Orange Beach is wanting to split away from the county and form there on city school system, with an appointed board and appointed superintendent. It will be funded by property taxes and luxury tax on condos and hotels, and a .5% increase on sales tax pushing it to 10.5.

Question is, how many on here have experience with a city school system and what do you think?

Seems like every municipality around Jefferson and Shelby County has done it or is in the process of doing it. IT must be a money makers somehow.

We (Satsuma) split off a couple years ago. So far so good.

Have they stated a rationale for wanting to break away from where they are?

Saraland, Satsuma and Chickasaw broke away from Mobile County. The way the district was drawn, Prichard was included before the breakaways, so you can guess which schools got more money and attention. Saraland is thriving, and I'd imagine that Satsuma and Chickasaw will do much better, too.

It will prob be very beneficial for the new school system because they will no longer have to divvy up tax revenues earned in that area to other schools in the county. It will prob hurt the schools in the county because I would imagine the luxury and property taxes in Orange Beach accounted for a decent portion of the school systems revenue.

The Pros outweigh the cons, even in a small city with far fewer revenue generating businesses(Satsuma here).

The school board will be appointed? By who?

IMO, what needs to happen is for the state to go back to one school system per county. There are 5 or 6 school systems in the county I live in, Marshall county. That's 5 superintendents to pay, 5 secretaries, 5 of everything when their should be ONE of each. Look at that across the state and you can see how much education money is wasted. If all the wasted money was put into the classrooms there would be no "need" for city school systems.

The City Council

I have heard Satsuma is doing well, but OB is totally different town that Satsuma. I feel that OB is a tourist town and is dependent on about %80 tourist dollars if not more to survive. So our total economy is at the mercy of the Weather.

I just hate the power and control push by the all the popular mommys and city council that are pushing this.

The City has spent around $100,000 on everything so far in this endeavor.

Is the appointment of the school board just to get the system started and then elections will eventually decide who is on the school board?

For starters most people assume the Baldwin County school system is this wonderful well funded system.....it's NOT, but people just think it is and a live in Baldwin County. You're going to see more of this but I suspect the OB will only truly be successful if they form a system with Gulf Shores. One heck of a tax base to pull from!

It really boils down to what type of school system Baldwin County (Alabama as a whole for that matter) wants and it boils down to funding. Right now we have a very average school system IMO. I might be the only guy that believes my property taxes are too low and I would pay more for a better school system. It's not going to change unless taxes go up or AL changes the way they fund schools. I once read that Baldwin County remits enough money to pay for 14 of the "poorer" school districts. Maybe that needs to change.

My son goes to city school and some our friends go to county school. Difference is our city school gets new books every 2-3 years where one of friends sent a pic where his kid brought home his English book that was issued in 1995. City school has smart boards in each room and the teachers so far have been good. The county schools are way under funded. The city school is the reason we haven't moved. But with that said it is all in how the school is run. We have board members and teachers that fight for every grant they can get along with a community that takes pride in the school theirs always a fund raiser goin on to fund our city school. And most of the time if a child wants a scholarship they get it. They have the help at the city school. At the county you will only hear maybe 3 scholarships.

I'd hope thats how it'd work. If you have both the board and superintendent appointed, there is no accountability to the stakeholders.

I don't blame any community for wanting to control their education system. One county system allows places like Birmingham to bully everyone and draw down the resources of smaller communities. I have no problem with anyone doing it their way.

Freedom baby, yea!

And they should. The way I see it, the city is carrying the whole county on it's back. I would bet the area within a mile of the coast brings in at a minimum, 65% of the county's revenue from the months of March-October. I rarely go there, but based on what I've seen with my own eyes, that would be my estimate.

I will have to dig for the link, but Baldwin taxes fund Many other areas of the state.

Good Lord, y'all have a 10% sales tax. Yikes! Alabama is getting up there with the northeast states with their taxes. That along with the state income tax y'all carry a large tax burden. Food is taxed there as well.
No income tax, 6.5% sales tax! and no tax on groceries in Florida. I think y'all are getting railroaded up there.
Hell our roads make Alabama's look like pig trails. What are y'all doing with all that tax money?

I agree but your property taxes are about 3 times what mine are.