About 200 people gathered in a room of the Chelsea Community Center on May 2 for a town hall meeting regarding an alternative plan to the proposed 12.5 mill property tax to create a Chelsea city school system.
Council members Cody Sumners and Casey Morris, along with Shelby County Schools Superintendent Dr. Lewis Brooks addressed the audience and answered questions.
Sumners opened the meeting with background information regarding how this all came to be. It began in 2019 when a city contingent (a few members of the Chelsea City Council) met with Brooks to inquire about the possibility of the Shelby County Board of Education (SCBOE) building a new Chelsea High School. The contingent reported back to the rest of the council that the Brooks stated “that they did not have the funds to build a new high school, nor would they entertain the idea of a district tax to fund construction.”
Sumner said the entire council heard the report and accepted it as fact, and Morris said that the information brought back to the rest of the council was as inaccurate as it could possibly be.
“Dr. Brooks has never once said to that group, or to this council, or to this city, nor to anyone else in Shelby County that he is not willing to work with said municipalities,” Morris said. “We’ve seen it time and time again with projects at Forest Oaks Elementary, Chelsea Park Elementary and Chelsea High School, and they will continue to do that, even as we’re on the verge of making a vote to potentially break away from the county school system.”
A discussion began in 2021 on conducting a feasibility study on the possibility of Chelsea forming a city school system. Sumners said he voted against even conducting the study, because he believed the city has wants and needs that must be addressed before creating another bureaucracy and giving up 40% of the city’s revenue. When the results of the feasibility study were presented at the end of 2021, Sumners said it quickly became a contentious subject in the community.
In December 2021, Councilman Casey Morris met with Brooks to examine ways the city could partner with the county to help address the needs of our schools. Morris said Brooks was ready, willing and able to partner with the city of Chelsea to address the needs of our schools.”
Shortly after a public forum was held in January 2022, Morris contacted Sumners and proposed the option of using the city’s current one cent sales tax for needed upgrades at the facilities and that it would bring in the rough equivalent of 10 mills of property tax and allow the needed facility upgrades to be completed without raising taxes on the citizens.
The two released their alternative plan to the public last week. They had previously brought it up during the March 15 precouncil meeting where Sumners said “it fell on deaf ears.”
Sumners outlined the highlights of the alternate proposal which can be found in a previous 280 Living article here.
“The whole reason Casey and I released this proposal is to let the citizens know that the proposal to raise property tax is not the most viable option on the table,” Sumners said. “As a matter of fact, it's not even the best option on the table. In order for the citizens to make informed decisions, it is imperative that they know the facts and availability of alternate options. One day, I feel confident that Chelsea will have its own school system, but today is not that day,” Sumners said.
Morris said he doesn’t believe the feasibility study was a waste of money, because valuable information was gathered, but as a city right now, Chelsea is not there yet. He said he also believes the people who live in unincorporated Shelby County should be able to vote on the proposal.
“I don’t want to prevent our community from voting, I want to make sure you’re getting to vote on the right thing,” Morris said. “A 12.5 mill prop tax has been discussed by a group of three and it’s not the best decision to be put out there.”
He said his biggest fear is that if the vote passes it will divide the community.
“If this does go to a vote on July 12, please encourage your friends and neighbors to get out and vote no for this property tax, because there's a much better solution. The numbers just don't make sense. If we go with the 12.5 mill plan, the current 6th grade class would be juniors before they reaped any benefits from this tax.”
Brooks said that the SCBOE has partnered with the city of Chelsea on several recent projects, including adding more parking spaces at Chelsea High School.
“There has not been a reluctancy on our part as a school district to sit down and have conversations to discuss ways we can partner together,” Brooks said. “We’re willing to do that and we’ve done that in every community in our county.”
He said there’s an idea that the SCBOE has unlimited wealth, which they do not, and they do not have the ability to pay for a new $80 million high school.
The SCBOE’s annual budget for Chelsea, including teachers, has been about $33 million per year, with $39 million in 2021, which also includes federal and state money that is allocated to the SCBOE to be distributed throughout all the county schools, Brooks said.
“I can assure you there’s no local money that goes out of Chelsea to other places,” he said. "The information I got from the tax assessor is that Chelsea, from a property tax standpoint, generated about $6.4 million last year. Last year, our school district spent $6.5 million [for Chelsea schools].
While the high school now has 1,400 students, the SCBOE funded 10 classroom additions in 2010 and 21 classroom additions in 2018. Brooks said there is a current project slated to add classrooms at Chelsea Park Elementary, but it won’t move forward until they see what the city is going to do.
Brooks said he knows that Chelsea is growing and wants people to understand the SCBOE wants to be fiscally responsible with the funding they have available.
“This is a great city, but from a financial standpoint, you’re not where Alabaster or Pelham was when they separated,” he said. “Any other area you want to compare yourself to, their property taxes are already higher.”
Brooks said there is no choice but to think about rezoning students who unincorporated areas because of the narrative is that the schools are overcrowded, adding there are currently empty classrooms at Oak Mountain Middle and Oak Mountain High School.
“For us, it's a business decision to look at certain areas of our county that are unincorporated, not in the city limits to rezone them, that's what we’re looking at,” he said.
When Brooks was asked if he would be willing to sit down with Chelsea leadership and Westover leadership in a grassroots effort to come together and find some common ground on getting some of these projects knocked out, he said absolutely.
Councilman Chris Grace was in attendance at the meeting and was invited to speak to the audience. He said he does intend to vote for an ordinance even though he remains conflicted on the issue.
“As passions rise, people want to do what they think is best, you’ve got to understand the context of where people are coming from,” Grace said.
In short, he supports the betterment of Chelsea schools, but did not support the higher property tax options of 20 mils and 30 mills due to the burden he felt the citizens would have to bear, along with the constraints put on the city and future councils to fund future services.
“Based on the facts, I believe the only action forward is to give the voters a chance to decide,” he said. “I am content to accept the outcome of that action and institute the will of the people. I have confidence you’ll make the right decision.”
The Chelsea City Council will vote during the May 3 meeting to call for a special municipal election on July 12.
