District’s Second Attempt at 5-Mill Increase Decided By 535-562 Margin
RISON - The Cleveland County School District’s request for a 5-mill tax increase to fund construction of a new gym, ex‐pand the school cafeteria, and renovate Rison Elementary failed by a 27-vote margin dur‐ing Tuesday’s special election.
The final, but unofficial, totals issued by County Clerk Jimmy Cummings showed 535 voting for the tax (48.8 percent) and 562 voting against it (51.2 per‐cent). The clerk’s office reported 1,097 votes were cast, equating to a voter turnout of 38.32 per‐cent of the 2,876 registered vot‐ers within the school district par‐ticipating in the election.
This was the second consecu‐tive year for the district to seek a 5-mill tax increase. Last year’s request failed by more than 100 votes: 501 for the tax and 613 against.
Superintendent Craig Dupuy, along with Cleveland County School Board President Harrell Wilson, did not arrive at the courthouse until after the final totals had already been an‐nounced.
“It’s deflating,” Dupuy said in the hallway outside the county clerk’s office at the courthouse. “I thought we had a good plan in place.”
After last year’s request failed, the school board came back early this year and culled two of the projects that were proposed last year: an eight-lane athletic track and a two-bay bus mainte‐nance facility. In addition, the seating capac‐ity of the proposed gym was re‐duced from 1,500 to 1,200 while about 4,000 square feet of space was included in the gym plans to accommodate new band and choir rooms.
This year’s proposal included two projects that were also on the last year’s ballot: doubling the seating capacity of the school cafeteria with a third serving line, and renovating the interior of Rison Elementary.
In addition, the school board was also planned to use some of the millage to convert the exist‐ing band room at Rison High School into a technology suite suitable for teaching robotics and other technology courses.
“I guess the voters are trying to say they are not that interested in getting behind (the proposed projects),” Dupuy said.
Dupuy said he did appreciate those who voted and noted that the margin was much closer this time than it was last year.
Despite Tuesday’s results, Dupuy said the school board can reassess the projects and per‐haps come back next year with another proposal.
“These buildings are not get‐ting any younger,” he said.
State law prevents school dis‐tricts from holding a millage election twice within a calendar (see DUPUY page 8) (continued from page 1) year. The next time the Cleve‐land County School District could put another question be‐fore voters would be in February 2023.
When asked why he felt this latest proposal failed, Dupuy said that he felt the current eco‐nomic conditions discouraged people from supporting a tax in‐crease.
The proposed 5-mill increase would have added about $1 per year for every $1,000 of a per‐son’s assessed property value.
Much like last year, there was a significant geographic dispar‐ity in support for the millage. Most of the voters in the former Rison School District supported it while those in the former Kingsland School District did not.
Of the results from the five polling sites located in the for‐mer Rison School District (Hall-Morgan Veterans Building, Hwy. 133 Fire Station, Macedo‐nia Missionary Baptist Church, Living Grace Church and Y Community Center), the total vote was 485 for the tax (75 per‐cent) and 158 against (25 per‐cent).
Of the results from the three polling locations in the former Kingsland School District (Kingsland Missionary Baptist, New Edinburg Community Cen‐ter and Macedonia Free Will Baptist), the total vote was 50 for the tax (11 percent) and 404 against (89 percent).
None of the eight polling sites exceeded 50 percent voter turnout for the election. The strongest turnout was in the Smith Township (Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church), where 48.95 percent of the reg‐istered voters participated in the special election. The lowest turnout was in the Bowman Township (Hwy. 133 Fire Sta‐tion), where only 20.47 percent of the registered voters partici‐pated in the millage election.
A total of 404 people voted during the one-week early vot‐ing period before Tuesday’s election.