Voting begins on GF millage increase

It’s been labeled many times over the past three months as a “need,” not a “want.”

Now, it’s in the hands of voters.

A proposed 6-mill increase for the Green Forest School District is on the ballot for residents of Green Forest to decide whether to help fund the construction of a new building to house students in grades 7 through 12.

Early voting will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. each day starting Wednesday, Nov. 12 through Friday, Nov. 14, and again on Monday, Nov. 17 at The Depot, 802 Broadway Ave.

Election Day voting will be held from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 18, at Green Forest United Methodist Church.

“Oh, I don’t want to jinx it, but I feel decent,” superintendent David Gilmore said Monday, Nov. 10. “There’s been a lot of support within the community. A lot people I’ve spoken to are alumni that have graduated in recent years and they know the condition of the buildings and they were like: ‘Hey, it was in bad shape when I was there.’ … So I’m hopeful.

“I’ve visited some of the churches and spoken to all the civic groups like the Elks and Kiwanis and have just been around all the businesses around town and tried to get the word out as much as I could and be a catalyst for the change in the buildings there, so I’m hopeful. I know the community loves the school and has a lot of pride in it. I feel like they’re going to come out and support us.”

The election will be the first time in 17 years that Green Forest residents have been asked to pass a millage increase. In that time, the district has managed to complete 14 facility upgrades to repair aging buildings dating as old as the 1920s and 1960s. The current high school building is 65 years old.

The money raised through the additional taxes, along with $9.990 million awarded from the state of Arkansas, would help fund the proposed $25 million facility.

“This project is a need, not a want,” Gilmore has said numerous times when educating the community about the need to pass the millage increase.

“We’ve not actually asked for an increase in our millage since 2008 in this district and we’ve done quite a few projects on our own here just by saving up money and being good stewards of our money,” Gilmore said. “We’ve done up to 14 pretty major projects here on campus but building a school is far above and beyond like repairing a roof or building a small structure, things like that.”

The Arkansas Division of Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation has a website and keeps track of schools on a regular basis, touring campuses across the state to make sure buildings are adequate for learning, Gilmore said.

“We’re getting to the point where it’s kind of that we’re at the end of that road with some of our current structures,” the superintendent said. “I looked on that website and it showed us to be number 12 out of 234 schools as in need of extra space and then we’re number 20 out of 982 in need of a warm, safe, building for our district.”

The current high school building has an array of issues, Gilmore said, including sagging floors and some restrooms that are inoperable. An ADA-compliant facility is also crucial, he said.

“The high school building has a lot of structural issues that we’ve had to repair,” Gilmore said. “We’ve got places in the floors that have sagged down quite a bit, several inches, where actually the floor has pulled away from the wall in certain places causing rodent issues and structural safety concerns.

“Over the years the district has actually three different times spent money up to $240,000 bringing the foundation back up to level, and it just keeps continuing to fall.

“There’s just a lot of issues with that building and it’s just time that we don’t continue to spend more and more money into it, throwing good money after bad, and it is time to replace those structures and get all of our kids back into a warm and safe structure.”

The new building would also help eliminate portable buildings that have been utilized for many years longer than the original plan, Gilmore said.

“We definitely need to ask for this millage within our community to be able to have a good, sound educational facility for our students in the future,” he said. “… We have trailer buildings in place on campus that are meant to be temporary, but from my records they have been here since 1989, and I know we have board members who are in their mid-40s and went to school in those classes. … It’s time to replace those and get those out of here and get our kids into a warm, safe, dry structure.”

The community has been receptive to the issue over recent weeks, Gilmore said.

“I’ve spent a lot of time at little coffee shops around town and whatnot, and a lot of people told me that at first they weren’t going to vote for it,” he said. “But now that I’ve been in there speaking with them and showed them what we’re wanting to do with it, and the fact that we condensed the size of the project to save some money on it, sharpened the pencil a bunch on it, they’re saying they’re going to vote for it now. So, I’m hopeful that will stand true and we’ll be able to get this passed and get some things going for the school district.”

A recent graphic by the district shows two potential sites for the proposed new building, but that could change once the locations are assessed if the millage passes, the superintendent said.

“There’s a couple of potential sites, and honestly none of that’s really even set in stone,” Gilmore said. “Engineers will have to do some core drilling and determine if those are even viable spots to build on. We don’t want to be in a situation like we’re in now where the foundations are failing for whatever reason if it’s not a good spot to build on. So, if those two don’t work, we’d have to find a plan C. We want make it work no matter what.

“We’re just trying to save money and build on property we already have, and use places that are close to our current facilities like cafeteria and the gyms and things like that so we don’t have to rebuild any of that space. But we did want to show the community that there are multiple sites there that we could build on. ”

Gilmore said the district didn’t want to spend money on having an architect to go through the assessment and design process until the millage passes.

“We just didn’t want to spend a lot of money on the front end, paying the architect to do design things and to do the core drilling,” he said. “If the millage doesn’t pass then I felt like that would have been wasted money.

“I just wanted to go through the process where we got the millage passed and then we design and determine the final building spot after that.”

CURRENTLY LOWEST MILLAGE RATE

According to information provided by Gilmore, Green Forest’s current tax rate of 36 mills is the lowest among 12 schools either in Carroll County or in the Tigers’ athletic conference.

Berryville, which has completed an array of building projects over the years, has a millage rate of 42.2 while Eureka Springs is at 36.1. The highest of the 12 schools mentioned in Gilmore’s report is Gentry in far northwest Benton County at 46 mills.

“The millage currently is 36, which is the lowest in our area in Carroll County between Berryville, Eureka Springs and Green Forest,” Gilmore said. “And I also checked compared to the athletic conference that we’re in, and we’re by far the lowest on that. We’re 36 mills. Berryville is currently at 42.2. They raised their millage several years back. And if you look at the facilities in Berryville compared to our facilities, they’ve done a really nice job of building some new facilities and replacing some of the older ones. And that’s where we’re at as a district. We’re ready to get to that point.”

Increasing the district’s millage by 6 mills won’t cost families as much as may be preconceived, Gilmore said.

“A mill is based off of your overall tax assessment,” he said. “We have a much lower tax assessment in Green Forest than even Berryville, or especially Eureka does, so our mills don’t bring in quite as much.”

Many property owners in the district will pay approximately an additional $9-$10 a month in property taxes if the 6 mills are approved, Gilmore said.

“Now is the time to build and we’ve really sharpened the pencil on this thing to bring down the amount of money we would have to ask for from the taxpayers,” he said.

A 72,000-square-foot, multi-story building would be built with plans to house seventh- and eight-grade students in one area and grades 9-12 in another.

A performing arts building is also in the plans, Gilmore said.

While the building will be for grades 7 through 12, younger students also would benefit from the project, the superintendent said.

“It’ll help those younger grades because we do have kids out in those older trailers,” he said. “We’d be able to move those kids inside and shift kids throughout the district in order to get everyone into an adequate, warm, dry structure. Yeah, our elementary school is a little bit older, but it’s still holding up good and doesn’t have the structural issues that our high school has.”

Taxpayers would be assured that what the district is planning and hoping for are educational needs without the “wants” of projects that other districts have executed over the years, Gilmore said.

“We’re not building athletic facilities and things like that,” he said. “You see a lot of schools doing things like that. And, you know, we would love to have those things and maybe someday. But, right now we need classroom space and that’s our main priority here. We’re just trying not to overwhelm the taxpayer and just ask for the minimum amount that we need.

“Anytime you ask, or you’re talking to people about a tax increase, it gets tough. It’s always a tough conversation. But, I do know a lot of people that keep saying: ‘Hey, our facilities are so far behind everybody else.’

“…If you go to other schools, they have giant gyms and turf football fields and the whole deal. We’re not trying to do all that. We are just trying to build space that is adequate for the future here without being a burden on the the taxpayer.”

Not doing anything could possibly jeopardize the district in many ways, Gilmore said.

“I’d hate to be in a situation where we’re no longer able to use these facilities and we’re scrambling to do something else and overall the state department can come in here if we don’t pass a millage within our community, they can actually come in and in certain situations they’ve had to remove the superintendent and remove the school board,” he said. “The state would build a new school facility for them, but then they take away all the extracurriculars, any of the athletics, the band, things like that. Anything that isn’t required to graduate, and they take that money and they put it toward paying them back for that school structure. I mean that’s obviously a worst-case scenario, and as you can imagine, that would be detrimental to our school district.”