Northport To Release Results Of School System Feasibility Study Next Week

NORTHPORT, AL — Northport city officials have confirmed plans to soon release the results of a highly anticipated feasibility study regarding a proposed school system for the city.

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District 4 Councilwoman Jamie Dykes, who chairs the Council's Public Outreach Committee tasked with engaging the firm conducting the study, told Patch that the results of the study will be officially released on Monday, April 17, at noon.

Dykes also said city officials had a productive meeting with the Birmingham-based consulting firm — Criterion Consulting — on Monday.

As Patch previously reported, much speculation has accompanied the study, which is the second of its kind approved by the Northport City Council during the current council term. Indeed, questions primarily center on the price tag for the City of Northport to break away from the Tuscaloosa County School System to form its own school district.

For supporters of the split, some — including elected officials — have been vocal in their concerns over the financial stewardship of TCSS, particularly when it comes to some of the severely overcrowded schools across its footprint. But as far as Northport is concerned, the frustrations can be found mostly with regard to the state of existing facilities, especially those aged school buildings in the only predominately Black city council district.

For instance, Patch has reported in several stories the frustrations in Northport City Hall over the $24 million Northport Intermediate School, the newest school in the county. Officials, such as District 2 Councilman Woodrow Washington III, claim the new school did little to combat problems with overcrowding and languishing facilities for elementary and middle schools within the city limits.

Separately, the push for a Northport city school system also ran into two major hurdles in the last six months: The abrupt resignation of Northport Mayor Bobby Herndon and the Valentine's Day property tax increase vote that was voted down by an approximate margin of 80% to 20%.

While extensive reporting by Patch has indicated that Northport City Hall received the results of the feasibility study well ahead of Herndon's resignation at the end of the last calendar year, the City Council opted to hold off on releasing the results. This was supposedly due to former District 3 Councilman John Hinton ascending to the mayor's office, leaving an open seat that was recently filled with an appointment by Gov. Kay Ivey, who tapped IT professional Karl Wiggins to serve out the remainder of the unexpired term.

Wiggins was sworn in last week, fulfilling the terms that Northport City Hall had publicly set when it initially held off from going public with the study's results.

Still, on the eve of the property tax vote, Patch reported that Herndon posted a video to social media with what appeared to be an admission that his sudden decision "was not just about a street getting renamed that I stepped down. It would not benefit anyone to discuss the other 'straws.'"

Herndon said his resignation was prompted after he did not receive the support to rename the street that runs in front of Herndon's surveying firm's office. However, the move coincided with Patch receiving word from numerous sources that the city had received the results of the study — a notion City Hall officials have declined to either confirm or refute on record.

Despite Herndon's vocal opposition to the proposed property tax increase, it still received across-the-board support from the Northport City Council on the eve of the vote, before failing by the widest margin yet when examining the other attempts in vain to raise property taxes to provide additional funding to the Tuscaloosa County School System.

As previously stated, the primary concern voiced by many in the community is the overall price tag for secession. Even just based on voting precincts, the electorate within the Northport city limits clearly showed that it doesn't have the stomach for any kind of property tax increase, which comes at a time of runaway inflation and looming economic uncertainty.

If all goes as planned, the feasibility study results will also be made public less than a month after the city's bond agency assigned Northport a AA+ bond rating — giving the city access to $45.27 million in general obligation warrants that will primarily be used to finance three large-scale recreation capital projects: A water park on McFarland Boulevard; an adventure sports park on Rose Boulevard and extensive upgrades to Kentuck Park.

While city officials in recent years rescued Northport from the verge of bankruptcy and even boosted its reserves to levels recommended by its bond agency, many in the community have expressed worries at every turn that the money generated from the city's 1-cent sales tax will simply not be enough to be a primary funding source for a city school system without a substantial property tax increase or additional borrowing that could endanger the city's bond rating.

When looking at revenue possibilities from the city's 1-cent sales tax, Northport has generated roughly $19 million in additional revenue over the last three fiscal years, nearly all of which has already been allocated.

Of this funding, the city has been able to provide schools in Northport with $300,000 a year for different needs, but these figures fall well short of representing a primary funding mechanism unless the council breaks its covenant for how the revenue would be spent when the measure was first passed.

The amount of debt the city would have to absorb also presents a looming concern, including the brand new $24 million Northport Intermediate School. As Patch previously reported, TCSS still owes roughly $3.5 million on Echols Middle School and $5.5 million on the Northport Career Tech Center.

"We owe a little over $7 million just on buses," TCSS Chief School Financial Officer Danny Higdon told Patch in December 2021. "Over 33% of our buses are in Northport, so if they started their own school system today, they would start out owing $2.35 million just on buses."

And even if Northport is able to secure the funding to break away from TCSS, other questions persist, such as which entity would oversee Lloyd Wood Education Center and the Career Technical Annex at Tuscaloosa County High School.

Lloyd Wood provides services for special needs students from across the county, following the closure of the Sprayberry Center's former home, while the Career Technical Annex at TCHS is used by students from outside the city limits, from nearby schools such as Northside High and Sipsey Valley.

Nuances aside, the bullet point many will be looking for in the results of the recent feasibility study will be costs and proposed funding sources — data points that are as uncertain today as they were when the feasibility study was first commissioned.

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