Demopolis leaders head to Montgomery to fight to keep funding for healthcare sciences school in state budget

Demopolis leaders are traveling to Montgomery early Wednesday morning to urge state legislators to restore funding of a planned $31 million healthcare high school to the state education budget after it was removed in a surprise move last week.

For months, Demopolis has been garnering support to put a statewide residential School of Healthcare Sciences in their city in connection with Whitfield Medical Center. The project even earned a nod from Gov. Kay Ivey during her State of the State address in early March.

"This new healthcare high school, to be located in Demopolis, will offer an innovative curriculum for 9th through 12th graders, exposing them to a diversity of STEM and healthcare opportunities, as well as hands-on clinical training experiences," Ivey said in her speech.  "Y’all, when these students receive their diplomas, they will be ready to fill a broad spectrum of healthcare jobs or pursue a higher education." 

But last week, the state Senate removed funding for the project from the education spending plan and reallocated 80% of the funds to other projects mostly north of Shelby County.

Sen. Bobby Singleton, whose district includes Demopolis, objected to removing the project from the spending plan.

Demopolis advocates like Marengo County Commissioner Jason Windham said they weren’t expecting the healthcare high school budget item to come up in the legislature for another two weeks when they had planned to share details of the plan from the 50-plus page report.

Whitfield CEO Doug Brewer said the project had strong support from doctors at UAB, which is affiliated with Whitfield, and from leaders of surrounding hospitals in the Black Belt and beyond.  

The STEM school was more than just an education institution, Brewer said. It’s the state’s way of finally investing in healthcare after ignoring it for generations.

“Everybody says, ‘Why are we 50th in the country in healthcare?’ … The answer is because they put all the money in the urban areas and other parts of the state, regardless of the fact that Alabama is a rural state,” Brewer said. 

The high school, modeled after the schools of Math and Science in Mobile and Fine Arts in Birmingham, would also help solve the nagging healthcare worker shortage in the state, especially in rural Alabama, Brewer said. Being located in the Black Belt also allows the region to build its own healthcare workers and expose them to options in an area that is desperately low on workers.

“It’s really terrible that we neglect the populations in the rural areas of Alabama and don't provide the kind of support we need,” he said.

As news spread that the healthcare high school funding got cut, Demopolis business and civic leaders started a chain urging supporters to contact the governor’s office and lawmakers and get the $31 million added back to the budget. Windham said the funds are seed money to get the building built for students and is a one-time state allocation. The project will sustain itself after it gets started, he added.

Sean Parker, president of Main Street Demopolis and rising president of Rotary Club, said they will not give up.

“If we lose this, we’re not going to give up. This is ours. It will end up in Demopolis. We’re going to figure it out,” he said. 

The community has been talking about how community colleges and the University of West Alabama could work with the new health care magnet school. “This isn’t just a Demopolis project: this is a regional project,” Parker said. 

County Commissioner Windham said he is hoping to meet with lawmakers and share details about their project. He said he hopes to invite legislators to the Black Belt to see what it has to offer instead of giving in to a negative impression of what they think the Black Belt is.

Associate Publisher Brad Fisher contributed to this report.