Section 45-2-245.20 Trust Fund Established; Administration.

(a) Any laws or parts of laws to the contrary notwithstanding, any annual privilege tax levied upon persons engaging in the business of producing or severing oil or gas or other hydrocarbons from the soil or waters of Baldwin County measured by the gross value of such oil or gas or other hydrocarbons and which tax is applicable only in Baldwin County and under which collections were being made on January 1, 1987, shall be continued and collected only as herein prescribed. (1) All revenues collected from such local severance taxes, shall, beginning the first day of the month following May 19, 1989, be paid into the general fund of the county exclusively for transfer and deposit into the trust fund hereby established until the total sum of fifteen million dollars ($15,000,000) in severance tax revenues of the type described in this section, excluding any interest income on amounts deposited therein from such total sum, has been deposited into such trust fund. Upon the deposit into the trust fund of the county general fund of a total of fifteen million dollars ($15,000,000) in such severance tax revenues, any local law authorizing or levying such tax, including, without limitation, Act No. 2120, H. 2450, Regular Session 1971 (Acts 1971, Vol. V, p. 3399), shall stand repealed and no further taxes shall be levied thereunder. Any such local oil and gas severance tax revenues in excess of such fifteen million dollars ($15,000,000) amount collected in Baldwin County after the time the total of such tax proceeds paid into such trust fund established hereby for Baldwin County shall reach fifteen million dollars ($15,000,000), shall be refunded as promptly as shall be reasonably practicable to the payers thereof. Except as is set forth below, the county commission shall not be authorized to make any expenditure from any monies composing the corpus of the trust fund so long as it shall remain in existence. The trust fund shall be designated as the “Baldwin County Oil and Gas Severance Tax Trust Fund,” and is hereinafter referred to as the “trust fund.” (2) Commencing with the first year in which the trust fund provided for in this section shall receive deposits as required hereunder, and in each year thereafter, the Baldwin County Commission shall take steps to ensure that the trust fund shall retain the total severance tax revenues paid therein plus 10 percent of any net income or interest generated by the investment of such severance tax revenues, which sum shall be and become a part of the corpus of the trust fund. A sum, not to exceed 90 percent of the net income or interest thereby generated from the investments, shall be distributed quarterly, semi-annually, or annually, as designated by the trustees of the trust, to the General Fund of Baldwin County for which the trust fund is established pursuant to this section. (3) The county commission shall constitute the trustees of the trust, provided, however, that the commission may in its discretion appoint one or more trustees or escrow agents for the trust, which trustees or escrow agents shall be trust companies or national or state banks having powers of a trust company within or without the State of Alabama. The trustees shall invest the corpus of the trust only in direct general obligations of, or obligations the payment of the principal of and interest on which are unconditionally and irrevocably guaranteed by the United States of America. Provided, however, that notwithstanding any legal limitation that might otherwise be applicable, the trustees shall further have the authority in their discretion to invest such trust fund in certificates of deposit of any savings and loan associations or banks, whether federally or state chartered, whose principal office is located in this state, provided that such funds so invested are fully secured by pledges of securities of the type described in the immediately preceding sentence hereof. Provided, however, that notwithstanding any legal limitation that might otherwise be applicable, the trustees shall further have the authority in their discretion to loan, in one transaction and one transaction only, all or any part of the funds on deposit in the trust fund to Baldwin County, and the Baldwin County Commission shall have the authority in their discretion, in one transaction and one transaction only, to borrow the funds from the trust fund and shall be required to expend all funds so borrowed solely for the purpose of encouraging, promoting, or assisting economic and industrial development in Baldwin County including, but not limited to, acquisition of property or projects or financing or refinancing of new or existing projects, or for the construction, maintenance, or repair of roads and bridges within Baldwin County directly related to specific economic and industrial development projects. Any loan by the trust fund shall be a general obligation of Baldwin County, the repayment of which shall be made in semi-annual installments of principal and interest over a term not to exceed 15 years from the date of the loan, at a rate of interest equal to one percent more than the published market rate payable on 10-year term U. S. Treasury Notes prevailing on the date of the loan. Repaid principal funds may not be borrowed a second time pursuant to this provision. (4) Upon the deposit into a trust fund established pursuant to this section of the total sum of fifteen million dollars ($15,000,000) in severance tax revenues of the type described in this section, excluding any interest as income in such total sum, and the consequent repeal of the local law authorizing or levying such tax, the Baldwin County Commission shall be thereafter prohibited from levying or collecting, directly or indirectly, any local county severance tax of the type described in this section that was in existence prior to January 1, 1987. (b) It is specifically provided that this section shall not be construed to repeal or be in any way deemed amendatory of any of the provisions of Article 1 of Chapter 20 of Title 40, as amended.