This is the second in a series of stories on the proposed 1-cent sales tax benefiting Cullman County Schools.

The Cullman County School Board’s ownership of a parcel of land on Smith Lake has been a point of contention during the debate about the upcoming one-cent sales tax referendum, but Cullman County Schools Superintendent Shane Barnette said selling the land now would not generate enough funding to address the system’s facility needs.

The school system owns 435 acres of property on Smith Lake featuring an unfinished house and 25,000 feet of shoreline, and many people have called for the system to sell the land instead of trying to raise money through a tax increase, but the idea behind the system’s control of the land was that it was meant to be used as a long-term source of revenue for schools, Barnette said. 

“Right now, it’s not a quick fix for a lot of money,” he said.

The controversy surrounding the lake property is one that has spanned 10 years and three Cullman County School Superintendents.

Beginning in 2010, the Cullman County School Board and former Superintendent Billy Coleman unveiled a plan to take over control of around 438 acres of land on Smith Lake, citing Section 16 of the Alabama code, which set the land aside for “school purposes” decades ago.

It took two years of lobbying and a special referendum vote by the people of Cullman County — followed by another year of working to obtain a clear title from the state — but the board eventually gained control of the land from the Alabama Department of Conservation.

While the board was able to take over the 435-acre parcel of land, that piece of property did not have any right of way access, and in November 2014 — under the leadership of former Superintendent Craig Ross — the board approved the purchase of the adjoining 10 acres of land to make sure the Section 16 land was accessible.

That 10-acre parcel of land was purchased at a price of $1.2 million, and the decision to make the purchase was drew ire from many Cullman County residents because of an apparent lack of transparency surrounding the issue, and the fact that no official appraisal of the land was done before the board bought it.

Today, the school board still has the property, but calls from members of the public to sell the land would result in the system losing out on a potential source of long-term revenue, Barnette said. 

He said the board would likely get around $4 million if it sold the land right now, but it would only see a small portion of that money immediately. 

As part of the original plan to take ownership of the property, the board adopted a plan for 90 percent of the eventual revenue from development or sale of the land to be deposited into a trust account, with the remaining 10 percent deposited into the school system’s general fund. Interest payments from the trust fund would be distributed annually based on the number of students residing within the boundaries of the Cullman City and County School Systems.

Because 90 percent of the money from a potential sale is already committed to go into a trust fund, the short-term gain for the board would be too small to make a big impact on school facilities, Barnette said.

Assuming the land was sold for $4 million, that would leave around $400,000 that would be available to go into the general fund, but that $400,000 would also have to be split with the Cullman City School System, leaving around $308,000 for immediate use by the county system, he said.

“Unfortunately that does not go very far,” he said. “$300,000 probably wouldn’t even add one classroom to one school.”

Barnette said he and the board are still working on plans to lease the land to someone who will develop it, so the system can draw that money from that lease as a source of revenue for future generations.

“It’ll generate some long-term money, but it won’t fix our schools today,” he said.