FRANKLIN COUNTY, Ala. — There’s one statewide amendment on the Alabama ballot Tuesday, and it concerns one school board and the management of land in two counties.
The amendment, sponsored by Rep. Jamie Kiel, R-Russellville, deals with property owned by the Franklin County school system in Walker and Fayette.
Some of the land rests along Interstate 22, which runs through Walker County. Kiel said it needs to be a statewide amendment because it concerns more than one county.
“Currently, Walker and Fayette County are collecting no tax revenue off that property because the schools don’t pay property tax,” he said. “So there’s no property tax, there’s also no development. There’s no sales tax, there’s no lodging tax, etc, and so and business licenses. And so if this were developed properly and sold to developers, obviously the Franklin County school system would get money. But the real long term play here is for Walker and Fayette counties.”
According to a Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama (PARCA), the lands are “sixteenth section lands,” given to Alabama by the federal government before statehood for the purpose of building schools. In the late 19th century, the state Legislature allocated some of those lands to the local boards of education, known as indemnity lands. Some boards got property outside their counties.
Sixteenth section and indemnity lands are technically owned by the state and are held in trust by the State Board of Education and managed by Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
“Like all of the Section 16 properties currently, it just has trees on it,” said Kiel. “The Department of Conservation will occasionally log it off and the money will go to the Franklin County school system.”
While Franklin County Board of Education receives money, Fayette County, Fayette County schools, Walker County and Walker County schools get no proceeds from any activity on the land.
If the amendment passes, the Franklin County Board of Education would have full control of the land. PARCA says the amendment would allow them to sell the land without the governor’s and state superintendent’s approval and receive all of the proceeds from a sale or otherwise generated on the land.
“If the Franklin County Board sells the land along I-22 to a developer, Fayette County, Walker County, and the Walker County town of Eldridge could see annual property tax and sales tax revenue depending on the nature of future developments,” said the report.
Kiel said that he believes the best use of the land would be commercial development along an exit on the highway. A Buc-ee’s, he said, would be his first call.
“There’s a little town there just south of that intersection,” he said. “It’s called Eldridge, and they could annex that intersection and provide services to that intersection, and they would have what could be a huge tax base.”
This article originally appeared in the Alabama Reflector, an independent, nonprofit news outlet. It appears on FOX54.com under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
