High in Sherwood. The current Mills and Robinson campuses would be converted to new sites for Fuller Middle and Robinson Middle schools at a cost of $5 million each. The remaining money would be spent on upgrades at other district schools.
Even if the millage proposal does not win voter approval, the district has committed to building a new Mills High School and refurbishing Fuller Middle School in an area of the district that serves a high percentage of black students.
Goff, the chief financial officer, said district leaders have settled on a specific millage amount.
"We think, to be safe -- to be sure we obtain enough revenue to do everything we that needs to be done, we need to ask for 5.6 mills," Goff said.
That would support or pay the annual debt on $213 million in construction bonds, Goff said. And that, paired with the a one-time payment of about $20.8 million in state desegregation aid earmarked for construction, would enable the district to undertake a building program of about $221 million, Goff said.
With a 5.6-mill increase, the district's current 40.7-mill tax rate for schools would go to 46.3 mills but would remain less than the Little Rock School District tax rate of 46.4 mills and the North Little Rock School District rate of 48.3 mills.
Any increase in the tax rate in the district would not apply to property owners in the new Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District, Goff said. The newly created district will remain part of the Pulaski County Special School District until agreements on the division of assets and debt are finalized, which could take until the beginning of the 2016-17 school year. That district's tax rate would remain at the current 40.7 mills.
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 assess property at 20 percent of appraised value, so a $100,000 house has an assessed value of $20,000. That $20,000 multiplied by the proposed 0.0056 boost would generate the $112 tax increase.
Goff said there are multiple reasons for pursuing the tax increase this year.
"Right now is a good time to do this with interest rates being as low as they are," he said.
The North Little Rock district recently sold $65.5 million in construction bonds at an interest rate of 3.43 percent.
"It will help us attain unitary status and get out from federal court supervision," Goff added. "And the main thing is that it will provide a better environment for our students and it's proven that environment is important to student achievement."
NW News on 02/17/2015