Financially struggling Henderson State University plans to issue revenue bonds for $1 million to complete "emergency repairs" to Smith Hall, an aging residence hall.
Trustee Eddie Arnold voted against the plan. Trustee Brown Hardman was present for the conference-call meeting but said later he did not vote on the measure, which carries a 5.25 percent interest rate.
Arnold said in an interview Thursday that the board should have pursued another option since, he said, the residence hall, which opened in 1965, is "obsolete" and should instead be torn down.
The vote followed an admonition from Trustee Johnny Hudson for trustees to refrain from "negative" comments.
"This has got to be done," Hudson said during the Tuesday meeting. "I want us all to be on the same page and all be very positive."
With the final weeks underway before enrollment wraps up for the fall semester at the Arkadelphia campus, Hudson said, "We don't need any negative [comments] coming out of the board."
No one spoke against the proposal during the meeting.
Board Chairman Bruce Moore said the board has made it "loud and clear" that Smith Hall, now a women's dormitory, needs repairs to address the building's old air-conditioning system and falling bricks.
"This is an action that the board needs to move forward with," Moore said.
Henderson, which had 3,336 students in the fall 2017 semester, has seen declining enrollment in recent years and entered fiscal 2018 with a $3.2 million deficit. In May, the board approved a balanced budget for fiscal 2019.
In a report to the Higher Learning Commission accrediting agency last month, Henderson said it expects student enrollment, graduate and undergraduate, to increase slightly this fall.
The university has not been using Smith Hall's seventh and eighth floors because the air-conditioning system won't keep them cool. The repair plan calls for reopening only the seventh floor, said Brett Powell, HSU's vice president for finance and administration.
Powell told the board that the school needs to use the rest of the dorm since more students are expected this fall.
Arnold said he hopes enrollment is up but said, "I'll believe it when I see it."
He said he would have preferred the university pursue options other than repairing Smith Hall. For one thing, he said the school could have rented some student housing from Ouachita Baptist University, which is across the street from Henderson.
"We've still got other dorms. I don't understand why we can't absorb 130 students," Arnold said, adding that aging dorms are one reason enrollment has declined.
Asked about Hudson's admonition, Arnold said, "If Mr. Hudson thinks we should all be in agreement 100 percent of the time on every decision that's made at Henderson, I don't think that's going to ever apply to some board members. We certainly have different opinions about where dorms should be built and how much money is being spent on dorms.
"That doesn't mean we're not supporting Henderson," Arnold said. Rather, it just means the trustees "have different opinions" on how the board spends money and on the university's direction.
Arnold said he lived in Newberry Hall, which opened in 1968, when it was new. "It was horrible then" and still is, he said.
"These dorms were obsolete when they went up," Arnold said, referring to Smith and Newberry residence halls.
Students in Smith Hall must share a common bathroom, he said.
Arnold said he taught at Henderson in the late 1970s.
Students "didn't like the dorms then, and they don't like them now," he said.
Southern Bancorp Bank, a development partner of Southern Bancorp Inc., plans to buy the bonds and was the only bidder, Powell said.
Henderson President Glen Jones is board chairman of Southern Bancorp Inc. Arnold said he did not see a problem with that since the bank was the only bidder.
State Desk on 07/23/2018