Voters in Limestone County, a fast-growing county in north Alabama, rejected the renewal of property taxes that help fund public schools.
With 96% of the votes counted, the unofficial results of Tuesday’s special election show that voters said no to renewing three different property tax regimes that help fund schools in Limestone County.
If approved, the ballot measures would have maintained taxation at current levels.
“There was misinformation spread that it was a new tax; that may have caused people not to renew it,” said Ed Nichols, superintendent of Madison City Schools, in a statement to AL.com.
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Portions of Madison, a fast-growing suburb of Huntsville, are located in Limestone County and thousands of the city’s students live within the county’s borders.
Funding from local property taxation supports various programs, Nichols said.
“We use that money to expand our art and music, to improve school safety and other programs like STEM,” Nichols said in the statement. “We’re also about to break ground on a new elementary school in Limestone County that is needed to serve that rising population in Limestone County.”
Bobbi Bailey, director of elections for Limestone County, told AL.com that the county education board has until 2025 to hold another election.
“The tax that’s currently in place will sunset in 2025, so basically they have time to request another election, but they would have to go through the same process as they did to request this election,” she said. “The school board would have new resolutions prepared to request an election.”
“They would have to go through the same process, but they do have time to request another election before the current taxes expire.”
Now home to 110,900 people, Limestone County’s population increased by 33% between 2010 and 2022, making it one of the fastest-growing counties in Alabama.
The Madison City Schools Board this year approved a $58.3 million bond to construct the new elementary school in Limestone County on a property that the city annexed in 2021, The Madison Record reported in March. The newspaper reported that the construction is in response to the increasing student population.
There were four measures on the ballot. Limestone County voters rejected two separate countywide public school taxes, both by about 60-40% margin. One is a 4.5 mill tax and the other is a 1 mill tax.
They also rejected the 3 mill public school tax renewal for parts of the county that do not include the city school systems, by a 70-30% margin.
Turnout was just 3% with 2,389 of the county’s 77,961 registered voters casting ballots.
Voters approved maintaining the current 3 mill tax for Athens City Schools, by a margin of 55% to 45%.