RISON - Superintendent Craig Dupuy laid out five different scenarios for the Cleveland County School Board to consider regarding facilities during a special workshop held Monday night at the administration building in Rison.
Monday’s meeting came in the wake of a conference that Dupuy and School Board President Harrell Wilson had with state officials on Sept. 14 concerning the defeat of a 5-mill tax increase in August that would funded some of the projects included in the school district’s Facilities Master Plan.
Both received a certified letter from the state informing them that Arkansas Code 6-21-811 requires a school district to have a conference with the Arkansas Division of Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation Commission when a district “failed to pass a millage required to fulfill its obligation under the school district’s facilities Master Plan.”
The Master Plan referred to in the letter is a plan that school districts are required to submit on a regular basis detailing the current conditions of the district’s facilities and what plans the district has to address facility issues in the future.
Dupuy said the district must submit a written response within 60 days after receiving a fol‐low up letter from the state after their conference in Little Rock. He said the deadline for that response is Nov. 19. In an interview after the meeting, Dupuy said the district’s response does not have to list specific actions the district will take. It only needs to provide an general overview of how the district plans to to address and possibly fund those projects.
Dupuy presented each of the school board members Monday night with a packet put together by Jason Holsclaw of Stephens, Inc., the district’s financial adviser, and district’s architect, Steve Elliott of Little Rock.
The packet included five scenarios as the district could take in regards to addressing its facilities. T...
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