Parker stresses need for tax increase to handle population boom

MADISON – Regardless of how Madison City Schools superintendent Robby Parker looks at the problem of managing rising student growth, the answer for him is clear — Madison must pass a proposed property tax increase in Sept.

“We are not going to be able to offer the same world class education if we don’t have places to put children,” Parker said on a school bus tour highlighting many of the areas in Madison and Triana where the highest percentage of new growth is occurring. “We need an additional revenue source because growth is going to continue.”

Parker and school board members took the tour last week bringing awareness to the boom in residential development and the impact it is having on school overcrowding.

Parker is hoping voters in Madison and Triana will pass the 12-mill increase during a special election on Sept. 10 so the district can add a new middle school and elementary school to alleviate overcrowding. A 12-mil would add $120 annually in property tax per $100,000 value of a home.

“When we became a school district we had 5,000 students,” Parker said. “We will have 12,000 students this year. There were 400 high school kids in the city of Madison in 1988, and now there are over 4,000. In thirty years we have grown times ten times.”

During the past school year alone, the district grew by almost 600 students. They are projected to grow by that much or more during the next few months.

MCS officials estimate schools will be at 94% capacity district-wide when school starts next month. In fact, some schools have reached or near reaching their capacity. Liberty Middle School will be at 100%. Mill Creek, Rainbow and Horizon elementary schools will be at 98%.

Residential growth is to blame. It’s a good problem to have, as more people are drawn to this area for the top-rated school district, low crime rate, good jobs and recreational opportunities. But, it leaves school officials wondering how they are going to make preparations for the growth ahead and how to accommodate for more students.

Madison’s population has grown from about 42,000 in 2010 to nearly 50,000 today, and that number is expected to rise significantly as more jobs become available in the area.

“With all the jobs coming to the North Alabama area, growth will happen,” Parker said. “We are excited about that. What we are saying is for us to continue offering a world class education we need an additional revenue source to be able to handle that growth in the schools.”

Working with the school district, the city council has been helpful in slowing down some residential building growth and annexations, but more phases of existing subdivisions are coming online soon.

“When they initially approved the subdivisions they have now, they approved many phases for some of them. They are constantly building,” Parker said.

Parker said that 3,300 new homes have been approved in Madison. They have been studded out and ready to be built. “Without adding any more houses than what has already been approved by the city that will bring in almost 2,000 students to Madison City schools.”

But, it has not just been Madison’s growth affecting student growth. Triana has begun to see growth as well. Because Triana students attend Madison City schools, their growth affects school population numbers in Madison.

The tour passed through several new subdivisions in Triana where hundreds of homes are being built, which will bring even more students to Madison City schools.

“A few years ago we only needed to send one bus to Triana to pick up students, now we are sending six,” Parker said.

The rising student population numbers have already been challenging school officials to find space to accommodate all the classes.

“We are putting them anywhere we can,” Parker added. “We are making any decision we can make to utilize space the best we can.”

Parker said some schools are using special gyms to hold certain classes and incorporating rooms originally meant for other purposes. Administrators are doubling up and sharing offices so they can have enough rooms to accommodate more students.

Parker has proposed building a new $34 million elementary school on 20 acres of land the school district already owns next to the Kroger on Wall Triana Highway. It will hold about 900 students.

“We believe it will serve our students really well,” Parker said. “It will help alleviate some of the overcrowding at Mill Creek and take in all the West Madison students. West Madison’s campus will become the Madison City Pre-K Center, which will alleviate some overcrowding at Rainbow. We believe this will be a beautiful site and serve both the east and west end of town.”

He also proposed building a new $49 million middle school, which will hold 1,200 students in grades six to eight. It would be built on land the school district also owns behind the central office on Celtic Drive.

“It is imperative that we pass the tax increase to build the new middle school,” Parker said. “One middle is at 100% capacity and the other is over 90 percent capacity.”

Bob Jones and James Clemens would see some expansion to handle growth at the high school level.

Regardless of whether a tax increase for new schools passes, the school district’s rate of growth will remain. “I see it continuing at this rate or greater for the next few years,” Dorinda White, the attendance coordinator for the school district, told school board members in April. “When you look at the development that is happening now around us, it makes these numbers even more significant. Enrollment at most fast growing school districts within the state increases about 150 students per year. We are almost at 600.”

If the property tax does not pass, Parker said some other options will need to be considered.

“It will mean major repercussions on our system,” Parker said. “We will have a major rezone right off the bat because some schools are completely overcrowded now. It would not be a good move, but it will be a survival move at that point.”

Parker also said auditoriums could be used for class space, and cafeterias would be utilized for classes before and after lunch.

Parker stressed that the growth problem would still persist and continue to expand.

“We really need to pass this property tax increase,” Parker stressed.

Field near established subdivisions in east Madison proposed for 185 homes. CONTRIBUTED

East Madison

A lot of people may think all the growth issues stem from new residential construction on the west side of Madison, but that’s not the case said Parker.

“Development is wide-spread,” Parker said. “It’s not all just in the Limestone County portion of the city. While a great deal of the new homes coming into Madison will be built in the west end, there are several new developments taking shape on the east end, and throughout the rest of the city.”

During the tour, Parker said the second fastest growing school in the district had been Horizon Elementary School, which lies near the eastern city limits of Madison. “There is not a lot of new growth here, but there is a lot of turnover. Older couples are selling their homes and younger families with school-age children are moving in.”

He said much of the turnover is in the Highland Drive area, which feeds into Horizon.

Horizon’s capacity is 650 students. They will start the new school year with 635 students, just 15 students short of reaching 100%.

Parker also said there are several places where new construction is impacting growth on the east side of town. “Everywhere there is a vacant lot, they build a house. You will see that throughout the east side of town.”

Parker pointed several cases where people had simply bought a small lot between other homes and built a house.

“They are even buying up sections of backyards for premium prices and building a new home there. They are filling in everywhere,” Parker added.

Even though the majority of the new subdivisions are being built in the Limestone County portion of Madison, there are still new subdivisions along the east side. “Whole complete subdivisions are springing up overnight,” Parker said. “Not just where you would expect them, but in the older portions of the city, like along Eastview Drive. It’s like a Chia Pet, you just water it and it explodes.”

As the tour progressed along the eastern side of Madison, Parker pointed out two areas of land where new subdivisions are in the planning stages.

The first was within the Horizon school zone where nearly 200 homes are planned to be built once the city’s planning and zoning commission approves the development and it passes through the Madison City Council.

“The initial phase will be 185 homes with more likely coming in successful phases,” Parker said.

The second is a stretch of land along the corner of Wall Triana and Eastview. Parker said there is a proposal coming before the city to develop that section into more homes. The new subdivision would touch the borders of Abbington Downs subdivision and Bob Jones High School. It will feed into West Madison Elementary School, Discovery Middle School and Bob Jones.

West Madison has 475 students to start the school year, with a capacity of 500. They are only 25 students away from reaching that limit.

The other elementary school on the extreme east end of the school district is Rainbow. “They have the same problem as Horizon,” Parker said. “We will probably see another 100 to 200 children added at Rainbow this year.”

Rainbow will have 770 students to start the school year, 110 shy of its capacity. That is the largest margin of any of the elementary schools. In fact, the district is just 315 students away from reaching capacity in the elementary schools, which experienced nearly a 385 growth at that level last year.

Even if the tax increase passes, the district will likely reach over capacity before a new school can be built. They could very well reach it before the end of this upcoming school year. This could prompt school officials to make adjustments to zones or find creative ways of incorporating space within the schools to accommodate more classes.

Another elementary school serving a large chunk of the east side is Madison Elementary, the city’s oldest school. They are 95% full, with only a 30 student buffer before reaching capacity.

The middle school serving the east side of Madison is Discovery. That school is at 92% capacity with 1290 students. It feeds into Bob Jones, which is at 90% capacity.

Subdivisions like this one are gobbling up undeveloped land on the west side of Madison, in Limestone County. CONTRIBUTED

West Madison

Moving into the west end of the city, Parker’s tour began to zone in on new subdivision which did not exist just a couple of years ago and fields and fields of stubbed out places for new homes.

The tour went into a fairly new development off Huntsville-Brownsferry Road, the Village of Oakland Springs.

“This is the first phase and the smallest of the subdivisions on the tour,” Parker said. “It has come out of the ground rather quickly and it’s going to be more a Providence type of a development. On the back of the subdivision, as far as you can see, they are already stubbing it out for new homes.”

Even though the subdivision is on the far west end of Madison, in Limestone County, Parker said it is zoned for Rainbow, Discovery and Bob Jones. “Mill Creek (Elementary), Liberty (Middle) and James Clemens (High School) simply won’t hold them.”

“Our demographic projection for James Clemens is that by 2025 they will have about 2,800 students,” Parker said. “Obviously, they can’t hold that many. They will have about 2,100 this year.”

The tour then went to Nature’s Trail subdivision off Powell Road where the growth of new homes is exploding. New houses line the streets as you enter into the new development with lots ready for hundreds more.

“When I became Superintendent two and half years ago, this was dirt. This did not exist,” Parker said. “Now there is nothing but roads with places stubbed out for houses as far as you can see. There are fields upon fields that will be filled in with homes very soon. These are houses that have already been approved.”

Fueling most of the new growth in subdivisions on the west end of the city has been expansions in job opportunities coming to the area.

Just a short distance from the first new subdivisions within the Madison city limits lies the new Mazda-Toyota plant, which will create 4,000 new jobs – plus the construction jobs needed to build the facility. In addition, other new job opportunities in the area like the new FBI center coming to Redstone Arsenal, which have 1,350 positions, will be adding to Madison’s population boom in a dramatic way. “Madison offers a world class education and is one of the best in the nation,” Parker said. “Many of these people will want their kids in Madison City schools.”

The schools which serve the majority of western Madison are already busting at the seams. James Clemens is 100 students short of being at capacity level, and Liberty Middle School is at capacity level with 1400 students.

Mill Creek, the fastest growing elementary school in the district is at 1025 students. Just 25 more students and the school will be at capacity.

Columbia only has 50 more students to go before reaching capacity, and Heritage is just 60 students away from being filled 100%.

School and city officials have been saying for months how the property tax increase is really the best and only solution right now to handle the growth coming into Madison. They have said that it just makes sense that with a population boom like the one the city is feeling and will continue to see for the next few years, more room for classes will be needed to accommodate that growth. The problem is not in knowing what is needed, but how to pay for it. The current property tax rate is simply not enough to fund the amount of new buildings and expansions needed to meet the demand.

School officials point to the fact that Madison residents pay far less in local education property taxes than other top performing school districts in Alabama. Madison and Triana residents currently pay 27 mils of property tax for education.

Madison’s millage rate is currently the lowest of the top five schools in the state, which are according to NICHE: Mountain Brook, 52.9 mils; Madison City, 27; Homewood City, 37.5; Hoover City, 46.1; Vestavia Hills and 52.05.

A 12-mill increase for the city would bring Madison up to 39 mills.

One mil generates approximately $676,000 annually for Madison, so 12 mils would bring in about $8 million per year. Parker says that would leverage borrowing $120 million-plus for 30 years, depending on interest rates and other variables, to handle the immediate need the population boom has created.