Residents to vote on property tax increase to benefit schools
Mountain Brook City Councilman Billy Pritchard offered a stern analysis about the state of Mountain Brook Schools earlier this year.
At a February City Council meeting, Pritchard said the school system has reached a crossroads. If it wants to maintain the level of excellence it has achieved over the last few decades, it will need a financial boost, and soon.
“We can’t wait any longer,” said Pritchard, a 1972 Mountain Brook High alumnus who serves as the council’s liaison to the schools.
An opportunity to take action now sits on the doorstep of city residents.
With the May passage of Senate Bill 177, sponsored by state Sen. Jabo Waggoner, Mountain Brook has gained approval to hold a citywide referendum that will determine if it raises its ad valorem property tax by 10 mills.
Mills are calculated as the amount of tax paid per $1,000 of assessed property value.
Schools Superintendent Dicky Barlow said the millage rate increase would generate an additional $6 million in annual revenue, all of it benefiting the school system.
The majority of that money would help fund capital improvement projects at Mountain Brook’s six schools. But resources would also help finance enhancements in safety and quality, like adding school resource officers and increasing focus on student mental health issues.
The City Council set Sept. 24 as the date for the referendum. An affirmative simple majority vote, 51% to 49%, is all that’s needed for the measure to pass.
“We’re not asking that there be brand new schools built,” Barlow said. “We’re saying we just need to upgrade our schools, make sure our students are safe and continue to stay great.”
Why the need?
The school system performed its due diligence before asking for the millage rate increase, Barlow said.
It hired an architectural firm a few years ago to evaluate the needs of each Mountain Brook school and presented the findings to the City Council.
The audit revealed that the schools will require future capital improvements that could cost anywhere between $31 million and $87 million.
The low end of that spectrum represents the price of projects that must be done, Barlow said, while the high end represents the price of projects that the school system wants done.
A 28-member community task force, chaired by Gary London and Nancy Goedecke, formed after the audit in August 2018.
Mountain Brook Schools asked the group to examine its spending and recommend actions it could take to ensure educational quality and financial capability for years to come, including how it might pay for the capital improvements.
The task force provided instructive feedback.
In January 2019, London and Goedecke told the school board that MBS had exercised financial prudence and maintained a high classroom standard even as resources dwindled.
According to Barlow, who has been superintendent since 2009, Mountain Brook Schools missed out on about $16.7 million from 2008-2018 because of post-recession reductions in state education funding. The schools also lost about $1.8 million in local funding during that span, Barlow said, as property values in Mountain Brook temporarily declined.
“Historically, the school system has always been a very wise steward with the money that they’ve been given,” Barlow said. “And what we try to do is provide an effective, challenging, engaging education for every one of our students.”
But to keep all of that up, the task force informed the school board that it needs to generate additional revenue, especially if it wants to start work on the capital improvements.
Increasing the city’s ad valorem tax rate emerged as a viable solution.
One step at a time
After hearing a request from Barlow, the Mountain Brook City Council in February voted unanimously to ask the state Legislature for approval to hold a referendum.
Waggoner sponsored a bill allowing the city to carry out its desire. The bill passed through the House and Senate without opposition this spring and garnered the signature of Gov. Kay Ivey in mid-May.
Mountain Brook has not held a referendum to raise its ad valorem tax rate since 1991, according to both Barlow and Fred Renneker, a former school board member who spoke at February’s City Council meeting.
Renneker said the last increase passed with about 90 percent public approval.
Barlow believes that residents will express similar enthusiasm at the polls again, given the bottom-line impact a rate jump would have.
Owners of a $500,000 home would pay $500 more in property tax, Barlow said, while owners of a $1 million home would pay $1,000 more.
“I think it’s reasonable,” Barlow said. “I live in Mountain Brook, and I’m more than willing to pay that type of increase for my children — of which I have three — to receive the quality of education that they are receiving.”
City Council President Virginia Smith doesn’t have any children in MBS but concurred with Barlow. She expects residents to vote affirmatively in the referendum because of its ramifications.
“Even if they don’t have children in the school system, I think a lot of people recognize that the value in their own homes and the community run side by side with the quality of the school system,” she said.
If the referendum yields an affirmative vote, the additional revenue generated by the increase will enable MBS to make about $60 million of capital improvements over the next 16 to 20 years.
The work will be paid for through bond issues and will be completed as finances are saved, Barlow said.
Priority items include rebuilding the three academic wings at the high school and expanding Brookwood Forest Elementary. Extensive work will be done at every school, Barlow said, since each one in the system is at least 50 years old.
Both Barlow and Pritchard said campaigning will likely begin in the near future. Then, it will be up to the voters to decide.
“I’ve talked to seven or eight groups, and I haven’t received any pushback yet,” Barlow said, “because when they hear what we’ve done over the last 10 years and what our needs are for the future, it just makes sense.”