Terry Schrimscher
IRONDALE, Ala. — The City of Irondale hosted two separate town hall meetings last week to discuss two topics shaping the future of the city. On Tuesday, Sept. 8, the meeting discussed the recent feasibility study on starting a school system, with a focus on financial aspects. On Thursday, Sept. 10, the meeting focused on the fiscal year 2027 budget and future investment goals for the city.
Mayor James D. Stewart Jr. was joined by Dr. Ira Harvey for the school system meeting. Harvey researched and wrote the feasibility study for the city. He began by explaining how city school systems are legally allowed to operate in Alabama.
“The city council is not a legal entity to make decisions about a city school system, if you start one,” Harvey said. “The legal entity is the appointed board of education.”
Harvey explained every city in Alabama with a population higher than 5,000 is allowed to consider operating a school system. He also explained that counties in Alabama do not own the property they manage and cities are allowed to assume school-designated properties if they break away to form a school system. Debt associated with those properties is negotiated between the city and the county.
“All the demographics of the city of Irondale are very favorable,” Harvey said. He explained his methodology evaluates the population on age, existing tax base and resources available. “As you are in Jefferson County, if you form a separate board of education you automatically inherit a share of every county-wide tax for schools and you automatically inherit the creation of a school tax district for ad valorem tax purposes that is the same as your municipal boundaries.”
Harvey said the state Legislature has expressed concern over the number of “extraordinarily small” school systems in the state.
“They passed legislation in the last session to allow city school systems to merge or even allow county school systems to merge because they have diseconomy of scale,” Harvey said as he noted Irondale would be a small system based on current evaluations.
You can view the full presentation on the city’s Facebook page.
Mayor Stewart hosted the Thursday meeting to discuss the budget for the upcoming year. Stewart projected a budget including $41.2 million in revenues with $40.3 million in spending. He also elaborated on the Billion Dollar Vision, where he envisions $1 billion in investments in Irondale by 2033.
“This is $1 billion in private and public investment in the city by 2033,” Stewart said. Throughout the presentation, Stewart listed several recent investments including a land purchase for a golf facility, construction upgrades at local car dealerships and Costco.
He noted Irondale has seen roughly $294.9 million in new investment activity in 2026. You can view the meeting on Facebook.
