LITTLE ROCK—State education officials say they will talk with nine school districts whose voters recently rejected millage increases this month to discuss how the votes may affect state funding for school building improvements.

Doug Eaton, director of the Arkansas Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation Division, said Tuesday that the rejection of millage votes may affect those nine districts’ master plans for school facility improvements. Eaton updated members of the Arkansas Public School Facility and Transportation Commission on the votes.

“We’re required to get with them and determine if the failure of that master plan impacts any safety or health issues or adequacy,” Eaton said after the meeting. “In other words, was there something the district had to do but because now the millage has failed, it cannot do?”

The nine districts identified by Eaton are Blytheville, Caddo Hills, Clarksville, Clarendon, Genoa Central, Greenwood, Harmony Grove, Helena-West Helena and Westside Consolidated.

Eaton said the state sent out letters sent out letters yesterday to the districts and will set up meetings with school officials to talk about the funding. Eaton said the state has the authority to direct the districts to go out and ask again for a millage increase, but said the first step is to talk with the districts about the vote that failed.

“Usually what we do is we sit down and analyze this to see what went wrong,” Eaton said. “Then we try to decide what do we need to do next? We try to make it a joint decision.”

Also Tuesday, the three-member commission approved submitting two reports to the governor’s office and lawmakers updating them on the progress schools are making in repairing their school buildings. The report said that the state’s school facility program equals $1.5 billion, of which $674 million is the state’s financial participation.

The statewide building program has three categories: immediate repairs to deal with safety issues; transitional work to take on new construction, and a partnership program for ongoing improvements. The state and local districts share building costs.

The partnership program so far consists of 1,530 approved projects with an estimated total cost of $1.3 billion. The state’s estimated share of that amount is $560 million, and the state has appropriated $561 million to cover that program.

Lawmakers last year set aside set aside $456 million for school facilities. Eaton said it’s too soon to tell how much the state may ask lawmakers to set aside next year for future repairs.