School board bond election: One last look at $17.5 million proposal
The Lincoln Parish School Board hopes to issue bonds to finance a package of capital projects and pay the bonds back by continuing to levy an existing 16.75-mill property tax in the Ruston attendance zone through 2028.
A $2 million proposal for classroom additions in the Choudrant school zone, along with a 7-year tax extension to pay for it, is also on the ballot Saturday.
“I think every project we have on there is much needed, been needed for a while,” schools Superintendent Ricky Durrett said. “I hope the voters will all make informed decisions and hopefully support this and continue to help us in moving the Lincoln Parish School Board forward in the Ruston and Choudrant districts.”
About $12.2 million of the Ruston tax revenue would be spent on four athletics facility upgrades for Ruston High. Another $2.45 million would fund security upgrades at the high school and junior high. Roof repairs at RHS would run another $1 million, parking expansions at both sites would total $630,000, and another $900,000 would pay for activity buses that each Ruston school would share.
A second try
District staff came up with this package after voters rejected a more wide-reaching $65 million proposal one year ago.
Some of the same projects were included then, but concerns were raised over an elementary school consolidation plan that made up the bulk of last year’s package.
“These are the things we heard last year that people wanted to be able to support,” Durrett said. “ We took those things that we heard back from the community on, and we tried to put that with some other needs we had to get something the community could back.”
Officials have presented Saturday’s proposal as Phase 1 of a two- part plan for district schools. Phase 2 would involve bringing in a third-party consultant to evaluate the district and its campuses and make recommendations for the future of all the facilities, a process that would take multiple years.
As the district held a series of meetings to inform the public of its plans for the bond proposal, a few critics wondered if the twopart plan was a roundabout means to achieve the same controversial school consolidation voters disapproved last year.
“We have no plan right of now of what to do in Phase 2,” Durrett said. “ That’s why we want a fresh set of eyes to advise the board, and the board and community would still have input from there.
“(The two-phase plan) was to show everybody, ‘We heard what you said last year, so these are the projects we think you’d support, and the rest we need to put more thought into.’”
Athletics projects
Leading the athletics package is a $5 million, multi-purpose, covered pavilion with a turf field that would be built just north of the RHS football stadium.
The football, soccer, baseball, softball, and cheer teams, as well as the band, would use the field for practices, which would aid in scheduling, protect students from the elements and keep athletes cooler during the summer.
The softball team’s old field on Bittersweet Avenue would be receive some $3.5 million in renovations in order to move the team out of the Ruston Sports Complex and back to its own facility. Supporters say the move would get the softball team in line with what the boys have.
What the boys have would also be upgraded, to the tune of $2.2 million in repairs and renovations to the baseball field. The backstop has seen storm damage and has been given temporary repairs. This project would take it down and install new stadium-like seating.
Another $1.5 million would be put into further renovations to the RHS gym, adding boys and girls basketball dressing rooms.
“I think if we get these done, this puts our athletics facilities in great shape fo the next 20 years and going forward,” Durrett said. “I don’t see any other great needs.”
Security projects
The biggest spend at the junior high would be $1.3 million on adding new fencing and gates to secure the parking lot and school itself.
Officials say this is a needed safety move in anticipation of the advent of Buc-ee’s across Tarbutton Road from the school bringing increased traffic to the area in 2025.
RJHS would also get two advanced body scan machines for its entrances and a parking lot expansion.
Three more body scan machines would go to Ruston High.
The machines are not metal detectors, but rather use artificial intelligence software to identify banned elements such as gun parts by both shape and material component. Students, employees and visitors can pass straight through without stopping unless the machine picks up something.
If successful, they’ll eventually expand to all schools.
Lastly for security, RHS will also get nearly a million dollars to upgrade its doors, restricting external entrances to only three and hardening those points of entry.
The board’s budget
Some have asked whether the board could afford this slate of projects without the proposed tax extension.
While the school district has some $65 million “in the bank,” much of that total comes from dedicated sources, such as other taxes, that have one legal use and couldn’t be put toward capital projects.
And of the undesignated remainder, most of that is held in reserves as emergency payroll funds or for property insurance deductibles when disaster strikes.
“A small portion could be used for other projects, but that would be around the $3 million mark,” Durrett said.
If the proposal fails at the polls, the RHS roof repair would still happen. After that, officials would begin trying to figure out how to finance the softball team’s move. The other projects would likely go to the wayside.
Polls will open Saturday at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m.
