Perryville Superintendent Walt Davis said he was elated after voters approved a 2.7-mill property-tax increase in Tuesday’s school election to fund a $3 million construction project.
Millage proposals failed in three other school districts in the River Valley & Ozark Edition coverage area — Vilonia, Heber Springs and Two Rivers.
Voters in Perryville approved the 2.7-mill property tax increase by a 2-1 margin — 279 for and 139 against. The district will build a cafetorium/safe room and add a cooling system to the gymnasium. The Perryville School District’s millage will increase from 34.98 mills to 37.68 mills.
“You just never know; it’s always hard to pass a tax. People are taxed to death,”
Davis said. “I really think it’s an unbelievable show of support for our community, for our students. I’m certainly elated that it was that resounding.”
The Perryville High School cafeteria was built in 1960, the superintendent said, and is too small. A larger cafetorium, which will include a safe room, will be built north of the current cafeteria.
The district will receive approximately $700,000 in state funding for the project, Davis said.
“We’re responsible for the rest. We were funded to build the cafeteria and thought it would be a great opportunity with the aid from the state to also get a safe room for our school and community,” he said. It will be the first public safe room in Perryville, he said.
The current cafeteria is 6,630 square feet, including the kitchen and a small stage; the new cafeteria will be about double that, 13,000 square feet-plus, with a larger stage to use for band and choir concerts and plays.
Davis said seating capacity in the new cafeteria will be 409 people with the tables, but it will accommodate more than 850 people in chairs and 1,000 people without tables or chairs.
The district received approval last year from the Arkansas Division of School
Academic Facilities and Transportation to tear down the present cafeteria after building another one.
The project includes adding a cooling system to the gymnasium, Davis said, which is less expensive than air conditioning.
“Facilities are about our students and our children, and we want to have the best facilities we can possibly have,” Davis said. “A community committed to a school and students — that’s a good community.”
Davis said the board will have to decide whether to hire a construction manager for the project.
Davis said construction should start in the spring and will take 12 to 18 months to complete.
In Vilonia, voters rejected a 5.7-mill property-tax increase to fund a $33 million three-phase construction project. The project included a 1,200-seat auditorium, renovations to the high school, and a career and
technical-education center.
The measure failed 719 to 1,122, according to complete but unofficial results.
Superintendent David Stephens said it was clear that some voters just didn’t want to pay more taxes.
“It boils down to just that — the majority of the people who voted did not want to see their taxes go up,” he said.
The property-tax increase would have cost an additional $114 a year for someone with a $100,000 home.
Vilonia pastor Wade Lentz said before the election that he had heard from many people who opposed the millage increase. He said the additional taxes would be a burden on the elderly and single mothers,
especially.
“We were thrilled that it did not pass,” Lentz said. “The thing is, this was a vote or an opposition not against the kids or education; this was a vote about taxes. I know the school tried to tie the two together, but the people did not link them together.”
Lentz said the tax increase, which was the largest requested in the school’s history, was too ambitious.
“In my opinion, the school board and the administration were absolutely swinging for the fences. They were trying to hit a 5.7-mill increase out of the park. What happened is, they hit a routine grounder to the second baseman, and they were thrown out by a country mile. It was not even close,” he said.
Stephens said the project was proposed in three phases to keep from asking for a higher increase.
“The cafeteria is needed just because we’re out of space, but it’s not part of our instructional program,” he said. It was part of the first phase.
Stephens said all the projects are needed, but he was particularly excited about the opportunities students would have with the establishment of a career-technical center.
The district has received $4.2 million in state aid, Stephens said, leaving the district responsible for nearly $29 million.
Also, the district was awarded a $1.5 million state partnership grant to go toward construction of the auditorium.
“We’ll lose that state-funding money. Our deadline for using that was Nov. 27 — that money is no longer on the table.”
Lentz said, “I think they are needed in a sense that [the district needs] to better budget for it. There’s a lot of wasted money. If there’s really such a dire need, then they should have been budgeting this along the way. Instead of buying $1.2 million in acreage that at this point is not a need, why did they not put that toward these needs?”
Stephens said the district did not spend $1.2 million for the property.
“The total for all of it, with surveying and assessment, was $737,462,” Stephens said. “That was for a parcel that was 18.8 acres east of the high school and 26 acres south of the middle school.
“We bought the land for future growth in the district because we are pretty landlocked,” he said.
The superintendent said the land was needed, “regardless of whether this [millage increase] passed,” for growth, “even 10 to 15 years from now.”
As for Lentz’s comment that there is wasted money, Stephens disagrees.
“I don’t believe we have wasted money; we run a pretty tight budget every year. We’re just always looking for ways to make our budget leaner,” he said. “We’re pretty lean right now.”
Laura Patrom, a mother of three children in the Vilonia School District, was disappointed about the election outcome, too. She was a member of the Vilonia School District Millage Committee that worked to pass the increase.
“It’s disappointing, obviously, but it’s not going to keep us from continuing to fight for our students and fight for education and fight for our community,” Patrom said.
The former teacher said she thinks residents felt overwhelmed by taxes.
“Society as a whole that we live in today is not willing to invest taxes, invest so much in education anymore, and I don’t know why,” Patrom said. “In my opinion, it’s absolutely worth the investment, and education should be a priority in our community.”
Stephens said the committee “worked incredibly hard and demonstrated consistent integrity.”
“Also, just the voter turnout itself was a great example of our community’s desire to get out there and make their votes known and be invested in the community. The positive thing at the end of the day was the participation we had in the election process,” he said.
In the Heber Springs School District, voters rejected a 3.6-mill increase, from 32.8 mills to 36.4 mills, for maintenance and operation, and to increase teacher and staff salaries and benefits.
The millage issue failed 549 to 1,072.
Superintendent Alan Stauffacher said the plan was to give 160 teachers each a $4,000 raise and increase the salaries of classified employees, too. The superintendent also said some custodians make $8 or $9 per hour.
“We were just trying to be competitive,” he said.
“Our school district, out of 235 school districts — we are 20th from the bottom as far as lowest millages. We are the largest school district in Cleburne County, and we pay very low, as far as surrounding schools, and we were losing employees to surrounding school districts.”
He said starting salaries in the Heber Springs School District for teachers with no experience or advanced degrees is $31,550.
Stauffacher said Rose Bud pays the most of the surrounding school districts. The base pay in the Rose Bud School District is $35,650, according to its website. Stauffacher estimated that 12 teachers have left for positions at school districts “in driving distance” from Heber Springs. “It’s really hard for me to tell you that we lost this many because of salaries,” he said.
“My deal is just to try to recruit and retain the best people we can,” he said.
He also said three applicants the district wanted to hire turned down the jobs once they learned the salaries.
Stauffacher said immediate opposition arose to the millage proposal, and signs were placed around town asking people to vote against the request.
“There really were a lot of factors working against us — timing, [real estate] reassessment — a lot of people had gotten notifications of reassessment. The district had passed a millage increase about three years prior to that, so that probably had some bearing on that,” he said.
Board President Rick Gardner agreed that trying to pass a millage increase so soon after the last one was a factor.
That property-tax increase funded capital improvements, including a fine arts center.
“We’re very proud of that; the community is very proud of that,” he said. “Trying to do another one again that quick was a bit of a challenge. There was a lot of very vocal united opposition to the proposal, to the millage. They did a good job of fighting.”
Stauffacher also blamed negative media coverage for the loss.
He said he doesn’t foresee seeking a millage increase for salaries again. “It was defeated pretty soundly,” he said. “I’ve had some questions about us trying it again. Some environmental factors might have to change. It would be a really uphill battle to get something approved.
“We’ve got to regroup; we’re still going to do school and do it to the best of our ability.”
Stauffacher said the defeat has affected employee morale. “I tried to send some encouraging emails to our staff this morning. I think there were a lot of hurt feelings. It’s hard to do their jobs when they don’t feel a great deal of support in the community,” he said.
A message posted Wednesday on the school district’s website states, “We would like to thank everyone who took the time to vote yesterday. I especially would like to thank those who shared the dream and desire that our students deserve to be surrounded by the very best!”
Voters in the Two Rivers School District were asked to extend a millage to pay for a safe room at the elementary school. The proposal was defeated, 487 against to 342 for, according to a story in Thursday’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The Two Rivers School District serves Yell and Perry counties, but the campus is in Yell County.
According to the article, Perry County election officials will file a complaint with the state Board of Election Commissioners alleging that the Two Rivers School District denied patrons in that county a chance to vote.
Perry County Election Commission Chairman Jeffery Olmsted said in the article that the school district failed to notify voters in Perry County of Tuesday’s election, and some Perry County voters had to drive 45 minutes to cast ballots at one of three polling places in Yell County.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.