School upgrade money tied to local contribution
Posted on Wednesday, January 25, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/143714/
SPRINGDALE — With 642 high school students using a building designed for 500 and elementary support staff doing office work in a renovated closet, conditions in the Huntsville School District are cramped.
So word Monday of $ 5. 75 million in state aid for a new high school and other facility improvements brought a feeling of relief to Superintendent Alvin Lievsay.
“It’s kind of like taking the lid off a steam pressure cooker,” Lievsay said. “You let the steam out at the top, and it opens up room at every level.”
The Arkansas Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation Commission conditionally approved $ 86 million Monday for more than 200 school improvement projects across the state, said Julie Johnson Thompson, spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Education.
All of the projects require contributions from the local districts, which combined add up to more than $ 300 million in improvements to Arkansas schools. State-level teams still need to visit individual districts to verify the needs claimed on the applications, Thompson said.
Springdale School District received the highest single allotment in the state — just more than $ 8. 2 million — to build three new elementary schools.
Sen. Shane Broadway, DBryant, who has led legislative efforts to upgrade school buildings, said that the money goes a long way toward answering the Arkansas Supreme Court mandate to improve public schools.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” he said. “But it’s not going to happen overnight.”
In Benton and Washington counties, the money will primarily help school districts accommodate burgeoning student populations.
“Growth is driving all this,” said Ashley Kelley, spokesman for the Rogers School District.
Rogers received $ 463, 081 for classroom additions at five elementary schools.
“It’s really just about having enough classrooms for all the kids that enroll,” she said.
Springdale administrators are earmarking their allotment to build three new K-5 elementary schools. Each will hold 780 students.
Springdale’s student population is projected to double by 2015, with 1, 500 new students this year alone, said Springdale Assistant Superintendent Ron Bradshaw.
“And it’s a tremendous amount of money that goes into these buildings,” said Bradshaw. “We’ve got to have some help somewhere, because we can’t just continue to take money out of our own pockets because it’s just too big.”
Each allotment was tied directly to the district’s wealth index. The wealth index reflects the revenue each district generates via local property taxes. Consequently, districts with more significant tax base reserves received a smaller percent of the overall pie.
The Bentonville School District, for example, received $ 762, 539 to go toward the $ 11 million Centerton-Gamble Elementary School project scheduled to open in August.
“So, in actuality, this is just going to help pay for the upcharges, the inflationary costs that we are going to incur on the back end. And there are always contingencies that come up that you don’t anticipate,” said Joe Haynie, school district facilities director. “It doesn’t take long to eat up any money that’s left over.”
Largely due to the weight put on the wealth index, not all school districts in Northwest Arkansas received money.
The Fayetteville School District — which applied for funds to support a $ 3 million, nine-school renovation project — will not receive construction funds.
Associate Superintendent Mike Gray said the district was offered $ 14, 000 in help from the state, but the district deemed the offer too skimpy to go ahead with the project.
“I won’t say it’s unfair, but I’ll say that there’s a perception that our schools are wealthy in Northwest Arkansas, and that we have everything that we need,” Gray said. “But we don’t have a lot of dollars right now to go toward these major repairs.”
Some districts need to secure local matches through March referendums to secure the promised state dollars. Huntsville voters must sign off on a 7. 5-mill increase, which would cost the owner of a $ 100, 000 home an extra $ 150 annually, to receive the state allotment. “If we don’t pass it,” Lievsay said, “we’ll go out right away and look for portables.” Thompson said state-mandated 10-year construction master plans are due from school districts in February. After those plans are received, another installment of construction money from the state should follow in May, she said.
To contact this reporter : jkrupa@arkansasonline. com