Election today on millage, Little Rock tax

Funds to benefit schools, museum

Information about Little Rock voting locations.
Information about Little Rock voting locations.

Voters go to the polls today for special elections in Little Rock and in the Jacksonville area to decide on two separate measures -- one on proposed renovations at the Arkansas Arts Center and MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History in Little Rock, the other on funding for proposed construction projects in the new Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District.

photo

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Information about Pulaski County voting locations.

A total of 863 people in Little Rock cast early ballots on the Arts Center issue, and 1,177 people have voted early in the Jacksonville-area school property tax election.

Polls are open today from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.

In Little Rock, voters are being asked to approve bonds of up to $37.5 million to fund improvements to and expansion of the Arts Center, and renovations to the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History.

The bonds are set to be paid back with revenue from a 2 percent hotel tax increase that the Little Rock Board of Directors approved last year.

Voters have no say with this election in whether the tax increase is collected -- it has been since Jan. 1. Voters are only deciding whether to allow bonds to be taken out with the tax as the security.

Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola has said the good thing about the tax is that it's levied mostly on out-of-town visitors, since they are usually the ones who stay in hotel rooms.

If voters turn down the bond issue, the tax will still be collected and it most likely will still benefit the Arkansas Arts Center and the military museum.

The difference is, the money won't be available in a lump sum upfront. Officials say losing that lump sum would prevent any large-scale renovation.

Rather, if the bond issue is turned down, the revenue from the tax increase will come monthly in smaller amounts. The city board and the city's Advertising and Promotion Commission could still allocate that money to the Arts Center and the military museum.

In the Jacksonville area at a special election today, the new Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District is seeking a 7.6-mill property tax increase -- the proceeds from which would help finance the construction of $80 million in new and expanded school buildings.

The proposed tax increase would raise the rate in the district from 40.7 mills to 48.3 mills. The increase would cost the owner of a $50,000 home an additional $76 a year, while the owner of a $100,000 home would pay an additional $152 and the owner of a $200,000 home would pay an additional $304 a year.

The money from the millage increase would be combined with the district's existing 14.8 debt-services mills to pay the debt over 25 years on a $46 million bond issue. The district, which will include the Little Rock Air Force Base, will also seek state Partnership Program school building money and funding from the U.S. Department of Defense.

The building plan calls for a new $60 million high school for the district on the site of the now-vacant Jacksonville Middle School, and a new elementary school to replace both Tolleson and Arnold Drive elementaries. Each of the four remaining elementaries -- Bayou Meto, Pinewood, Murrell Taylor and Warren Dupree -- will be expanded to include a large multipurpose room. The current North Pulaski High will become home to the district's middle school in August.

A federal judge presiding in a long-running Pulaski County school desegregation lawsuit has approved the building plan as a means of equalizing the condition of the Jacksonville buildings with newer schools elsewhere in the Pulaski County Special School District. The judge, however, has also directed the new district to submit by the end of this year its plans for replacing Bayou Meto, Pinewood, Taylor and Dupree.

The Jacksonville district, the state's newest traditional district, will begin operating independently of the Pulaski County Special district -- from which it was carved -- on July 1.

Metro on 02/09/2016

Want to know the results of today's elections as soon as they are announced? Enter your email in the box below and select one or both elections. We will email you as soon as the results are finalized.

Upcoming Events