2022 School System Study Shares Same Date With Northport Mayor's Resignation Announcement

NORTHPORT, AL — In one of the most surprising political moves in Northport history, former Mayor Bobby Herndon announced on Nov. 7, 2022, his intention to step down from the city's highest office, which happened to coincide with the exact same date on the cover sheet of a version of a feasibility study examining the financial aspects of Northport forming its own school system.

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In a phone interview Wednesday with Patch, Herndon flatly denied any connections, saying the date on the study was a coincidence and that he was not aware of the study in November. Patch reported in November that Herndon expressed his desire to resign following his failed push to rename the street in front of his surveying office, which ultimately turned out to be only partly true.

"I had no idea, I hadn't seen the feasibility study and not getting a street renamed is not the only reason I resigned," he said. "It was the final straw, sure, but it had nothing to do with the feasibility study. I still think it's going to be the best. If it's expensive or not expensive, we will never be the city we can be until we have our own school system.

"If it was the same day I resigned, it was a coincidence," Herndon added. "I'm all for a city school system and support the council doing so. We're so many lightyears behind. But no, there were two other times that I should have resigned in my two years with the group and didn't."

Herndon's resignation would go on to spur a major delay in releasing the results while providing Northport City Hall with a protracted time-frame to suss out details with Criterion. Indeed, the Council opted to delay the release of the results as it worked to fill the open District 3 seat vacated by John Hinton when he ascended to the mayor's office.

As Patch previously reported, District 4 Councilwoman Jamie Dykes — who chairs the Council's Public Outreach Committee tasked with engaging the consulting firm responsible for the study — told Patch last week that the plan was to release the results of the feasibility study on Monday, April 17.

However, a portion of the November 2022 study conducted by Criterion Consulting was obtained this week by Patch from sources outside of Northport City Hall, which provides the most illuminating picture yet of not just the political theater surrounding the matter, but the hotly debated financial recommendations and the firm's questionable approach to the study.

In looking back to the first feasibility study paid for by the current council and presented in 2021, which was conducted by John Myrick and Wayne Vickers, the results were widely panned by members of the community.

Indeed, a noticeable majority of citizens viewed the results as the city spending money for a firm to provide the favorable results city officials wanted to hear. The backlash prompted city officials to seek a second opinion, hiring Criterion — a Birmingham consulting firm headed up by several retired school superintendents that has a documented history of encouraging cities to form their own school systems, as opposed to providing reasons why they shouldn't.

Without walking through every piece of minutia in the November 2022 study, the basics still very much track with Patch's extensive past reporting that a city school system would depend on a substantial increase in property taxes for the City of Northport to be able to afford the endeavor. And don't forget, this firm was paid tens of thousands of dollars to provide these results, so any deviations presented Monday will either be the result of missteps by the Birmingham firm or lobbying from Northport City Hall for the firm to address certain aspects.

As an important disclaimer informed by Patch's extensive background reporting on the matter, it must be underscored that the numbers presented next Monday are likely to differ wildly from those in the November 2022 study — raising further questions relating to the entire process.

And with that in mind, it must also be noted that voters in Tuscaloosa County — including within the Northport city limits — voted down a proposed property tax increase in February that would have seen the additional revenue given to the Tuscaloosa County School System for a wide range of improvements and capital projects.

"I know other school systems pay 50-60 mills in property tax," Herndon told me. "I don't know what the study is going to say. I'm sure it's going to say that it has to be pretty substantial because we've been behind for 60-70 years. I would figure it would be high but I don't know, I haven't seen [the study]."

As Patch previously reported, the proposed 8.5 mill increase was publicly opposed by the Tuscaloosa County Farmers Federation and failed at the ballot box with 80% of the electorate voting against it. This did not include those zoned for Tuscaloosa City Schools.

When examining the November 2022 study, the financials are presented in the form of two different funding scenarios. But to reiterate, it's almost certain that there will be deviations when the study is present Monday, due to myriad factors.

So, let's start with some quick facts before examining the proposals.

• Scenario 1 estimates salaries and benefits for the proposed school system to come out to $35 million, while Scenario 2 puts that price tag at $43 million.
• The study says 30.40% of students in Tuscaloosa County attend schools in Northport.
• Approximately 64% of funding at present for TCSS comes from state and local sources, with 28% coming from local funding sources like the Tuscaloosa County Commission.
• Scenario 1 is the smaller of the two, with 3,870 K-12 students making up the proposed school system, while Scenario 2 is at 5,555 students.
• As for startup costs, Scenario 1 says the City of Northport would face $8.14 million in excess expenditures over available revenue, while Scenario 2 puts that number at $8.58 million.
• Revenue from the city's relatively new 1-cent sales tax has been considered as a primary funding mechanism, but doing so would break the covenant made by the council, which committed to how the revenue would be used when the increase was initially passed.
• The 2021 study conducted by Myrick and Vickers speculated that the estimated budget for a Northport city school system would come out just short of $54 million for the first year — an amount that is substantially higher than the city's $41.3 million general fund budget for FY23 approved last September.

Here's a look at the scenarios pulled verbatim from the November 2022 feasibility study.

SCENARIO 1: "Additional recurring revenues will be required of at least 9.2 million dollars. Those revenues can be generated by new property taxes or sales taxes. If increased property taxes alone were utilized to fill the revenue gap, 24.8 additional mills at $370,517 per mill would be necessary. Covering the required one-month operating reserve with property tax revenues would require an additional 9.1 mills at $370,517 per mill. Other sources of revenue such as City appropriations or a portion of the county-wide sales taxes (if either are available) would reduce those required millage amounts."

SCENARIO 1 OPTIONS:

• 33.9 additional mills, resulting in $12.5 million in additional revenue.
• 24.8 mills for break-even, plus city appropriation from sales tax revenue.
• 15.2 additional mills, plus changes to current sales tax distribution.

SCENARIO 2: "Additional recurring revenues will be required of at least 14 million dollars. Those revenues can be generated by new property taxes or sales taxes. If increased property taxes alone were utilized to fill the revenue gap, 37.8 additional mills at $370,517 per mill would be necessary. Covering the required one-month operating reserve with property tax revenues would require an additional 12.8 mills at $370,517 per mill. Other sources of revenue such as City appropriations or a portion of the county-wide sales taxes (if either are available) would reduce those required millage amounts."

SCENARIO 2 OPTIONS:

• 50.6 additional mills, resulting in $18.7 million in added revenue.
• 37. 8 additional mills for break-even, plus the city's appropriation from sales tax revenue.
• 23.7 additional mills, plus changes to current sales tax revenue distribution.

While the Criterion study from November 2022 does address debt the city would have to take on to make a Northport city school system work, Patch instead sought the most recent available financial data from the Tuscaloosa County School System.

At present, TCSS currently owes $2.73 million on a 2014 bond for capital improvements at the city's lone high school, Tuscaloosa County High, according to TCSS Chief School Financial Officer Danny Higdon.

Higdon said the TCSS Board of Education has spent approximately $43,789,900 on various construction projects to include other local funds in Northport since October 2015, which is approximately 41% of the total construction cost for the county school system during that same time period.

Other outstanding TCSS debt:

• Echols Middle School addition (Bond Series 2017): $4,016,187 owed.
• Northport Intermediate (Bond Series 2017): $23,106,775 owed.
• Northport Career Tech Center (Bond Series 2017): $4,934,012 owed.
• TCHS turf field (Bond Series 2017): $1,380,834 owed.
• Total amount owed at present: approximately: $36,167,800.

In closing, it's crucial to note that — however far-fetched it may turn out — there are numerous other funding mechanisms not mentioned in the November 2022 study obtained by Patch. These include raising and utilizing the city's lodging tax to benefit a proposed city school system and a substantial increase to the city's sales tax.

Only time will tell.

Stay tuned for additional reporting on Monday, when we will compare and contrast the changes presented in the most recent incarnation of the feasibility study.

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