The Smackover-Norphlet School Board held its regular monthly meeting on Monday, April 19.
The meeting began with an update from athletic director David Osborn on the state of athletics in the district and presentation of employee of the month honors.
“We recently had students sign [to college] for the fishing team, rodeo, baseball, softball and football… Softball is in first place, baseball is in first and [the track team] last week was fourth out of eighteen,” Osborn said.
Employee of the month honors were presented by Osborn to Cody Cranford, a Norphlet Middle School P.E. teacher and coach.
“Everything we’ve asked this year, [Cranford] has been outstanding and gone above and beyond. He’s stepped up when we needed it several times this year in a lot of different situations,” Osborn said.
The most substantial item of discussion during the meeting centered around a project that would, if approved in its entirety, fully replace lighting, replace the current grass field with turf and fix drainage issues at Buckaroo Football Stadium.
Superintendent Jason Black and board members discussed multiple aspects of the proposed project in length with GeoSport Lighting and Geo Surfaces director of development Billy Dawson and COO Charles Dawson.
Geosport Lighting previously completed the project to replace lighting on the district’s baseball field last year, a project undertaken jointly by the city of Smackover and the school district.
The project was first presented in its entirety, meaning the total replacement of light poles and fixtures at the stadium, the addition of turf to the field and fixing drainage issues.
The GeoSport representative said the project in its entirety would cost $962,440. An additional cost would be accrued by electrical work needed after the new lights are installed.
Funding for the project, according to Black, would come from the district’s building fund.
Black informed board members during the discussion that the school district currently has around $4.1 million in its building operating fund and urged council members to keep timing in mind while considering the proposal.
“I’ll be conservative with this but I’ll tell you we have in operating funds $4.1 million, and last year at this time we had $3.2 million. So, we’re $900,000 over what we had at this time last year,” Black said.
Black then estimated that the project could cost $1.1 million altogether including electrical work.
Dawson weighed in on how often and how expensive turf replacement is in response to a question by board member Damon Goodwin.
“Average replacement is, if you’re conservative, 10 years… We have some that are 14, 15, 16 years old. The replacement cost is about 50 to 55 percent plus inflation,” Dawson said.
Several board members weighed in with their thoughts on the benefits and drawbacks of moving forward with the entire project.
Board member Chris Long expressed hesitancy at spending a substantial portion of the district’s building fund at one time, asking instead if the lighting replacement project could be pursued first due to safety concerns around the poor state of the light poles.
Estimated total costs for just the lighting project ranged, according to Dawson and an additional estimate by Black, from $177,000 to $270,000.
Board member Cliff Preston, on the other hand, gave his thoughts on the value of both projects at once. Preston said that though he “likes the idea” of going forward with the full project, he first wants to know the cost of post-installation electrical work to have a complete picture of the total cost.
Black also asked athletic director David Osborn to elaborate on ways the turf setup would help school athletics.
“This setup would allow baseball and softball to go out and practice at anytime. [Currently], if it rains a little bit they are in a bind. It would also help in track… it would give another good surface to run on,” Osborn said.
Black and Osborn also briefly discussed how the field could be used by school soccer teams and the marching band.
Following the discussion, board members tabled a motion to proceed with the project and agreed to reconvene for a special-called meeting after Black receives quotes on electrical work for the completed lighting project which would give a full view of the total project cost.
The next regular board meeting will be on Monday, May 24.