SELMA — Plans for a special election Nov. 2 to allow voters in the Selma City School System area to decide a 3-mill tax levy might have hit a brick wall.

School board President Henry Hicks Jr. and interim superintendent Don Jefferson presented a resolution to the Dallas County Commission Monday, but commissioners recessed the meeting until Thursday for the school board to consider more information about the proposal.

School board members will discuss the proposed election Wednesday when they meet at 5:30 p.m. to interview candidates for the chief school financial officer.

Two major issues stand in the way, according to Dallas County Probate Judge Kim Ballard, who serves as chairman of the commission.

First, the commission is concerned the U.S. Department of Justice will not have enough time to pre-clear the election to appear on the Nov. 2 general election ballot. Anytime an election changes in Alabama, the Justice Department must give its approval. The Justice Department has 60 days in which to give its approval.

“It’s doubtful the Justice Department can meet the deadline,” Ballard said.

Secondly, the ballots for the election have already been printed and would have to be reprinted and recoded by Election Systems & Software, the company in charge of the voting machines and printing the ballots for those machines, Ballard explained.

Reprinting the ballots will cost the county $27,000, the probate judge said, adding he is in touch with representatives from ES&S to see if they can have the ballots reprinted in time for the election, which also means absentee voting. Absentee voting in the general election begins Sept. 23.

Ballard and other members of the commission pleaded with Jefferson and Hicks to reschedule the election for another date, but the plea fell on deaf ears.

“This is where we are,” Jefferson told the commission. “We will continue to go forward with this process.”

Ballard called the request “unreasonable.”

According to the state law, the commission has to approve an election. The Dallas County School System has received a similar 3-mill tax for years.

Ballard stressed the issue was not whether to put the measure to a vote, but the timing of the election.

Hicks explained the school board wants the election held at the same time as the general election to draw a larger crowd at the polls.

The 3-mill tax is expected to bring about $370,000 annually, if voters approve it. Initially, school board members said the money would help pay for construction of a new high school in Selma.

But on a popular radio program Monday morning, Hicks and Jefferson said the additional tax dollars would be used to help finance school system operations.