Shelby County has a lot going for it.
From its schools-
" We see younger families moving into Shelby County I think because of the school system and the success of the school system," said Randy Fuller, Superintendent of Shelby County Schools.
To its economy-
"We're the only county in the state of Alabama that has the highest credit rating available by the credit agencies and one of the few in the Southeast," said Lindsey Allison, Chairman of Shelby County Commission.
It also has three cities ranked in the top 100 places to live by a national publication.
For all these reasons it is growing like crazy.
"The population of Helena when I moved in was around 2500-2600 people now it's approaching 20 thousand," said Ray Quillen.
"Obviously we've been the growth engine for the State of Alabama now since the late 70's early 80's," said Lindsey Allison, Chairman of Shelby County Commission.
Shelby County's growth comes at a price.
From crowded classrooms-
"We've grown by over 730 students, but our funding has not increased we've had proration for the past year we're looking at proration next year so it's become a challenge for us," said Randy Fuller, Superintendent of Shelby County Schools.
To strained utilities-
"For the last five to seven years it was a priority we had a need for water," said Alex Dudchock, Shelby County Manager.
Public officials and the general public seem to agree on the biggest growth related problem.
"Roads trying to get to work," said Ray Quillen, Helena resident. .
"If I'm in a hurry I might go over there and hit the interstate and right after I do I'm sorry," Jet Edwards, Shelby County resident.
"I've seen people cussing, like come in the store just yelling and cussing," said Khurram Ali, Pelham business owner.
"Probably traffic is our number one problem in this county bar none, but it's very complicated to address because we don't have the financial resources to cure the problem," said Lindsey Allison, Chairman of Shelby County Commission.
Like many places Shelby County has also seen a drop in tax revenue recently.
"This year we had to cut close to four million dollars out of the budget," said Alex Dudchock, Shelby County Manager.
How can the county deal with these problems without winding up in debt like their neighbor Jefferson County?
County leaders say experience is the key.
"At one point in 1993 Shelby County was in horrible financial condition and in fact they were looking at bankrupting themselves. And it has taken us the last fifteen years to learn some lessons how to manage our money and have a very balanced budget, but it was a learning process," said Lindsey Allison, Chairman of Shelby County Commission.
Allison says hiring a county manager also helped turn things around.
"Our structure of government definitely lends itself to a very efficient form of government there's no question there," said Lindsey Allison, Chairman of Shelby County Commission.
Shelby County Manager Alex Dudchock says they've learned the hard way that running a county takes discipline, planning, and patience.
"They will take the tough positions even when it may not be politically expedient for them," said Alex Dudchock. "When you gotta cut and you have to live within your means that's how they operate."
"Yes it takes discipline and it takes implementing a plan like I was saying about saving money for those capital projects and not spending revenues as you may have them or finding changes that appear in the fiscal year to spend it on," said Dudchock.
Shelby County was also recently audited by the EPA for their storm water management program.
"Well when they came in they had a variety of things that they found as areas that they want us to improve. Yes it's going to cost us more money, not dramatically," said Dudchock.
"We have several cities that partner with us and also outside our county Moody partners with us. We share in that cost. Right now we are not passing that onto our property owners. That burden is being covered within the current revenue stream that we have in our budgets. That's different than what EPA and others see nationally."
However, Dudchock says ratepayers could shoulder some of those rising costs in the future.
"Now I don't know if the EPA is going to force us into something that forces us into something on down the road that we have to do that, but right now we're planning on paying for it out of our own pockets from existing revenue rather than jumping into another assessment. But there's more to be said on that," said Dudchock.
"We have not had our permit issued yet we answered to EPA. We had a very good meeting with them. They said they like what we are doing and what we plan on doing.
We're going from 5 sampling sites to 20 so you can imagine our internal costs. They went up 37% from last year to this year."
