ECS stands to gain from state decision

Enterprise City Schools stands to gain financially from a recent directive from the State Department of Education.

Citing Alabama law, Interim State Superintendent of Education Ed Richardson directed Dale County Revenue Commissioner Eleanor Outlaw in a letter dated Oct. 20 to include Enterprise City Schools and Dothan City Schools in the 2017-2018 distribution of countywide school taxes.

“The Code of Alabama…provides that receipts from countywide taxes collected for the purpose of participating in the Foundation Program shall be distributed to local boards of education within the county based on their total Foundation Program calculated costs,” Richardson said in his letter. “Unless I have approved an alternative distribution plan, the percentages given for each school system identified below should be used in distributing receipts from countywide taxes for the fiscal year Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, 2018.”

At issue are some 600 students attending Enterprise City Schools who live in Dale County and 29 students attending Dothan City Schools who live in Dale County.

About100 of those students live within the Enterprise city limits that are located in Dale County. The remaining students live in areas of Dale County such as Level Plains, Daleville and Clayhatchee. Students attending ECS who live on Fort Rucker are not included in that number.

“Several months ago, the state department had asked for some information that we collect about the students that live outside of our school city limits that we actually serve that are in Dale County,” Faught said.

What prompted the request for those numbers is litigation in North Alabama between Limestone County, Athens City and Madison City Schools.

“We looked at the students we serve to include the students in our school zone. It’s how the Alabama High School Athletic Association defines eligibility zones and we learned that we bus quite a few students from Dale County into ECS.

“We do have an enrollment procedure if you live outside the city limits, we’re not legally compelled to serve those people even though we always have,” Faught said.

“The state department made the directive based on the litigation in North Alabama,”Faught said. “At issue is the tax dollar.

“We are funded through the State Department of Education from the Foundation Program money based on the average daily membership of our school system the first 20 days after Labor Day,” Faught explained. “Prior to this decision, Dale County, Ozark City and Daleville City Schools have been receiving sales tax dollars and ad valorem tax for students that are going to school in ECS.”

“Six hundred children is essentially a good sized elementary school,” Faught said. “To go out and build an elementary school big enough to hold that many kids would cost between $13 to $14 million and if we transported every one of them we are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars just in transportation.

“The parents are paying countywide ad valorem tax where they live in Dale County but their tax dollar has never gone where their children are being served,” Faught said. “We’ve always served those children but at the same time, the taxpayer in our district has been spread more thinly because of that.”

Enterprise City Schools Assistant Superintendent Dr. Patrick Cain used the analogy of dividing a pie to explain the State Department of Education’s new formula for distribution. Whereas the “pie” was formerly split between the three school systems in Dale County, it will be split into five pieces to now include Enterprise City and Dothan City Schools.

“Now the state department is saying that there are students within Dale County that don't go to any of these three schools. They go to Enterprise or Dothan City Schools so those systems are due a portion of that tax,” Faught said. “The state department changed the division based on the lawsuit in North Alabama.

“The tax money follows the children where they are being educated,” he added. “For decades it hasn’t been done that way and the money has been distributed to those school systems that don’t actually transport or serve those students.”