Prattville weighs county school plan, city system at pivotal meeting

Prattville’s next school decision could shift control of classrooms, buildings and millions in local dollars from Autauga County to City Hall. Council members spent June 16 weighing whether to back the county school board’s facilities plan or pursue a separate Prattville city school system, and the issue now heads to a June 22 work session at 5:15 p.m. in the Council Chamber at City Hall. The choice will help determine who controls education policy for Prattville students, who pays for new campuses and how much authority the city wants over its own school future.

The City of Prattville says the work session is set for Monday, June 22, 2026, and will focus on the Autauga County Board of Education’s funding request. Regular council meetings are held in the City Hall council chambers on the first and third Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m., but the school debate has already moved into a more focused setting because officials want the numbers and the governance questions laid out plainly.

Autauga County Schools has said it is developing a facilities plan to address district infrastructure needs and has acknowledged that expenses are outpacing revenues under the current model. That pressure surfaced in March, when Superintendent Lyman Woodfin asked Prattville and county officials to help fund a new Prattville High School on the Central Alabama Community College campus. Woodfin said the district could qualify for only about $30 million to $50 million in bonds without new tax revenue, and he asked the city and/or county to contribute about $5 million to $6 million each year, with the school board adding about $2 million to $3 million annually.

City finance director Daniel Oakley told the Prattville Finance Committee on April 2 that the city should plan for the worst case and treat the request as a $6 million annual obligation. Oakley said a cooperative district structure would likely be needed if public entities partnered on the project, underscoring that any agreement would require more than a one-time pledge.

The city’s own budget shows how tight the fiscal room is. Prattville’s fiscal year 2026 budget allocates about 25% of its one-cent sales tax, or roughly $2.1 million, for education-related expenses. That includes about $525,000 for Central Alabama Community College, about $1.05 million for the Autauga County Board of Education, less about $355,000 for school resource officers, and $400,000 for The Pratt, a downtown museum, archival library, STEM education center and event venue project. The city says its fiscal year runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, and its overall budget is built around Project Prattville 2040.

District 1 Councilman Wade Newman, elected in 2025, said he has spent months talking with school officials, board members and state leaders while studying the numbers. Newman, a Prattville native and 1983 Prattville High School graduate who returned home in 2022 after 20 years in the U.S. Army, appears open to more than one path but leans toward a city system, in part because he believes Prattville should decide whether to invest in a system it can directly control rather than keep paying large annual costs without owning the underlying property.

District 6 Councilman Robert Strichik described the moment as a crossroads and said residents, parents and educators deserve a clearer answer after months of discussion. He also raised the idea of pairing a future high school with a new public library, a proposal that would tie school planning to broader civic development. Strichik has served on the council since 2016, his wife, Tracye, serves on the Autauga County Board of Education, and their three children are Prattville High School graduates.

Autauga County Schools has also said it is seeking an additional 7 mills of local ad valorem funding, which it says would generate about $7 million a year. Its FY2026 budget overview says the district began the year with about $110 million in revenues and $121 million in expenditures, a gap that explains why the fight over school control has become a fiscal fight as much as an educational one.