'A Lot Of Due Diligence To Do': What's At Stake As Northport Considers Split From TCSS

TUSCALOOSA, AL — A mix of anxiety and surprise could be heard in the voice of Tuscaloosa County High School Principal Darrell Williams as he stood at the lectern finishing up his pitch and nervously digging the heels of his dress shoes into the carpet of the council chambers in Northport City Hall.

Click here to subscribe to our free daily newsletter and breaking news alerts.

Even a couple of good-hearted grandstanders told me after the meeting that it was hard to watch.

At the urging of Mayor Bobby Herndon, which I wrote about at the time, Williams came before the Northport City Council nearly a year ago to the day of this article's publication to request $50,000 annually from city coffers to help supplement coaching salaries at the school.

As measured and unassuming of a man as the broad-shouldered former football coach is, Williams found himself on the receiving end of a pointed barrage of skepticism aimed at his employer.

Viewed by many as a public stunt by City Hall and the mayor to spur conversations for a proposed school system, Williams' request was met with Council President Jeff Hogg's sharp critique of the Tuscaloosa County School System. It's a position unchanged to this day and one that has served as a kind of motivator for the young council around him.

Of the five elected council members, three are in their first terms and make up the youngest and most progressive-minded City Council in recent memory.

Gripping the lectern with both hands, Williams' face became flushed as Hogg railed against TCSS. It was obvious to most in the room that it wasn't the County High principal or the football program under the microscope that night.

"We were not elected to subsidize the county school system, that's not what we're here for," Hogg said on Dec. 14, 2020. "If we were, I would hope we would be advocating for all the teachers and their salaries, especially during this current school term. They've had so much thrown at them and they touch all the students' lives. A football coach is only going to touch the lives of a certain amount of kids."

The mayor, referring to himself as "Gullible Bobby," took it a step further after Williams made his funding request, calling the Tuscaloosa County Board of Education "liars" and saying the request for supplemental funds underscored the need for a Northport city school system.

Apart from Williams, there were no higher-ranking TCSS representatives at the meeting that night to field the ambush criticism, leaving the County High principal no choice but to leave empty handed and defeated in a battle he never knew he was enlisted for.

Still, it would be a short turnaround from that awkward evening that saw the Tuscaloosa County School System eventually shell out an unprecedented six-figure salary to hire Adam Winegarden — without a dime from the City of Northport.

While the council pushback briefly dominated the public's focus, the evening represented a high-water mark for the public debate regarding a break from TCSS.

The wave of interest would ultimately roll back, before cresting once again earlier this year when the Northport City Council moved forward on a feasibility study to look into the possibility of secession. In the most recent development, the city opted to hire a Chelsea-based law firm to help answer questions concerning potential annexations and tax referendums.

"The next step to [starting a school system] is to hire an attorney to dig even deeper into that information," said District 4 Councilwoman Jamie Dykes this week in a phone interview with Patch. "That's what they're hired for. It's just a part of our due diligence."

As the debate moves forward, some chatter from within City Hall indicates a vote to officially move forward with secession could come as soon as the first part of next year. But, in an effort to gather the range of perspectives on the contentious topic, Patch sat down with numerous officials to gain insight with respect to the history, competing interests and politics of such a protracted debate.

By The Numbers

Tuscaloosa County School System Chief School Financial Officer Danny Higdon, sporting a white beard and a Christmas-themed cartoon necktie, dropped a heavy folder down on the table in front of him with a loud thud.

The files contained therein made up the original feasibility study conducted on behalf of the City of Northport in 2013 when the city made the first formal steps to look into the possibility of starting its own city school system.

Higdon, a Northport resident who ran against Jeff Hogg in his first successful bid for City Council in 2016, is a longtime TCSS employee who has built an unimpeachable reputation for his work with numbers and mind for finance.

"They have no idea how much the debt is," he told Patch in an interview following the Council's unanimous decision to hire Chelsea-based law firm Boardman, Carr, Petelos, Watkins & Ogle on Monday.

The firm, which is also handling the City of Chelsea's attempt at seceding from the Shelby County school system, will now be tasked with providing insight on a range of questions left unanswered by the most recent feasibility study, such as tax referendums and annexations.

Higdon went on to provide examples of outstanding debt for TCSS, including the $3.5 million still owed on Echols Middle School, while $5.5 million is owed on the Northport Career Tech Center.

It's also worth pointing out that this doesn't even include the $24 million Northport Intermediate School that opened its doors in August.

"Let’s be real and address the elephant in the room that the City of Northport is the cash cow for the makeup of the Tuscaloosa County School System ... Without Northport, TCSS stands to lose a lot."

- Northport Council President Jeff Hogg

"We owe a little over $7 million just on buses," he said. "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."

But separate from the money owed, the existing millage rate for Northport and Tuscaloosa County — the state-mandated minimum of 10 mills — falls well short of what TCSS officials believe would be needed to comfortably finance a Northport city school system.

For example, TCSS Superintendent Keri Johnson said the City of Chelsea is at 30 mills, which likely still isn't enough to fund its proposed city school system. It's also noteworthy that the proposed Chelsea school system has a smaller number of students than Northport would have if it broke away from TCSS and still appears to come up short on its millage without an additional tax increase.

Dykes proposed an increase of 11 mills, which would bring Northport in line with the City of Tuscaloosa's 21 mills.

According to its most recent budget, TCSS estimates collecting $16,175,000 from property taxes during the last fiscal year — money that Northport officials would no doubt seek to lay claim to part of when the city pulls the trigger on secession. This will inevitably prove to be another possible roadblock for Northport, as it would require an act of the legislature to amend the law.

"I know for a fact the county schools will go before the Legislature and it's going to get raised," Dykes said of the 10 mills currently on the books for the county. "Whether we do it or they do it."

The topic of misunderstood finances is just one of several viewpoints held by TCSS officials, as the underlying argument around the TCSS Central Office focuses on how the City of Northport will be able to financially support such a costly endeavor.

"The revenue base is just not there," Higdon said, before explaining how the lack of restaurants and retailers in Northport has prompted concerns among those not in support of the proposed split.

Hogg, who in his more than five years in office has been the most vocal proponent on the Council of building out underutilized corridors and attracting new business to the city, took a different view of the dynamic when asked about concerns over the city's ability to generate tax revenue.

"Let’s be real and address the elephant in the room that the City of Northport is the cash cow for the makeup of the Tuscaloosa County School System," Hogg said. "Without Northport, TCSS stands to lose a lot."

Indeed, TCSS does stand to lose its largest high school — Tuscaloosa County High — in addition to the myriad assets that would be divided piecemeal during a separation agreement.

According to TCSS data provided to Patch, TCHS would see its enrollment fall from over 1,500 students to 1,038 if the City of Northport takes it over, with the sharp decrease due primarily to the students who live outside the city limits, but who are zoned for County High. This would actually make TCHS a smaller school than its crosstown rival Hillcrest and approximately the same size as Brookwood High, which has roughly 1,000 students.

Regardless of any developments in the coming months, TCHS will remain a 7A school through at least 2024, as Patch previously reported, but Johnson said if the school's population is impacted to such an extent, there would be no way around an eventual drop in classification.

"They would not be a 7A school," Johnson said. "They just wouldn't have the enrollment."

Dykes, who has been central in the discussions for a Northport city school system in her first term on the Council, said ongoing talks behind closed doors indicated families would not have to immediately make a decision on annexation if and when the city secedes from TCSS.

"We would give everybody six years, so they would be grandfathered in," she said. "If we seceded now and somebody was in the sixth grade, they could attend County High until they graduated. If they choose not to annex in, that's their choice to stay in the county."

Annexation for many outside of the city limits will likely prove one of the most challenging hurdles, with the City Council not having much power in the way of expanding the city limits through unilateral action.

It's important to point out that, statutorily speaking, there are only three ways a neighborhood or street can be annexed in to a municipality in the state of Alabama:

1. By a majority vote of residents.
2. When areas are contiguous (connected) to the city limits.
3. An act of the Legislature.

"That's sometimes misunderstood," the TCSS superintendent said of the annexation process. "There may be some people who do annex in, but there’s a process for that."

At the same time as it eyes an expensive break from TCSS, Northport is also studying the possibility of investing millions in a public aquatic center and a youth sports tournament facility — another costly "wish list" project and the widely-celebrated brainchild of Jeff Hogg.

While TCSS officials spoke candidly with Patch about their questions regarding even just the startup funding for a Northport school system, Hogg doubled down on the two financially-ambitious initiatives, saying they go hand-in-hand with the Council's push to make Northport a more attractive place to live.

It's also worth noting that Hogg's position is a popular one, especially among millennial parents in a city that recently jumped from No. 21 to the 17th most-populous city in Alabama over the course of a decade, according to 2020 Census data. Over that time, the city added approximately 5,000 new residents.

"TCSS should not be worried with how we spend our tax dollars for the positive growth of our city," Hogg said. "Our citizens want to see a more family-friendly city with sports complexes and water parks. No money has been borrowed in many years and we have worked on a cash basis for a long time. This has led to a very healthy budget, which has been documented in audit reports from previous years and also with the recent credit rating upgrade to AA."

What's more, and to his point, Hogg is right to argue that the city has freed up hundreds of thousands of dollars just in the last year to then give to TCSS schools through a grant program.

As Patch reported in October, the City Council — using revenue generated by its relatively-new 1-cent sales tax — approved $350,000 that was then doled out among Tuscaloosa County School System schools within the Northport city limits. To date, the cumulative figure awarded has nearly tripled and is not something that should be lost in the static when looking at the City of Northport's contributions.

For instance, Tuscaloosa County High School once again received $90,000 for this fiscal year, after receiving the same grant award in the last fiscal year. Of that, Dykes made a successful push for $20,000 to be earmarked solely for TCHS Choir.

But while the Northport City Council has found ways to give where it can to public schools in its orbit, $350,000 in grant money each year represents a mere drop in the bucket when it compared to the costs of launching and sustaining a city school system.

Apart from any hypothetical impacts, Hogg was quick to stress how the process is still very much in its infancy and not a cause for panic.

"No one has committed to anything other than looking and researching the idea of separation and getting correct information to share with our citizens," Hogg said. "There are pros and cons to every decision that is made, but that shouldn’t make anyone scared of their own shadow. Sometimes you have to shoot for the moon and even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars."

'Next Step ... A Vote'

"I just want new schools for my district ... our kids deserve that, " said District 2 Councilman Woodrow Washington III in a phone interview with Patch this week.

A beloved community activist and the owner of a popular business, Washington campaigned and was elected in 2020 on a platform of being a voice for District 2 — the only Council district with a predominately-Black population.

Older schools in Washington's district that are in the most dire need of attention include Crestmont Elementary, Collins-Riverside Middle and Matthews Elementary. It also includes the recently-demolished former location of the Sprayberry Center, which was a move that Northport officials claim they were unaware of before the county school system tore it down.

Washington joined in calling foul when the $24 million Northport Intermediate School opened for TCSS fifth- and sixth-graders this fall, while the aforementioned schools in District 2 sat in need of extensive renovations.

His argument, which he has conveyed to TCSS officials, is one that focuses on the mostly Black schoolchildren in his district being bused out of their community to go to a new school in a mostly white part of Northport.

On more than one occasion, he has expressed to Patch his frustrations with certain schools, like Collins-Riverside and Crestmont, not having heat or air conditioning in their hallways — a symptom that speaks to how schools were designed roughly half a century ago.

In a sit-down interview with Patch, TCSS Superintendent Keri Johnson said plans were already well underway to make needed improvements to schools in Washington's district. The main problem, however, is timing, which no doubt impacts the optics with respect to the well-intentioned approach of an embattled county school system facing the secession of its largest municipality.

"In order for us to fix that problem [of central air in hallways], we have to also address the situation with windows in the hallway to close them and can't do it until the summer," Johnson said. "It's just that simple."

David Patrick, a former Northside High principal who serves as deputy superintendent of the county school system, explained in an interview with Patch that the initial plan to alleviate overcrowding in TCSS elementary schools focused on putting the TCHS-zoned fifth and sixth grade students at one new school. The idea behind it being that the move would be more pragmatic in addressing overcrowding in elementary schools across the city as opposed to investing money in building one new school for a certain part of the city.

"The middle schools were fine, but with all the elementary schools, we took fifth grade out and by building one building we were able to touch each school," he said of the Northport Intermediate School. "We borrowed every dime we could borrow. That’s all we qualified for was $85 million."

Higdon concurred, saying that building a new school is a tedious process that must go through the appropriate channels. When the debate over Collins-Riverside ramped up, this prompted TCSS to set a deadline for the City of Northport to make its decision.

"It was never taken before the Council," he said. "One council person was the go-between. That deadline passed, then stuff hit Facebook that was incorrect, then we had another meeting and that deadline was missed as well."

The superintendent elaborated, saying the plan, in essence, would have seen Northport purchase Collins-Riverside so TCSS could have the extra money for renovations to other schools within the city limits.

"That plan was on the table, " she said.

Johnson is a well-respected leader in higher education circles, but not a Tuscaloosa native. She admits that she is still learning the politics of the area after first taking the job in July 2020, but her unique experience as coordinator of secondary education and exceptional education in the Alabaster city school system could prove vital in the months and years to come.

The City of Alabaster officially split from the Shelby County school system in the summer of 2019, in a move that has been referenced by many who support Northport's own secession.

Johnson lived through that and saw firsthand the nuances that accompany such a tidal shift in the way a community operates. Costs, logistics, staffing and all other areas of a school system are no doubt affected when such a large segment opts to remove itself.

But, for the career educator and her team at TCSS, the ongoing debate at present changes nothing about the school system's day-to-day operations.

"No matter what they are doing [in Northport], nothing will change," she said, before pointing out that the intermediate school gives Northport the newest and most high-tech school in the entire county. "We are not pulling projects. We’re not sticking them with old stuff. None of that is the case. We have several window projects for the summer, such as Faucett-Vestavia, Matthews, Collins-Riverside, and a window replacement for Crestmont. And we are going to try to work on [Crestmont's] heating and air over the summer."

Still, as Washington confirmed to me Wednesday in a stance similar to that taken by his colleagues on the City Council, if the vote were held today, he wouldn't think twice voting yes.

"There are some great people on the [TCSS Board of Education] and I'm friends with some of them, but we just want to do what's best for Northport," he said. "And I think that next step is getting this to a vote."

The Feasibility Of The Feasibility Study

With his white hair and crisp blue suit, John Myrick is right out of central casting for an archetypal school system administrator. And it is this former math and music teacher who has informed Northport City Hall on its ability to have its own school system for more than a decade.

Myrick, well-respected in his own right, has worked in education since 1963, while also serving on school boards for the cities of Alabaster and Saraland.

In June, he guided the Council through a fast-moving, somewhat nebulous PowerPoint presentation of the feasibility study, which focused more on the amenities garnered by his past clients than the prospects of the elected body he was speaking to.

Myrick was responsible for conducting the same lengthy feasibility study dropped on the table by TCSS CSFO Danny Higdon — elements of which were largely cherry-picked and carried over to the 2021 study.

Myrick and colleague Wayne Vickers have been instrumental in the cities of Alabaster and Saraland splitting from their county systems. For Myrick, his past business with the city no doubt reinforced his credentials when addressing a wide-eyed and excitable City Council.

The feasibility study ultimately concluded that Northport has the means to start and sustain its own school district, which would have an estimated annual operating budget of $54 million. The findings were received with mixed reactions from a skeptical community, with many detractors arguing that the city paid a firm to tell it what it wanted to hear, given the abundant vocal support for secession.

But, as the cliché goes, the devil is indeed in the details.

For instance, the study claims that it would cost a mere $600,000 to first establish the administrative functions and central office of a city school system. This would come after the City Council votes on secession, hires a school superintendent and appoints a school board.

This paltry sum immediately raised alarm bells with a noted numbers guy like Higdon, who immersed himself in 2014 payroll data to come up with what he viewed as a more accurate estimate.

"Off just those payroll numbers, it was close to $2 million that September ... just one month," he said. "That’s not Central Office staff, that’s just instructional staff."

Costs aside, there is little, if any, doubt as to the temperature of the City Council's desire for a Northport city school system. Through past reporting, a clear consensus can be seen among the Council members in favor of secession, but questions linger as to just how ambitions will become reality.

And apart from the basic argument of funding, the feasibility study itself has been its own topic of debate among education professionals.

TCSS leadership agrees there are visible gaps in the feasibility study and upon a thorough investigation by Patch, the concept of transportation seemed overlooked or altogether omitted.

Indeed, Criterion conducted a feasibility study for its hometown city of Chelsea, which provided ample data with respect to busing. In total, the word "transportation" is mentioned 76 times in Criterion's 113-page study for the City of Chelsea. This is presented in tandem with data tables reflecting extensive busing information.

Conversely, in the 165-page updated 2021 feasibility study for the City of Northport, the word "transportation" is only included four times, with no granular data provided to show consideration for such a large-scale change to such a crucial service.

This, by itself, raised even more concerns among TCSS officials, who argue that the City of Northport is rushing through an overly-complex and nuanced process that the city's leaders don't fully understand.

A big part of forward-thinking discussions focus on just what the separation agreement would look like, which could end up as the most volatile part of the entire discussion.

A Messy Divorce?

Before a new school system could ever get off the ground, Northport and TCSS officials would have to meet at the negotiating table to suss out county assets.

District 4 Councilwoman Jamie Dykes, a TCSS parent with a masters degree in education, is confident in her argument that, if and when the City of Northport decides to secede, it will have a right to claim every TCSS property within the Northport city limits.

This includes the Northport Career Technical Center on the TCHS campus, the Lloyd Wood Education Center and the county's maintenance shop — all of which serve a regional population as opposed to municipal.

Johnson said it would not be that simple, due to the aforementioned properties serving taxpayers outside of the Northport city limits. What's more, in at least one instance, the city's own ordinances will block it from having the means for such a swift take over.

For example, with respect to the Lloyd Wood Education Center, a city ordinance passed in Northport when the school was remodeled states that if there is ever a separation, TCSS would retain Lloyd Wood, which now houses the Sprayberry Center, pre-K programs and more.

But when looking at the fights over real estate and assets, there is no prize up for grabs bigger than the $4.9 million Northport Career Tech Annex, which serves not only TCHS, but Northside High and Sipsey Valley.

As with the Lloyd Wood Education Center, the Career Tech Annex is very much viewed as a countywide asset that just so happens to be in Northport and not one subject to a takeover by the city. For TCSS, the argument is a non-starter.

"It would all have to be approved in a separation agreement, and it's just not as easy as saying you get all of our assets in the Northport city limits," the TCSS superintendent said.

Dykes also elaborated, saying while the city would indeed be in possession of those specific countywide amenities, Northport would still be statutorily bound to offer the services to the rest of the county.

"And we would certainly do that," she said.

The Long Road Forward

Tuscaloosa County Commissioner Stan Acker is a respected elder statesman of Tuscaloosa County politics and something of a numbers man himself. Working during the daytime as assistant vice chancellor for Finance & Administration for the University of Alabama System, he can be seen in his elected office regularly asking pragmatic questions when it comes to dollars and cents.

He has seen a great deal during his years representing District 1, which includes Northport and the rapidly-growing northern end of the county. He's also no stranger to the ongoing talks of secession.

Acker has made it a point, though, to remain impartial in the public eye as the debate over a Northport school system has ramped up. In an interview with Patch Wednesday morning, though, he said he would offer whatever he could to help the two sides come together for a constructive dialogue.

"I would be more than happy to try to sit and be in the middle of that," Acker said. "I'm not on one side or the other — that's not my job — but I'm happy to sit and help the groups work together … if they want that. They may not. I just want to be a fair."

Johnson echoed Acker's sentiment, which came after she commended the integrity of attorney Mark Boardman, whose law firm was just hired by Northport.

"My response to [the City of Northport} is to just ask more questions," she said. "If they don’t have all of the information that they need, we would be glad to talk with them and provide whatever they need."

While it may not be Acker's responsibility to provide direct oversight for either body, he lamented the thought of any unnecessary expediency with respect to Northport splitting from TCSS.

As Patch has confirmed with a simple majority of the Council members, if a vote was held today, it would indeed pass unanimously. What's more, I've already reported that a Council vote on formally beginning the secession process could come as early as the first quarter of 2022.

"I do think there are a lot of issues and a lot of money issues that really need to be worked through in detail before hard decisions are made," Acker said. "I just think there is a lot of detail here that hasn’t been fully considered. I know Northport has a law firm and are doing their due diligence, because there is a lot of due diligence to do."

Have a news tip or suggestion on how I can improve Tuscaloosa Patch? Maybe you're interested in having your business become one of the latest sponsors for Tuscaloosa Patch? Email all inquiries to me at ryan.phillips@patch.com