The Little Rock School District has postponed indefinitely a special March 14 election on a proposed 14-year extension of existing property tax mills to finance a new high school and improvements at other campuses.
Delaying the special election will enable architects who are designing the new high school in southwest Little Rock "to receive additional input from stakeholders and incorporate plans for greater community access to a playing field and walking track at the campus," district leaders said in a written statement Friday morning.
"This is a temporary delay," Superintendent Mike Poore said. "The needs of [the school district] are real and we must move forward if we are serious about supporting all children in the district with learning environments that have appropriate lighting, heating, cooling and window renovations, among other improvements."
Pam Adcock, president of the Southwest Little Rock United for Progress community organization, said Friday that a representative of the architecture firm designing the new high school campus had asked to meet with the group in January but then asked to change the meeting date to Feb. 6 so that Poore could also attend.
The organization's meetings are open to the public and are at 6:30 p.m. on the first Monday of each month at the Southwest Community Center, 6400 Baseline Road.
Adcock said her questions to district leaders go beyond plans for a playing field and walking track at the new campus, which would replace McClellan High, 9417 Geyer Springs Road, and J.A. Fair High, 13420 David O. Dodd Road. She also wants to know what will be done with the two existing high schools and Cloverdale Middle School.
In the past, consultants suggested to the district that the McClellan site be converted to a middle school to replace the existing Cloverdale Middle School.
More recently, Poore has raised the possibility of converting McClellan High to a kindergarten through eighth-grade campus. Adcock said she learned of that possibility from news accounts. She questioned which existing elementary schools in the southwest part of the city might be closed as a result of such a plan.
"Whatever happens with the new school is going to affect some other schools in other neighborhoods," Adcock said.
Adcock also said Friday that she thought it was "smart" of the school district to delay the March 14 election.
"I don't think it would have passed this soon," she said. "Giving us the honest answers: honest answers -- that's the only way anything is going to get accomplished. As long as I have qualms or I feel like I'm not getting the true story, I couldn't support it, and I've always supported the schools."
Earlier this month, Poore and his staff asked Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key to approve the district's plan to hold a special election on extending 12.4 debt-service mills to the year 2047. Those mills are set to expire in 2033.
Key, who acts as the school board for the Little Rock district that operates under state control because some schools fell into an academic distress category, approved the election plans. He said it was clear to him that "significant needs exist for the construction and renovation of district facilities."
The district's proposed tax extension would not increase the district's total 46.4-mill property-tax rate, but it would result in taxpayers continuing to pay the same rate for more years.
The revenue generated by the extra years of the 12.4 debt-service mills would be used to help finance construction costs. The district would issue $202,645,000 in construction bonds that would be paid off over 30 years. The money to pay off that debt would come from both the 12.4-mill extension and the refinancing of existing debt-service bonds.
The district also levies 32 mills for maintenance and operation of the district -- the revenue from which is used to pay salaries and bills, and 2 mills for dedicated maintenance and operation, the money from which is used for upkeep of technology systems.
About $160 million of the $202.6 million would be new money that could go toward the construction of the high school, which is expected to cost as much as $90 million, and improvements elsewhere in the state's largest district. The remainder of the $202.6 million would be used to continue paying off previously issued bonds, as well as support second-lien bonds in the future.
District leaders have been working with the Polk, Stanley, Wilcox architecture firm on the design of a high school for as many as 2,250 ninth- through 12th-graders on a 55-acre site between Mabelvale Pike and Mann Road. The district has owned the land that is behind the Home Depot and Wal-Mart stores since 2013.
Planning for a millage election has come at a time when the 24,000-student district -- including pre-kindergarten pupils -- is facing an $11 million cut in its $340 million budget for next school year -- part of a multiyear effort to offset the loss of $37.3 million in annual state desegregation aid.
To that end, Poore and his staff this week asked Key to approve for the 2017-18 school year and beyond the closing of four schools, one of which would be re-purposed.
Poore has said the district has promised to build the new high school.
Metro on 01/28/2017