Board Lists Gentry, Greenland As Financially Troubled

The state Board of Education added Greenland and Gentry to its listed of financially troubled school districts Monday, noting both are expected to end the year more than a $250,000 in debt.

The Greenland School District is projected to end the current school year with a deficit of nearly $289,000, said Assistant Education Commissioner Bobbie Davis.

This is the second time Greenland finds itself on the fiscal distress list. The first time was in 2003, a year before the district annexed the Winslow School District. The district was removed from the list in 2006.

Greenland School Board President Bill Groom told the board the district suffered financially when it annexed the Winslow district.

"That was probably not a good financial decision," Groom said of the decision to annex Winslow, which was made before he joined the Greenland School Board.

The district's finances have remained cloudy primarily because of a loss of nearly 200 students, mostly from Winslow, who transferred to other districts after Greenland closed the Winslow's high school and elementary school.
Winslow is 17 miles south of Greenland. Another school district, West Fork, sits between Winslow and Greenland.

Davis told the board the Gentry School District is projected to end the current school year with a $254,000 deficit.

Gentry Superintendent Randy Barrett said the district made the decision to build a new elementary school and add 12 classrooms to Gentry High School at a time when the Northwest Arkansas district was growing. That growth has halted, he said.

"We haven't lost students, but we have flat-lined," he said.

Five other districts were added Monday to the state's fiscal distress list: Westside Consolidated in Jonesboro, Hartford, Hermitage, Murfreesboro and Concord.

A district placed on the fiscal distress list must prepare and implement a plan for removing itself. Failure to be removed from fiscal distress status within two years results in consolidation.

Gentry, Greenland and Westside Consolidated appealed their placement on the fiscal distress list, but the board denied their appeals Monday. The board tabled an appeal by the Mineral Springs School District.

The Greenland School District is banking on voter approval of a 2.6 millage increase in the tax rate to help bail the district out of fiscal distress, district officials have said.

Gentry School District officials will be looking for more cuts from an already lean budget as it begins to work its way out of fiscal distress.

Greenland also is asking teachers on extended contracts to cut days off their contracts for next year as another money-saving strategy.

"I just don't know what else we can do," Groom said after leaving Monday meeting. He and Interim Superintendent J.J. Gardenhire attended the meeting.

Arkansas Department of Education staff members are expected to visit the district soon to make suggestions and provide guidance to the district, Groom said.

"Some may be sterner than suggestions," he said. He expects that visit in the next week.

The 2.6 mills would restore the millage the district has lost in the past seven years because of rollbacks triggered by Amendment 59 to the Arkansas Constitution. That amendment caps at 10 percent a year the overall property tax increase a taxing entity, such as a school district or city, can receive after a countywide reappraisal.

Patrons in Gentry approved a 3-millage increase in its tax rate last year and the property assessment has grown some, Barrett said, noting the district will receive more money.

"We'll look at programs and staff to see if there is any fat in the budget and if so, cut it out," he said.

Student-teacher ratios in some areas may have to be increased and "we're hoping" that retirements, teachers leaving for jobs elsewhere and other such "attrition" will reduce the number of teachers by enough to avoid nonrenewal of teachers' contracts.

Students shouldn't see any difference in the quality of education they receive in Gentry schools, Barrett said.

"The department will send up a team of experts and offer us technical assistance and we will listen with ears wide open," Barrett said.

Also Monday, the board voted to revoke the teacher's license of former Farmington High School teacher David Anthony Warner, who pleaded guilty in December 2006 to sexual indecency with a child. Prosecutors said Warner asked a female student to perform oral sex.

Warner was sentenced in Washington County Circuit Court to six years probation and ordered to pay $1,000 restitution, register as a sex offender, complete a counseling program and have no further contact with the student.

The board also voted unanimously Monday to remove the Helena-West Helena, Midland, Hughes, Omaha and Turrell school districts from fiscal distress status.

By : Rose Ann Pearce