SPANISH FORT, Ala. — The Spanish Fort feeder pattern stands to lose almost 21 additional positions in locally-funded units if additional revenue streams are not tapped immediately.

 The figures, released earlier this week by the Baldwin County Board of Education, indicate a total of 20.99 positions will be eliminated at the four schools should the March 23 referendum for a 1 percent sales tax fail.

The positions affected—including 4.09 at Rockwell Elementary, 2.56 at Spanish Fort Elementary, 7.98 at Spanish Fort Middle School and 6.36 at Spanish Fort High School—are not funded by the state but instead by revenue generated locally and drawn from the system’s general fund. To a lesser degree, some of these positions are funded through federal stimulus money, but those streams will end no later than 2012.

In addition to the locally funded cuts, the system also faces the loss of as many as 126 positions countywide once the state reconfigures statewide student-teacher ratios as well as the loss of as many as 230 non-tenured teachers who have not yet completed three years in their current positions.

“We could lose more than 400 employees,” said Baldwin County Schools spokesman Terry Wilhite, noting the exact figure for non-tenured teachers affected in Spanish Fort was not immediately available. He did acknowledge, however, that the feeder pattern would be hit particularly hard by those losses because the schools are so young.

“We’re going to lose teachers no matter if the tax passes or doesn’t,” he said.

To date, the school system has lost $61 million in state and local funding over the past 24 months, and a three-year, 1 percent sales tax has been proposed to help minimize the number of teachers, staff and programs affected by future cuts. If approved, 100 percent of revenue generated by the temporary sales tax would remain in Baldwin County to pay for locally-funded positions, Wilhite said.

“The priority is to restore some local units but keep as many local units in place as practically possible,” he said.

The positions affected at Spanish Fort schools by the loss of locally-funded units are as follows: