Scroggins updates on current projects, plans for future
Shelby County manager Chad Scroggins gave his State of the County presentation during the Shelby Chamber’s community luncheon on Oct. 27.
He highlighted what the county has done over the last two years, since the last in-person State of the County luncheon. He said it’s been a challenging time and is thankful to have a strong leadership team in place.
“If we just continue to manage Shelby County and the resources we have, we’re going to fall behind,” Scroggins said. “We need leaders that truly lead and make decisions; they're not just managers in their departments, but leaders in their fields.
Since 2020, the county has had:
- Toll bridge controversy
- Global pandemic
- Bid for the largest construction project in 15 years, the new 280 County Services Building
- National election
- Vaccination fight with the state to get the proportionate shares of vaccines for Shelby County
- County employee benefits change to stabilize the long-term growth of the financial requirements within the county budget.
- Sewer legislation
Even though the pandemic has been a part of most of the past two years, Scroggins said Shelby County operated through it all, and was one of two counties that didn't shut down operations.
Shelby County saw a population growth of 5,332 people in FY2021 and now has 223,024 residents. The unemployment rate for the county is 2.1% (compared to the state’s 3.2% and the country’s 5.2%) The one cent sales tax brought in $36,092,500 from October 2020 to July 2021. There were 385 residential building permits from Jan.-Aug. 2021 and 18 commercial building permits for the same time frame.
The total county budget for FY22 is $150,355,318. Scroggins said that’s a significant increase from where it has been in the past. Four of the main expenditure categories are:
- Public safety: $35,857,252
- Highway department (county roads and bridges): $19,007,775
- Water Services: $21,082,499 (includes some major capital projects)
- Landfill: $12,979,607 (which includes a new cell at the Shelby County landfill).
The county was given $42 million in funds by the federal government. The first half came in May.
“We aren’t doing any project that doesn't have a shelf life of at least 20 years,” Scroggins said. The first project we used a portion of that to create a water line extension of a growth corridor through Chelsea CR-280 running all the way to Harpersville. The other portion will be used to address the need for the county’s radio system to have more capacity and better coverage. We are looking at the best interest of all 808 square miles in the county.”
Scroggins said that in a lot of areas, Shelby County is first in categories including per capita income, household median income, unemployment rate, education rate and home median price, but the state of Alabama is at the bottom of national averages.
Projects that were wrapped up or started in FY2021 include:
- Independence Hall at American Village
- Abbey Woolley Park (Alabaster) restroom project and updates to courts there.
- Alabaster Veterans Park fields
- Joe Tucker Park restrooms and sidewalks
- New pickleball courts at Heardmont Park
- New County Services Building 280
- A cross country course around CR-11 ballfields in Chelsea.
- Vincent walking trail
- Inverness Greenway project (adding sidewalks that provides access to the communities on Inverness Parkway)
- New airport hangar at Shelby County Airport
- Vaccination clinics
- Dunnavant Valley Park
- Double Oak Park
- Landfill cell no. 5- creating enough space to last for the next 150 years.
- Intersection realignment at CR 39/47 in Chelsea.
He thanked 58 INC. for their work with economic development in bringing more retail and commercial projects to the county and said his leadership team will continue to plan for the county’s future.
“We try to do the right thing, the best thing, but I guarantee you we’re not going to just do nothing,” he said. “We will do whatever it takes to try to progress Shelby County going forward. Our goal is to lead this county to a brighter future than we have right now.”