Contributions to a campaign for a tax extension in the Little Rock School District ultimately totaled $80,900, according to a final postelection financial report sent to the Arkansas Ethics Commission.
The contributors to the Rebuild Our Schools Now campaign included local architects, contractors and attorneys who do business with the district, former school board members and prominent business leaders.
The organized opposition, in contrast, raised $3,671 in what turned out to be a successful effort to defeat the tax extension.
The proposal to extend the district's existing levy of 12.4 debt service mills by 14 years, from 2033 to 2047, was soundly defeated in a May 9 special election.
District leaders had proposed the extension as a way to raise $160 million for a new high school in southwest Little Rock and improvements to other campuses without increasing the annual taxes, although property owners would pay the same tax rate for a longer time.
The Citizens Against Taxation Without Representation campaign objected to extending the levy and increasing the school district's bond debt at a time when the state-controlled district is operating without a locally elected school board to hold accountable for how the money would be spent.
The $80,900 raised to support the push for the tax extension is more than twice the $30,499 in contributions reported through May 2. Campaigns must submit final reports within 30 days of the election date.
"The business community obviously believes that the school district is one of the main inhibitors, or could be driver, for economic development in the city and the growth of the city," Gary Smith, president of Glass Erectors and chairman of the Rebuild Our Schools Now, said Wednesday about the total contributions.
Smith said he initially thought a successful campaign for the tax extension would require even more than the $80,900 that was raised.
"Now, I'm not so sure -- based on the passion of those against, coupled with the anti-taxers and those who have totally ceased voting in millage elections -- that any amount of money would have been enough to overcome those three things," Smith said.
The money was used to pay for campaign expenses that included the printing and mass mailing of fliers to homes.
Despite the intensity of the campaign before the May 9 vote, the turnout was about 5,000 fewer than it was when voters passed a 3-mill tax increase for the district in 2000, Smith said Wednesday.
"That tells me that a lot of people have just moved on and are not interested. That's unfortunate."
The vote on the 12.4-mill tax extension was 7,184 opposed to 3,941 in favor.
Stephens Inc. executive Warren Stephens' contribution of $5,000 was among the donations listed in the most recent campaign-finance report. Nabholz Construction of Conway gave $5,000, as did the Friday, Eldredge & Clark law firm; Baldwin & Shell construction; Polk, Stanley & Wilcox architects; the Greater Little Rock Chamber of Commerce; and First Security Bank of Searcy. Fifty for the Future, an organization of business leaders, contributed $8,000. Former Little Rock School Board member Melanie Fox, a current member of the district's Community Advisory Board, donated $2,000.
Jim Ross, who was displaced as a Little Rock School Board member in the state's 2015 takeover of the district and a leader of the opposition to the millage extension, expressed astonishment Wednesday at the amount of donations to the supporters' campaign.
"Holy cow," Ross said. "For almost $1,000, I owned Facebook for 30 days," he said. "I had ads running every day."
Supporters of the Little Rock tax extension were not alone in raising thousands in support of tax plans. Supporters of a Bentonville tax increase in May raised $62,549, the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette reported Wednesday.
The Pulaski County Special School District held a June 13 election on extending 14.8 mills by 13 years. Campaigners raised an initial $32,250 before that vote approving the extension that will raise money to expand Sylvan Hills High. A final report on the campaign contributions, however, is not due until later this month.
Since the defeat of the Little Rock district's proposed tax extension, school district leaders are taking steps to carry out a Plan B for financing campus improvements.
The district is applying to the Arkansas Board of Education for authority to issue $92,055,000 in second-lien bonds, some of the money from which would help pay for a new high school in southwest Little Rock, as well as the most urgent of needed repairs and updates at other schools.
The second-lien bonds don't require voter approval and can be repaid using existing district revenue. That revenue includes new money -- as much as $5 million a year -- generated by anticipated increases in assessed property values in the state's largest school district.
The ongoing efforts to raise money for a new high school to replace McClellan and J.A. Fair high schools, and make other improvements, comes at a time when Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key -- who serves in place of the school board in the state-controlled district -- and Superintendent Mike Poore are defendants in a federal lawsuit.
That lawsuit filed by a team of attorneys headed by John Walker alleges in part that there are racially based inequities in the conditions of school buildings in the district. Ross is among the plaintiffs in that case.
U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. has set a hearing in that case for the week of July 17.
Smith said the extension of the 12.4 mills could have solved a lot of problems in the district, including those talked about the lawsuit.
Leaders of the two campaigns have opinions about the motives of their opponents.
"I'm intrigued with the people who gave money to it," Ross said. "Those are the same people who have not really been involved in our schools for the last 30 years. I'd like to know what their real motives were. It appears to me that it was about construction dollars and not so much about kids. I'd like to see those same people give $80,000 to a reading intervention program that we have been yelling about for five years."
The No Taxation Without Representation organization is opposed to the issuing of second-lien bonds, which would increase the district's annual debt payment from what will be $14.2 million a year as it stands now to $18.4 million through 2033.
Smith said he is "about convinced" that people aren't willing to come to any agreements on facility funding.
"It has not much to do about the kids and more to do about control at this point," he said. "That's about it."
Metro on 07/06/2017