Hoover Board of Education presents rezoning proposal, 2015 budget

Superintendent Andy Craig and architect Tom Aho presented a new proposal for elementary school rezoning in Hoover City Schools at the board of education meeting Sept. 8.

The proposal was formally presented to the public to allow for a feedback period before the board votes at a later date.

As with the original draft plan, the only elementary school in the U.S. 280 corridor that would be affected by this new draft is Greystone Elementary. 

Students in the Riverchase Parkway area multi-dwelling units between U.S. 31 and I-65 would move from Riverchase Elementary to Greystone Elementary. Those units are Riverchase Gardens, Royal Oaks, The Gables Condominiums, Summerchase of Riverchase, Colonial Grand at Riverchase Trails and Sterling Oaks of Riverchase.

Aho explained that since Hoover City Schools’ last major realignment 10 years ago, Hoover has grown by about 2,300 students, or about 20 percent. This has caused natural shifts in student population, begun to stress the capacities of some of the elementary schools and unbalanced student demographics. 

The key objectives of this realignment were too optimize use of existing facilities before constructing new ones, to position all Hoover City Schools to be successful, to minimize the frequency of future disruption and to allow uncertainties related to growth to com into focus.

Aho said that many concerns were taken into consideration to create this realignment plan, including the concerns of the community said and balancing school demographics. Craig and Aho developed this plan by looking at the building capacity analysis, the growth projections in enrollment, and housing development and the student geo-demographic data

Budget approval

The board of education approved a budget of about $167 million for its 2015 fiscal year.

This budget will exceed Hoover City Schools fund balance by about $6.9 million, but the budget summary illustrates that revenue is up $1.6 million from the 2014 Amended Budget.

The budget presenter said over the last couple of years Hoover City Schools has been struggling with declining revenue, but she said the ad valorem or state property tax has provided a greater amount of local funding. The funds from both the State Foundation and the ad valorem are budgeted to be $67.1 million, which is a $1.1 million increase from last year.

The budgeting process begins in the preceding spring with determining the school and department staffing needs for the following year. About 85 percent of the general fund budget is decided at this time. This budget will be used as a planning tool to provide an overall plan for the use of Hoover City Schools’ financial resources.

One resident brought up the plan to charge for bus use during this presentation, and was told this budget did not factor in bus charges. They are still looking into their options concerning that issue.