The Cobb tax digest has grown by more than originally anticipated in 2018. As a result, superintendent Chris Ragsdale is proposing Cobb school employee pay raises that are larger than what was adopted for the fiscal year 2019 period that began July 1
Instead of a 1.1-percent across-the-board increase that was approved last month, the Cobb Board of Education is being asked to amend that pay raise upward, to 2.6 percent, at its July meeting on Thursday.
The proposal for the extra raise came after the county tax digest grew by 9.1 percent for this year. Cobb schools budget staffers projected a six percent increase.
The school board in May approved only a 1.1 percent one-time bonus, to go into effect in December. But the end of state education austerity cuts in May prompted Ragsdale to propose a 1.1 percent raise for some employees, mostly at the school level, on top of the bonus.
School board member David Morgan of South Cobb said that wasn’t enough. So did Connie Jackson of the Cobb County Association of Educators, who pleaded for a 2.6-percent raise to help Cobb move up from near the bottom in starting teacher salary levels for school districts in metro Atlanta.
She suggested raising the millage rate from 18.9 to the maximum 20 mills to do that, but the rest of the board wasn’t in a tax-raising mood.
“I am sure the over 15,000 school employees will be happy to hear this good news and teachers will receive a much needed raise,” school board member David Banks, who represents the Lassiter and Pope districts, said in his weekly newsletter over the weekend. “It is critical that Cobb be in a position to retain our teachers and valued support employees.”
He said he also wished the raise could be higher.
Also on Thursday, the school board will hold the final of its required public hearings on the school tax millage rate, followed by the adoption of the millage rate. The hearings are at 12 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., in the board room at the CCSD Central Office, 514 Glover St., in Marietta.
Nobody spoke at the first millage rate hearing last week.
The board will have a work session at 1:30 p.m., followed by an executive session, and will reconvene at 7 p.m. for the business meeting.
The combined agendas for those meetings can be found here.
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