City of Helena v. Pelham Board of Education, et al., [Ms. SC-2023-0516, Aug. 2, 2024] __ So. 3d __ (Ala. 2024). In a case orally argued before the Supreme Court on June 5, 2024 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfktn-WMpfE), the Court (Parker, C.J., and Mendheim, Stewart, and Mitchell, JJ., concur; Shaw, J., concurs specially; Sellers, J., dissents, which Wise and Bryan, JJ., join; Cook, J., recuses) affirms the Shelby Circuit Court’s order rejecting the City of Helena’s request for a judgment declaring that the Pelham Board of Education (“the PBE”) lacked the “power or authority to construct, maintain, or operate school facilities within a municipality other than its own.” The PBE acquired the subject property located in Helena and adjacent to Pelham High School intending to construct an athletic field and parking lot.
In affirming, the Court first determines that a “straightforward reading of §16-11-9 [Ala. Code 1975] is that the prepositional phrase ‘within such city and adjacent territory to the city which has been annexed as part of the school district’ simply describes the location of ‘the free public schools’ for which a city board of education exercises its granted powers, not that it circumscribes the territory in which those powers are capable of being exercised.” Ms. *19.
The Court reiterates “[p]ublic education is a power belonging to the State ... granted in the Alabama Constitution. See Art. XIV, § 256, Ala. Const. 2022” and that “… in their governance of public education, boards of education are independent of the counties and the municipalities in which they are located. ‘Like county school boards, [city boards of education] are agencies of the state, empowered to administer public education within the cities. As such, a city school board is not a subdivision or agency of the municipal government.’” Ms. **26-27, quoting Enterprise City Bd. of Educ. v. Miller, 348 So. 2d 782, 783 (Ala. 1977).
The Court holds “[t]he power exercised in this case, public education, is unquestionably a governmental function, rather than a proprietary function – a fact that Helena has never challenged – and it is a power that belongs to the State, rather than to a municipality. Therefore, the PBE’s power to construct and operate the athletic field is not constrained by the fact that the property is within the corporate limits of Helena, and the athletic-field project is exempt from Helena’s zoning ordinance.” Ms. *39.
Justice Sellers’s dissent (joined by Justices Wise and Bryan) asserts that “§16-11-9 specifically limits a city board of education’s powers of administration and management of its public schools to the geographic boundaries of the city it serves or to adjacent territory that has been annexed by the city as part of its school district. That is the only way to read the statute, because to construe it otherwise would allow the precise controversy that has evolved between Helena and the PBE, by giving absolute authority to a city board of education without any regard or deference to an adjacent city.” Ms. *47.