(a) In Colbert County, the payments made to the county commission as authorized in Section 40-28-2, shall be distributed by the county commission as follows: Forty percent of such payments shall be disbursed on the same formula as school funds according to the State Department of Education's "Current Expense Ratio" are apportioned to the four local school systems - the Colbert County Board of Education, the Muscle Shoals City Board of Education, the Tuscumbia Board of Education, and the Sheffield Board of Education; 60 percent of the payments shall be distributed to the county general fund and on a pro rata basis to the general funds of the City of Tuscumbia, the City of Sheffield, the City of Muscle Shoals, the City of Cherokee, the City of Leighton, and the City of Littleville, with each city receiving the amount that its population, according to the latest federal census, bears to the entire population of the county, and the general fund of the Colbert County Commission receiving the amount that the population of the county outside the cities bears to the entire population of the county, according to the latest federal census.
(b) However, the payments which the municipal electric authorities make to the City of Tuscumbia, the City of Sheffield, and the City of Muscle Shoals shall continue to be made to those cities by those authorities just as was the practice prior to October 1, 1979, and such distribution formula provided in this section above shall not be construed to include municipal electric authority payments to the municipalities but shall only include the amounts that the State of Alabama actually transfers to Colbert County.