Voters rejected a bid by the Cleveland County Schools to add a 5 mills tax to refinance the district’s existing bond debt and combine it with the additional revenue generated by the five new mills to finance $9.25 million in construction bonds. Those bonds would have been used on five projects. The district wanted to build a new arena ($6 million), do a complete interior renovation of Rison Elementary ($400,000), expanded the Rison School cafeteria ($900,000), construct a two-bay bus maintenance facility at the Rison campus ($550,000), and build a new eight-lane athletic track that would be located east of the baseball/softball complex ($700,000).
Superintendent Craig Duprey told DeltaplexNews he was disappointed. “We ran a hard campaign but in the end, the two communities of New Edinburg and Kingsland out voted Rison tonight, plan and simple” Duprey told us Tuesday evening after the unofficial votes were counted 613-501 against the 5 mill increase.
