ROGERS (KFSM) -- Rogers School District is asking voters to pay more property taxes to pay for more schools. This would be the first millage increase in 14 years.
Rogers school board president Kristen Cobbs is also a mother of two students in the district. The current millage rate is 38.4 and they are asking for a 3.5 mill increase. That adds up to about $70 a year for every $100,000 worth of property.
“I think it's important that we have proper facilities to accommodate the growing population. And we are growing leaps and bounds in elementary schools,” Cobbs said.
The district already owns the land on Garret Road in the southwest portion of town. If the millage passes, this is one of the potential locations where they could build one of the two new elementary schools.
“We have 15 elementary schools and at least 10 of them don't have any more open classrooms. And so unfortunately, we've had to take some students from their neighborhood school and transfer them to another elementary school that did have space,” Superintendent Marlin Berry said.
Berry said the district grew by more than 350 students this year.
“More than 300 of them were elementary students who came through our doors. So that was bump that we hadn't quite anticipated. We also have projected that we are going to grow another 350 to 400 elementary students in the next two years,” Berry said.
Mayor Greg Hines said even with the increase, Rogers residents pay some of the lowest property taxes in the area.
“For 14 years, we have asked for no increase in this millage and continued to develop with the growth. Mind you the entire time that this growth has occurred we've maintained brick and mortar classrooms for all of our students,” Hines said.
Other than the two elementary schools they also to make improvements to their technology infrastructure and safety and security issues for the schools.
The millage election will be on May 9th.
They will have three community information meetings.
April 19th at 6:30 p.m. at the Rogers Activity Center
April 25th at 5:30 p.m. at RLACC in Lowell
May 2nd at 5:30 p.m. at the Rogers Public Library