The Cobb Board of Education next week will conduct two public hearings about the millage rate for the Cobb County School District for fiscal year 2025.
The first public hearing is next Thursday, July 11, at 11:30 a.m., followed by a second hearing the same day at 6:05 p.m., in the board meeting of the Cobb school district’s Central Office, 514 Glover St., Marietta.
A third public hearing is scheduled for the same venue on Thursday, July 18, at 6:30 p.m.
That precedes a school board general meeting at which the millage rate is set to be adopted. FY 2025 began on Monday in the Cobb school district.
The school board in May adopted an FY 2025 budget of $1.8 billion that includes retaining a property tax rate of 18.70 mills.
Due to spending increases in the budget, however, that constitutes a tax increase under state law, since there wouldn’t be a “rollback” of the millage rate to match FY 2024 spending.
(Cobb commissioners also are holding similar hearings starting next week, since the proposed county FY 2025 budget doesn’t include a rollback rate.)
The Cobb school district, which is required to advertise the hearings as a proposed tax increase, said the rollback rate for FY 2024 would be 17.199 mills.
The tax increase, as advertised, would be 8.73 percent.
Last year, the Cobb school board rolled back the millage rate slightly, to offset rising property tax assessments. The majority of property tax bills goes for public education.
The FY 2025 Cobb schools budget includes employee pay raises of between 4.4 percent to 9 percent.
The Cobb tax digest also is formally announced in July. In April, Cobb Tax Assessor Stephen White forecast a record digest of $60 billion, following a record $55 billion in 2023.
Related:
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- Cobb school spending critics reveal special event center details
- Former Walton HS principal moves to Hightower Trail MS
- Wheeler student selected for summer NASA internship
- Pope salutatorian among National Merit Scholarship winners
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This should be illegal!!!!
Think: fifty million dollars for a convocation center approved without public notification or input, just because Leader Rashdale says we need one.
The project was apparently developed under wraps with little information revealed to the media, the public, the taxpayers, and parents with kids in the Cobb Schools. We now learn that the facility is going to be less a convocation center intended primarily for graduations, and more of a conference and events facility (with a basketball court), similar to the one in Macon which is bleeding red ink.
Think: Some of the money came from the sale of former school properties. Imagine the benefits for our students if those properties were repurposed rather than demolished, and the Board invested the remainder of the fifty million dollars in our schools and teachers, rather than a monolith we can certainly do without.
Watch out for the next news flash: Ragshead’s minions will propose, vote, and approve naming the building after him!!