120 days the target for districts to hit deal

Chief Financial Officer Bill Goff (left) and Superintendent Jerry Guess of the Pulaski County Special School District, answer questions during a meeting Thursday of the state Board of Education.
Chief Financial Officer Bill Goff (left) and Superintendent Jerry Guess of the Pulaski County Special School District, answer questions during a meeting Thursday of the state Board of Education.

Leaders of the Jacksonville/North Pulaski and Pulaski County Special districts now have 120 days to reach agreement on key issues regarding the eventual detachment of the fledgling Jacksonville system from the larger district.

The Arkansas Board of Education on Thursday approved an operating agreement between the districts, triggering the 120-day planning deadline to resolve matters involving money, staffing and school board election zones for the new district.

The Education Board approved the operating agreement at the same meeting in which Arkansas Education Commissioner Tony Wood signaled that the release of the Pulaski County Special district from state control of its finances is on the horizon.

The district has been in fiscal distress, operating with a state-appointed superintendent and without a locally elected school board since June 2011.

The detachment of the Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District from the Pulaski County Special district -- and the potential release of the Pulaski County Special district from state control of its finances -- are tied together.

Jerry Guess, superintendent of the Pulaski County Special district, told the state Education Board on Thursday that the formation of a new district out of an existing district "exposes both districts to great risks financially."

Guess said planning for the new district must be done well to protect both districts and that the next 18 months will be critical.

Jacksonville and north Pulaski County area residents voted in September to form their own school district out of the Pulaski County Special district. The state Board of Education issued an order in November creating the new district but directed that it remain under the administration of the Pulaski County Special district while officials plan for the transfer of staff, property and other assets.

The operating agreement, now approved by both the state Education Board and by U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr., who is the presiding judge in the 34-year-old Pulaski County school desegregation lawsuit, sets terms for leaders of the two districts to work together until the new district can operate independently.

The five-page agreement states that the Pulaski County Special district and the state education commissioner are financially responsible for the Jacksonville/North Pulaski district until the district is detached. Until that time, the Pulaski County Special district and the Jacksonville district are one unit, and the Pulaski County Special district is the controlling district.

According to the terms of the agreement, the Pulaski County Special district will work to prepare the Jacksonville/North Pulaski district to be fully staffed and operational on the first day of its independent operation -- which could be up to two years away.

"The goal of the PCSSD administration will be a turn key job," says the agreement prepared by attorneys and leaders of the two districts.

The agreement calls for the state education commissioner to select a superintendent-designate and other personnel as needed for the Jacksonville/North Pulaski district in consultation with the interim school board. The Pulaski County Special district will employ those people.

The interim board has selected Bobby Lester to be the superintendent-designate, Phyllis Stewart to be chief of staff, and Patrick Wilson to act as the new district's attorney. Lester is a former superintendent of the Pulaski County Special district.

The agreement further states that the Pulaski County Special district will be the employer of people who are assigned to the new Jacksonville/North Pulaski district until the new district is fully operational.

During the remainder of 2014-15, the superintendent designate will be an integral participant in all decisions regarding employment, termination and disciplining of employees assigned to the schools that are in the new district. Beginning in 2015-16, the superintendent-designate shall initiate those decisions in consultation with the Pulaski County Special district superintendent.

The issues to be decided within 120 days by leaders of the two districts include a plan for creating school board election zones in the new district and a determination of the property tax rate necessary to operate the new district. The Pulaski County Special district tax rate is 40.7 mills, which will apply in the new district unless there is a public vote to change it. Also to be decided is a plan for distributing real and personal property, assets, liabilities, duties and responsibilities for the two districts.

In regard to the Pulaski County Special district's fiscal distress status, Guess and Bill Goff, the district's chief financial officer, will send to the state Department of Education later this month a detailed plan for how the district will budget for the loss of $20.8 million a year in state desegregation aid. That aid will be discontinued after the 2017-18 school year.

"Once they have submitted that ... there will be consideration given and discussion at the appropriate time for the Pulaski County Special district to be returned to local control," Wood said.

"That discussion will be ongoing this spring," Wood said. "I just thought it would be appropriate to mention it today."

Goff said that preliminary budget information indicates that the district can deal with the loss of the desegregation funding and deal with the detachment of the Jacksonville area and the funding that goes with it, "and maintain the fiscal integrity of the district."

"That sounds real simple," Goff said. "There are a lot of details that go with it. Putting together a plan and implementing it are two different things. Over the coming 18 months, a lot of hard decisions will have to be made."

A Section on 01/09/2015

Upcoming Events