With a referendum just weeks away, Orange Beach city leaders and the Baldwin County school board remained sharply divided in September 2014 over the numbers behind a proposed breakaway school system.
City voters were set to decide on Sept. 23 whether Orange Beach should form an independent school system. Approval would trigger a 5-mill property tax increase to fund the split from the Baldwin County public school system, and the City Council indicated it would also implement a one-percent lodging tax increase and a half-cent sales tax increase, together expected to generate an estimated $6.25 million.
A feasibility study at the center of the debate
The council based its decision to move forward on a city-funded feasibility study by Birmingham-based consultant Ira Harvey and his firm, Decision Resources LLC. The city paid $37,500 for the study and an additional $12,500 to the accounting firm Carr, Riggs & Ingram LLC to establish a potential working budget for the system.
The county school board disputed the study, arguing it rested on flawed funding assumptions that would leave an independent system with a shortfall of more than $4 million. The disagreements centered on what the board called an inflated student count, contributions to Alabama’s Foundation Program, and assumed funding through a special privilege license tax as well as federal Title I money.
A school board member urges caution
School board member Angie Swiger, who represented Orange Beach and Gulf Shores along with other areas of south Baldwin County, reiterated the county’s position in a letter to the editor, urging voters to “think twice about supporting” the tax measure.
“To be clear, my motivation is not in opposition to a separate system if that is the direction Orange Beach voters wish to move,” she wrote. “Rather, it is to insure that the relevant and accurate facts are placed before the voters prior to the time they are asked to cast this critical vote.”
The city fires back
The city issued a formal response to the school board’s rebuttal, with points discussed by Mayor Tony Kennon and Jeremiah Mosley, an attorney with the city’s lobbying firm.
“The County does not want Orange Beach to separate. This much is clear,” the city’s news release stated in part. “After Orange Beach separates, the County may face similar attempts by other cities in Baldwin County, cities that are just as concerned over the condition of the County system as we are.” The city said it simply wanted to “educate our citizens on the truth” ahead of the vote.
At the heart of the dispute was enrollment. The county contended that Harvey had ignored actual enrollment data and inflated student totals by 138 students, a difference it said would improperly shift roughly $1 million in countywide taxes toward Orange Beach. The city countered that Harvey based his projections on the student count the county board itself had provided and that he had included private-school and homeschool students living within the city because an Orange Beach system would be legally required to admit them.
The competing claims left voters to sort through dueling budget projections in the run-up to the referendum — a high-stakes decision about whether one of Baldwin County’s coastal cities would chart its own course in public education.