Tony Wood, superintendent of the Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District, on Monday recommended that the School Board ask voters for a 7.6-mill property tax increase at a special election in February to pay for campus construction.
The School Board for the new district took no immediate action on the proposal but plans to vote at its Nov. 2 meeting on the tax plan as well as on a site for a new high school that would replace the existing Jacksonville and North Pulaski high schools.
Wood said that a 7.6-mill increase to the district's existing 40.7-mill tax rate would enable the district to finance $45 million in construction bonds over 25 years.
"We feel this level will meet our needs although it may not meet our every want," Wood said at a lengthy meeting during which School Board members took comments from the public on the high school sites and the tax plan.
Monday's meeting was the first for the newly elected seven-member School Board that replaced an interim board.
The bond money, combined with state aid for school construction, would be used to build the replacement high school, plus a new elementary school that would replace Tolleson and Arnold Drive elementary schools, and allow for the construction of multi-purpose rooms at the four other elementary schools: Bayou Meto, Murrell Taylor, Pinewood and Warren Dupree elementaries.
The district also is anticipating some financial aid from the U.S. Department of Defense to help with the cost of the replacement elementary school that is being planned for about 20 acres near the Little Rock Air Force Base.
If approved by the School Board and by voters, the tax rate in the district would be 48.3 mills. That would equal the millage rate in the North Little Rock School District that is in the final stages of replacing or significantly remodeling 12 of 13 campuses. It would be higher than the 44.6 mills levied in the Little Rock School District.
The increase would cost the owner of a $100,000 home an additional $152 a year and the owner of a $50,000 home $76 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. 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 a 0.0076 increase would result in a $152 tax increase on a $100,000 home.
The building and tax plans are for a 4,000-student district that was created in late 2014 by the Arkansas Board of Education after Jacksonville area residents voted overwhelmingly that September to separate from the Pulaski County Special School District.
The new district is continuing to operate this school year under the direction of the Pulaski County Special School District. Leaders of the new district anticipate operating independently of the Pulaski County Special district starting July 1, 2016.
Wood said Monday that new construction would be done to benefit students and to win release from federal court supervision of the new district's desegregation efforts in regard to equalizing the condition of buildings. Pulaski County Special is under court supervision for the inequitable condition of school campuses.
Much of Monday's meeting was devoted to discussing the benefits and challenges of possible new high school sites.
Daniel Gray, who was elected board president by his colleagues Monday after having served in the same role on the interim board, said that 49 percent of 438 responders to a Facebook poll want a new high school on the current Jacksonville High School site.
Metro on 10/06/2015