Voters gave a big ‘no’ to $67 million bond for Jackson County schools. What’s next?
Superintendent John Strycker said Wednesday he is “a little disappointed” by voters’ overwhelming rejection of the $67 million school bond to improve facilities at Jackson County School District.
He was encouraged by the strong turnout for Tuesday’s special election of more than 5,000 voters, he said, even if 75% of them voted no to the bond and ultimately to raising their taxes.
The turnout of more than 15% of registered voters for a special election shows the community is engaged and cares about the local schools, he said.
The last time a bond was approved in the school district was 25 years ago in 1996, and before that in 1980.
Jackson County Tax Assessor Nick Elmore told the Sun Herald that school taxes would have increased by 13%, or about $100 each year for the average homeowner.
Strycker said he will research how soon the district could legally propose another bond issue, but said “it will probably be at least a year” before the district would be ready with a new plan.
Jackson County School District, which includes East Central, St. Martin and Vancleave schools, worked on the bond for close to a year and a half, Strycker said, and held several community meetings.
“We felt like we put together a plan to meet the community needs,” he said.
The bond would have raised the funds for renovations to schools and the addition of eight classrooms at East Central, 36 in Vancleave and 18 in St. Martin, but the much of the money would have been spent on athletic and extracurricular facilities.
Spending would have been 42% at St. Martin and 29% each at East Central and Vancleave schools.
Voters said told the Sun Herald they wanted more money spent directly for education. Residents of Vancleave also were concerned with the plan to combine the upper and middle elementary schools and relocate the district’s administration offices in the Vancleave Upper Elementary.
While the focus was on multi-purpose rooms, a performing arts center and football facilities, the leadership of the school board has a strong background in engineering and sciences. School board chairman Troy Frisbie is employed at NASA Stennis Space Center and vice chairman J. Keith Lee works at Ingalls Shipbuilding.
“Our needs still exist,” Frisbie said on Wednesday. “We have over 1.3 million square feet of school facilities, and the average age of our facilities is 34 years. We will need to proceed with facility improvements.”
Strycker said the district spends about $2 million a year to maintain the more than 1 million square feet of buildings in the district.
The federal CARES Act will provide the district $1.4 million in funding this year to help cover the costs during the coronavirus pandemic.
Sun Herald reporter Isabelle Taft contributed to this article.
This story was originally published May 19, 2021 at 12:45 PM.
