FAIRHOPE, Ala. — If Fairhope decides to form a local school system independent from the county system, it will join 65 Alabama cites that have already done so.

“There are 67 county systems and 65 city school systems for fiscal year 2009,” Ira Harvey, the consultant hired by the city last month to study the feasibility of such a split, said this week.

Harvey, who has a doctorate in educational administration from Auburn University and provides educational finance consulting services through his Birmingham-based company, Decision Resources LLC, has studied the feasibility of separate school systems in a number of other Alabama cities, including Saraland, Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, Daphne, Clay, Millbrook and Prattville.

His Saraland study led to that city’s forming a separate system.

In addition to Fairhope, Harvey is currently engaged in similar feasibility studies in Chickasaw and Pike Road, he said.

“Numerous other studies have been done on local school finances but not related to forming a separate school system,” Harvey said.

The City Council voted unanimously last month to hire Harvey for a fee of $25,000 to conduct “a study to assess the financial feasibility of a separate school system for Fairhope, Alabama,” according to the contract proposal he presented to the city. “To conduct this study will require the review of the tax base of Baldwin County and the City of Fairhope, the types of taxes and rates that will be automatically in place for a city school system, and comparison with peer municipalities having independent city school systems across the state, in order to assess the financial feasibility for separation.”

The contract proposal recommended that the study include more than a dozen itemized components, as well as setting out the work product that Harvey will submit in approximately three months.

Harvey will be assisted in his work by a committee developed by Councilwoman Debbie Quinn at Harvey’s request.

“When I started working on compiling this committee, and after talking with Dr. Harvey, I knew that I needed several umbrella requirements of types of people to be on the committee,” Quinn said. “Dr. Harvey and I talked about the size of the committee, and I decided that five was plenty, especially with the liaison positions attached to the committee.”

Quinn said that some of the factors she and Harvey were looking for in establishing a committee would be people who could help provide and identify information he would need in completing his study.

In addition, she said, the committee members also should have the following characteristics: that they not be employed by the present school system; that all the members have or had children in the system or been intimately involved in the system somehow; that someone from the downtown merchants association be involved; and that a past educator be included.

That advisory committee was never formally established by a vote of the council nor its purpose specified in writing, but the members themselves were appointed by a vote of the council last month.

The committee includes the council, mayor, city treasurer, city clerk and five residents.

“(The) study committee will be assisting in reviewing city finances, students currently enrolled in school sites in Fairhope, potential students for a Fairhope city school system, and future tax bases,” Harvey said. “Budget information from the Baldwin County school system (will also be studied).”

The committee has met one time but did not announce a second meeting date at that meeting, and neither Quinn nor Harvey provided a second meeting date by press time.

“Local officials and staff have been most courteous and cooperative,” Harvey said. “Interest in providing the best possible education for the student residents of Fairhope is paramount in their mind. I am proud of their deep support of public education in Alabama.”