GULF SHORES, AL – With state and county budgets in crisis and voters sour on new Baldwin County taxes to raise money for school construction, the idea of special tax districts is a hot topic among local leaders.

One area needing new schools the most might also be the most affluent, the county’s southern district stretching from Ono Island to Fort Morgan along the Gulf Coast. Taxes raised in the special districts, if approved by voters, would be spent entirely in that district for school construction.

“Realizing that given the state’s state of accounting they are in right now and looking at their maximum budget for funding new schools, building new schools is very limited,” Gulf Shores Mayor Robert Craft said. “With the pay as you go program it’s hard to believe they’ll get to something as significant as we need down here.”

Just about everybody involved believes Pleasure Island needs two new schools – a new high school and a middle school in Orange Beach. Gulf Shores Elementary has 11 portable classrooms and just east of there the high school has three in its parking lot as well.

There are none at the middle school, but when the elementary students reach middle school age the overcrowding will move with them. Systemwide there are 90 portable classrooms in use, according to the Baldwin County Board of Education.

Couple that with burgeoning growth – Gulf Shores issued 77 building permits for single family houses from Jan. 1 to March 31 – and the number of students is expected to grow even more.

The growth is county wide as Baldwin was listed as the fastest growing in the state in 2013-14 with a population growth of 2.4 percent, according to the Baldwin County Economic Development Alliance. The same agency reported population went from 182,000 in 2010 to more than 200,000 in 2014.

“Looking at the long-term opportunity for them to build us our schools it’s a real long time,” Craft said. “I don’t know how we survive for that length of time with the amount of classrooms we’re going to need.”

The Baldwin County Board of Education could call for a special vote in districts around the county to ask the voters if they would approve a 3-mill ad valorem tax that would be earmarked for school construction in that district.

“It’s a concept that allows us to get involved in making sure our schools will get built in the timely fashion we need without us having to raise money to build schools anywhere else,” Craft said. “You’re taxing for something you will be able to benefit from which is a little bit easier to stomach.”

Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon, whose voters rejected forming an independent school system in September of 2014, said he’s a little cautious about the special districts.

“I’m sure that we will look into it, but it is imperative that anything that might happen with the county would be contractual and protect any revenue source derived from the City of Orange Beach in any way,” Kennon said.

Island schools representative Angie Swiger likes the concept.

“I am very much in favor of the special tax districts,” Swiger said. “With no new tax revenue and the loss of the 1-mill, it is very important for the Baldwin County Board of Education to partner with our local municipalities in order to address growth in our communities. 

“I see it not only benefitting our island schools, but all areas of the county.”

Swiger said the funding would cover new buildings and additional staff needed would come from the traditional state funding.

“Staff funding comes from the state and state units follow the students,” Swiger said. “Additional staff units are sometimes hired locally to enhance curriculum, lower classroom numbers.”

Not all her colleagues on the board are as enthusiastic about the plan, concerned that poorer districts would be left behind in facilities and curriculum advances areas like Gulf Shores and Fairhope could fund.

According to figures proved by Baldwin County Schools CFO John Wilson, the bonding capacity ranged wildly from the Gulf Shores High feeder zone, which could potentially bond $79.5 million in its area, to the Baldwin County High School feeder pattern in North Baldwin, which had only an $8.9 million bonding capacity.

“It will be that much more difficult for the rest of the county to keep up,” Board Member David Cox said. “I love the idea of partnering with municipalities, but I think we have to be very careful with how we implement these programs.”

Island mayors are both looking to gather as much information to present to voters so they can gauge if the election is even necessary.

“The most important part of this whole deal, we’ve got to get the community to lead us to this conclusion,” Craft said. “We are not going to try to lead the community to it. If the school districts are formed then we need to start to evaluate as a community whether or not that is something we would be interested in trying to present to voters to vote on.”

The Orange Beach mayor and council were big supporters of an independent school system only to see it fail two to one when the election was over.

“I think it’s important to realize that the community has to be on board and want this to happen for it to happen,” Kennon said.

Craft said educating students will remain as a county responsibility.

“I’m not interested as mayor of us taking on the role of educating the kids,” he said. “We’re much better off if we allow the county to do that and support the county in the ways we can.”