The millage raise would bring the rate from 34.7 mills up to 39.7 mills, which is the state average. Voters in the HPS school district will see on their March 3rd ballots a measure that would approve or disapprove this proposal. By way of comparison, Crossley provided a bar graph showing Hope’s current millage of 34.7 as falling well below those of Fouke (49), Jacksonville (48), Magnet Cove (48), Genoa Central (48), Spring Hill (42) and Prescott (41).
The funds, should the millage pass, would be used for three priorities. Priority One, with which Crossley began his talk, is for him the most important, involving student safety and interior climate control.
“Only one of our campuses has a single entry, and that's Beryl Henry, because there was a modification there 10 years ago. Every other campus, best laid plans that we have still are at a slight security risk. It’s not a double entry. So someone gets buzzed in and they're in. In this system, there's a double entry where you have to go in, there's a holding area, there's another vetting process for a secure entry, and then you go through,” Crossley explained.
The funds would also be used to address parking lot and traffic-flow problems at Yerger, which he described as “the worst traffic-flow setup I’ve seen at a school for a long long time.” The plan is to create a new entrance for cars, a parking area, eliminating all but visitor’s parking from the school’s front entrance. These adjustments would make for a single entrance and exit point and result in increased student security.
Crossley said funds would also be applied to the eventual replacement of HVAC equipment that is long past its expected lifetime, starting with Clinton Primary. He explained that approval by the state for funding toward replacement of the system depends on whether Hope Public School district voters approve the millage raise.
“We've applied for state partnership money to be able to help with that. We got an initial approval from the state that says ‘We like your plan.’ We're not at the funding cycle yet. We'll be there soon. We've applied for early decision, which will be later this year, after the millage vote, obviously, but that's about $2.5 million that we could have at our disposal. If we don't get this millage passed, we won't have that money at our disposal,” Crossley said but did add that HVAC systems will need attention district-wide.
Priority Two, Crossley said, would include attention to buildings and classrooms that students use every day but also to finishing up the Yerger Middle gym and keeping the seating around Hammons Stadium from being condemned. “What I'm talking about here is to make sure that the home and the visitor stands can stay upright. Now what am I talking about? Specifically the concrete underneath the football stadium. Guess how old it is. Eighty years old. Literally, there's cracking in the foundation. We had to spend fifty grand two years ago, just to reinforce that,” Crossley said.
An additional need is for new girls and boys bathrooms. “We budgeted about 500 to 500 thousand dollars per campus to upgrade bathrooms. So we're not talking about the Cadillac version of bathroom renovation. We're talking about renovations of bathrooms that need to be done. Many of these bathrooms are 30 to 40, years old,” Crossley said.
But priority two would also include updated classrooms and learning spaces in the Yerger academic areas and improved band and stadium facilities at Hammons.
Priority Three includes more long-term goals, with funding from the millage combining with saved money over a period of several years to start building a multi-sport baseball/softball/tennis complex. Crossley also includes in this category Collegiate Academy and Secondary Career Center upgrades, workforce and trades pathway improvements and attention to outdoor physical education spaces. The latter would include turf fields at Clinton Primary, Beryl Henry and Yerger.
Crossley said that while he understood citizens’ aversion to paying more taxes, the millage raise request is not particularly high. A chart he provided showed the average value of a property in the Hope School District to be $82,000 and the millage raise charged being $6.83 per month and 23 cents per day. For a $100,000 property, the per month charge becomes $8.33 and 28 cents per day. For a $200,000 property the charge is raised by $16.67/month and 55 cents per day. For a $400,000 property, $33.33/month and $1.10/day.
The consequences of the millage failing, Crossley said, could be dire for Hope schools’ facilities and programs. First, state funds for replacing the HVAC system at Clinton Primary would not be coming. “Do we really want to have eight-year-olds in non-climate controlled classrooms? Things have to be fixed, and so we're going to make sure they do that. We’ll get there, but we're putting ourselves in an undue stress as a community, long term, if we don't rally together,” he said.
Lions members asked a variety of questions, including how the schools are doing raising their letter grades on the Arkansas Department of Education report cards. Crossley said things are trending up.
“It's going up pretty rapidly. So we're up 13 points, and reading at the ordinary level, they've gone from an F to A C. What we're doing is so cool to watch, and we're doing this work with imperfect people, especially the superintendent. I'm not perfect. None of us are, but our collective good is changing trajectories for kids,” Crossley said. He agreed to return to the Lions Club soon to talk about the academic achievements of students in the district.
Another Lion member asked whether the district had lost resources this year because of the federal budget cuts in 2025.
“Yeah, the mental health grant went away. So we don't have additional mental health coverage that we had. So we're trying to find ways to make that work. They're talking about block grants to the states. We haven't seen that yet. Some of our Title III money [federal funds for the teaching of English language learners] has been cut, so we're picking up a tab with our B[ase] S[tudent] A[llocation] money, which is just categorically spent on student achievement. I say that so quickly, because it's just part of what we do. I want you to understand i's my responsibility as a superintendent that we are being super intentional about the money that we're spending. That's taxpayer dollars.”
BSA money is a specific amount of funding per student provided to public schools by states. In Arkansas, that amount for the 2025-26 school year is $8,162 per pupil.
Crossley also took the time to make clear the $500,000 per year allotment to the district through a federal magnet grant is not allowed to be used on anything other than student programs, specialized instruction and learning experiences. It cannot be used for construction.
A Lion member suggested the challenge would be to sell the proposed millage raise to Hope residents who may not have children attending school in the district currently. As Lion Steve Atchley, also a Justice of the Peace on the Hempstead County Quorum Court and a member of the Hempstead County Economic Development Corporation explained, “I tell you you’re not going to get any economic development, any industry in here, unless you've got a good school system.”
Crossley reminded the Lions and guests that early voting starts February 16th and ends March 2nd at the Hempstead County Courthouse with days and hours Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. and Saturdays 10:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. Election day is Tuesday, March 3rd with polls open from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
