LITTLE ROCK — The North Little Rock School Board approved a $261 million, five-year facilities plan Tuesday with some uncertainty over how the district will fund the proposal.
The board will determine by June if it will ask voters in the fall or spring to approve a 7.4 mill school property-tax increase that will be necessary to fund the proposal. The district’s current rate is 40.9 mills.
The approval would set into place five years of construction that would update, close or redirect nearly every building in the district.
“I am certainly confident that we have done our due diligence in gathering information and creating this plan,” Superintendent Ken Kirspel told the board.
The plan, drafted by Kansas-based DLR Group, also requires the district to contribute to building projects through $10.6 million of annual operational savings that would be achieved through reducing staff and operating costs by closing some schools.
During the meeting, board members expressed some hesitation about approving a plan that relies so heavily on a tax increase after Kirspel said he wasn’t certain the district could achieve $9.6 million in savings.
“Is $9.6 million possible ?”he said. “I don’t know, but it’s certainly a lot higher than I thought would be realistic.”
The board later amended the plan, voting to close Lynch Drive Elementary School in place of Glenview Elementary School, a change that added an additional $1 million to the district’s financial responsibilities, bringing them to $10.6 million.
“I’m scared we can’t meet the gap, so then we’ll have to back off a bit and not deliver on what we promised,” board member Scott Teague said.
The board ultimately approved the plan unanimously, citing a Sunday deadline to submit it to the state to qualify for state partnership funds, which would cover 41 percent of new construction and renovation projects, or $63.8 million.
The next submission deadline for these funds is in 2015.
The Arkansas Commission for Public School Facilities and Transportation will review the projects, deciding whether to give preliminary approval in the fall and final approval in spring 2013, district financial adviser Scott Beardsley said.
If approved by the state, the plan will become the district’s new state-recognized strategic facilities plan, he said. Employees from the state facilities commission will monitor tax votes necessary to fund the plan, potentially requiring changes from the district if those votes repeatedly fail, Beardsley said.
“If you vote tonight that you need these facilities, the facilities department is going to expect you to provide them,” he said.
Kevin Greischar of the DLR Group told the board to anticipate construction costs increasing 5 percent for every year that it delayed the plan beyond the original 2011 start date.
The plan’s largest project is a $113.8 million replacement and renovation of the west campus of North Little Rock High School, which will shift from a junior-senior-only campus to educating grades nine through 12.
It also calls for reducing the district’s 13 existing elementary schools to nine.
Under the proposal:
Amboy and Belwood elementaries will combine in a new Amboy building.
Meadow Park and Lynch Drive elementaries will combine in a new Meadow Park building.
Pike View and Redwood elementaries will combine in a renovated building that formerly housed the district’s prekindergarten programs, which will be distributed in elementary schools around the district.
North Heights and Park Hill elementaries will move into a renovated building that formerly housed Ridge Road Middle School.
Boone Park, Lakewood, Crestwood, Glenview, Seventh Street and Indian Hills elementary schools will be renovated.
A new middle school building will educate grades six through eight.
The district, monitored by a federal judge in a 28-year-old desegregation case, will submit the plan to federal monitors for review, Kirspel said last week.
The Arkansas Department of Education has classified the district in fiscal distress, a status that allows the department more careful monitoring of the district’s finances.
If the Arkansas Board of Education decides to uphold that classification in May, the plan would also require state approval before any money could be spent on the projects, Kirspel said.
Maintenance Director Jerry Massey told the board the district’s current buildings, the newest of which was constructed in 1969, are in desperate need of replacement and updating.
“We’ve been patching and putting Band Aids on things,” he said. “That’s how we got in this situation.”
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 04/27/2011