Steady growth in enrollment over the past several years in the Bryant School District and a projected increase of 3,200 students within the next eight years has led school officials to seek a millage increase.
District patrons will be asked to vote March 14 on a 3.6-mill increase that would raise Bryant's millage rate from 37.2 mills to 40.8 mills. Early voting begins March 7 in the Saline County town.
"People are moving to the district because of the school," Bryant School District spokesman Devin Sherrill said. "But we need more buildings to handle that growth."
The district projects enrollment will increase from the current 9,300 students to 12,500 by 2025.
If passed, the millage will fund construction of a new elementary school on Daley Road by next year, a junior high school the year after that and a second elementary school building by 2021.
The district also will build a fine arts building and a high school cafeteria and create a three-year salary plan to recruit and retain teachers.
If the millage passes, owners of homes assessed at $150,000 would see an annual increase of $108 a year in property taxes, Sherrill said.
Voters turned down a 4.9-mill increase in 2015 by eight votes when more than 5,200 people voted.
"A lot of people thought it was a no-brainer that it would pass then," said Jeremiah Oltmans, chairman of Keep Bryant Schools Moving, a group that supports passage of the millage. "They didn't go out to vote. Now they know their vote does count."
The issue has become heated in the town of 19,340. Several campaign signs supporting the increase have been spray-painted with the word "Tax" and a circle with a slash through it.
Kenny Wallis, the leader of a group that opposes the tax, has criticized Superintendent Tom Kimbrell's $203,000 annual salary and said the money the school district already has could be better spent.
"When you increase taxes, you decrease business," said Wallis, a freelance video photographer who lives in Maumelle and cannot vote in the election because he lives outside the Bryant School District. "When you increase property taxes, people will look at prices before moving here. An increase would hurt us."
Wallis said by keeping millages lower, more people will move into the Bryant School District.
"That makes no sense," Oltmans said of Wallis' idea. "We have plenty of growth. It's faster than we can keep up with."
Oltmans, who is a managing broker at Crye-Leike Real Estate Services in Bryant, said 17 new housing developments are under construction in the school district.
"We need to head off that growth," he said. "Our elementary schools are filled to capacity and we're funneling students into one high school."
He said overcrowding in the school's cafeteria has forced school officials to schedule five lunch periods. Many students eat outside because of the lack of room, he said.
Oltmans said he and his wife voted against the millage increase in 2015, but he said he "educated himself" about the district's needs.
"That's why I decided to chair this effort," he said.
Wallis said the school district would be $96 million in debt if the millage passes, because of its construction projects. He said there "were other ways" to obtain funds for building.
"The overall school district needs reform," Wallis said. "The way to do that is to grow the community by lowering taxes."
Both said they will campaign heavily for their causes in the weeks before the election.
Oltmans said he will continue putting up signs and holding community meetings about the millage.
Wallis plans on doing door-to-door canvassing of neighborhoods, sending news releases to media and having members of his group telephone registered voters to ask them to vote against the increase.
State Desk on 02/27/2017