Cobb schools budget

Differing tales of two Cobb tax millage rate public hearings

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Cobb tax mllage rate public hearings
A partial summary of the proposed fiscal year Cobb government budget presented on Tuesday (continues below).

Just hours after a feisty town hall meeting in East Cobb, citizens continued to sound off Tuesday as Cobb tax millage rate public hearings got underway this week.

On Tuesday morning, several East Cobb citizens were among those urging the Cobb Board of Commissioners to raise the general fund property tax rate to preserve and enhance libraries in particular, as well as parks and other public services.

One of them was Abby Shiffman, chairwoman of the Cobb Library Board of Trustees. She was at the Monday town hall at the Sewell Mill Library, and in reference to opponents of a tax increase, said “do not believe what you’re reading by misinformed people on social media” about commission chairman Mike Boyce’s proposed 1.7-mills increase.

On Wednesday morning, the Cobb Board of Education also held a public hearing as it officially sets its millage rate this month.

No citizens showed up for that, and the hearing ended after only 20 minutes, following a brief presentation by Cobb County School District finance chief Brad Johnson.

While the school board isn’t proposing a millage rate increase—it’s holding the line at 18.9 mills—additional property tax revenue for the school system means it’s required to hold three public hearings (FY 2019 Cobb schools budget info here).

Two more will take place next Thursday at noon and at 6:30 p.m., followed by millage rate adoption at the board’s business meeting the same day at 7 p.m.

In May, the school board adopted a $1.2 billion fiscal year 2019 budget that took effect July 1.

Cobb commissioners also will have two more scheduled public hearings, July 17 at 6:30 p.m., and on July 25 at 7 p.m. Commissioners are set to adopt the budget on July 25.

To be precise, commissioners are holding two separate hearings—one for the millage rate, and one for the budget, since both have yet to be adopted.

Cobb tax millage rate public hearings
The Cobb government budget would grow by 9.7 percent from the current fiscal year 2018 (continued from the top).

Georgia law requires the public hearings if either the millage rate or property tax revenue (or both) increases from the previous year. Millage rates also have to be formally adopted for local governments and school districts to receive tax revenues.

Here’s a detailed PDF of the proposed Cobb FY 2019 budget that includes departmental and other breakdowns and forecasts into fiscal year 2020.

While most of the speakers at Tuesday’s commission public hearings were in favor of the millage rate increase (which would add $50 million to the general fund), some were opposed, or expressed concern about the size of the proposed tax increase.

Ron Sifen of the Cumberland/Vinings area said “that’s a big increase. You’re really hitting the reset button on spending” by boosting general fund expenditures from $403 million to $454 million.

Alicia Adams of Americans for Prosperity also asked commissioners to reject a tax hike. “Cobb homeowners have been taxed enough,” she said.

The supporters included those supporting the UGA Cobb Extension and Cobb parks as well as Save Cobb Libraries.

Mike Smith, an East Cobb citizen, said the proposed increase is “a fair price to pay” for public services. He lives in District 2, where commissioner Bob Ott has been skeptical of a tax increase. Ott was absent from Tuesday’s meeting, as he represented the county at a technology conference.

“Somebody needs on the commission needs to get to Mr. Ott,” Smith said. “I wish he were here today.”

Shiffman, who was appointed a library trustee by Ott, told the other four commissioners to “do what your constituents want, not what you feel you may want.”

She feared that “if this increase does not pass, there will be cuts.”

Related stories

 

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Cobb schools tax digest public hearings begin Wednesday

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The first of three Cobb schools tax digest public hearings takes place this Wednesday.

The hearing is scheduled for 11 a.m. at the Cobb County School District Central Office (514 Glover St., Marietta) in the Board of Education meeting room. Cobb schools open on Friday, Cobb schools tax digest public hearings

The other hearings take place next Thursday, July 19, at 12 p.m. and at 6:30 p.m., in the same location.

The public hearings are required by Georgia law, since the millage rate is not being reduced, and because property tax revenue will be increasing due to rising assessments.

In May the Cobb school board adopted a $1.2 billion fiscal year 2019 budget that holds the line on a millage rate of 18.9 mills that has been in effect for several years.

Here’s how the CCSD explains what it’s obligated to do, under the Property Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights law which has been in effect since 2000:

The Cobb County Board of Tax Assessors assesses all county property in compliance with state law. If property is reassessed upward, then the Cobb County School District will see an increase in tax revenue. The additional revenue will be applied toward the higher cost of student instruction due to enrollment growth, and to ease budget constraints caused by reductions in state revenue.  

To collect the same revenue as last year and avoid an increase in taxes of 7.48%, the millage rate would have to be decreased to 17.584 mills, defined as the “roll-back” rate described in the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.

Here are links to Cobb schools budget documents. Most school district employees are receiving a 1.1 percent raise, due to a $10.2 million contribution from the state of Georgia following the end of education austerity cuts.

School board member David Morgan wanted a higher millage rate, as did the Cobb County Association of Educators, to provide a bigger raise.

East Cobb board members David Chastain, David Banks and Scott Sweeney opposed a millage rate increase.

Formal adoption of the millage rate is scheduled at the board’s July 19 business meeting which starts at 7 p.m. and follows the final public hearing.

 

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Walton High School Principal Judy McNeill retiring; Cobb school board adopts $1.2B budget

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Longtime Walton High School principal Judy McNeill is retiring.

Walton Principal Judy McNeill
Walton Principal Judy McNeill

In making several principal-level appointments Thursday evening, the Cobb Board of Education accepted her retirement, effective Aug. 1, the first day of the 2018-19 school year.

Her successor was not immediately named. McNeill’s name was not included on a list of more than 200 retiring Cobb County School District employees who were honored at a luncheon last week.

McNeill has been at Walton nearly 30 years, and has overseen a school that’s generally been regarded as one of the best in the state of Georgia.

In what turned out to be her last year at Walton, McNeill oversaw the move to a new campus building and had to handle gun-control protests that included a walkout in February.

The Cobb district did not endorse the walkouts, and permitted principals to determine how their schools might honor victims of a Florida school shooting that sparked the planned demonstration.

In an interview with East Cobb News, McNeill said students had organized a memorial observation before classes that day, and discouraged students from following through with a walkout.

After some student protest leaders announced they had more than 2,000 signatures to walk out, only around 200 or so Walton students participated.

School board member Scott Sweeney, who represents the Walton attendance zone, said at the end of Thursday’s meeting that McNeill was “an absolute joy to work with. . . . We wish her the very best in her retirement.”

The school board also appointed David Nelson, principal at Daniell Middle School, as the new principal at Pine Mountain Middle School, and Faith Harmeyer, an assistant principal at Mt. Bethel Elementary School, as the new principal of Nicholson Elementary School.

Those appointments are effective June 1.

The school board formally adopted a fiscal year 2019 budget of $1.2 billion Thursday that includes a 1.1-percent raise for all district employees, a 1.1-percent bonus for many employees and STEP increases for eligible employees.

The budget, which goes into effect July 1, does not include a millage rate increase. Connie Jackson of the Cobb County Association of Educators had asked the school board to raise the millage rate from 18.9 mills to the limit of 20 mills for higher increases.

But Sweeney and David Chastain, who represents Post 4 in Northeast Cobb, opposed raising the millage rate any higher.

The vote was 6-1, with school board member David Morgan of South Cobb opposing. During a work session on Thursday afternoon, he pleaded for a raise in the millage rate, showing charts illustrating how Cobb’s starting teacher salary average of $42,364 is 9th out of 12 districts in metro Atlanta.

 

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Cobb schools budget for FY 2019 slated to be adopted on Thursday

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A Cobb schools budget proposal of nearly $1.2 billion for fiscal year 2019 is expected to be approved on Thursday night, after the Cobb Board of Education holds its final public hearing on the budget earlier that afternoon.Cobb schools budget

That hearing begins at 1:30 p.m., followed by a board work session at 2 p.m. The board will reconvene for the business meeting at 7 p.m. All will take place at the Cobb County School District central office, 514 Glover St., in Marietta.

The proposed FY 2019 budget (details here) includes a 1.1 percent pay raise for all employees and a 1.1 percent bonus for many others, but does not include a millage rate increase.

Superintendent Chris Ragsdale included the pay raise after $10.2 million in state funding was added in May following the elimination of education austerity cuts.

The school district’s fiscal year begins on July 1.

Connie Jackson, the head of the Cobb County Association of Educators, has asked for a 3.6 percent raise be given for employees, and has pressed for the additional funding to come from a property tax increase.

That millage rate of 18.9 has not changed in a decade, and Jackson has suggested raising that to the maximum 20 mills.

Also on Thursday night’s agenda is the appointment of a new principal at Nicholson Elementary School, as well as a number of recognitions. Among the East Cobb students and schools to be recognized are the Shallowford Falls Elementary School’s Reading Bowl champions, Pope High School state wrestling champion Max Druhot, East Side Elementary School robotics student Abhijeet Ghosh and the Kell High School FIRST World Championship team.

The full agenda can be found here.

 

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Revised Cobb schools budget proposal includes raises, but no tax hike

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After the end of state education austerity cuts, a new Cobb schools budget proposal for fiscal year 2019 includes across-the-board employee pay raises that were not part of the initial plan.

The Cobb County School District will get $10.2 million in state revenue under the Quality Basic Education Act after Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal announced in March that he was ending years-long austerity cuts for public schools.

Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said at a Cobb Board of Education work session Thursday afternoon that he is proposing spending the “lion’s share” of that money on 1.1 percent raises for all county employees. The rest would be used to increase the instructional reserve allotment from six to 19 positions, teaching slots that are added when schools surpass enrollment projections.

He’s still recommending a 1.1 percent bonus for “238-day” employees, who include teachers, police officers and high school secretaries. So-called “non-238-day” employees, who work year-round, would get additional days off in the summer.

Those bonuses would be paid with $7.8 million in reserve funding. The raises for nearly 15,000 district employees would cost around $9 million. Step increases for teachers based on experience would come to another $12 million.

The new budget proposal of nearly $1.2 billion, like the original, does not include a tax millage rate increase.

“This is no small change,” Cobb schools chief financial officer Brad Johnson said about the extra $10.2 million. He estimated that the district, which is the second-largest in Georgia with more than 112,000 students, has lost more than $600 million in state education austerity cuts since 2003.

Still, the revised budget, which the school board tentatively approved Thursday night, is a tight one. Formal approval comes next month.

Johnson called it a “middle ground” budget with moderate risk, with around a month’s worth of fund balance.

He is factoring in a net Cobb tax digest growth of 6 percent, following a recent estimate by the Cobb Tax Assessors office of 7.5 percent gross growth.

Another major budget challenge that keeps growing is the exemption from school taxes for homeowners 62 and over. Johnson estimates that this year, the cost of that exemption will come to $90 million. Last year, the figure was $78 million, and he thinks the number will exceed $100 million next year.

Before the budget presentation, Connie Jackson of the Cobb County Association of Educators pleaded for a 2.5 percent raise for employees, and suggested raising the millage rate from the current 18.9 that has not changed in 10 years to the maximum 20 mills.

The $10.2 million in new revenue, she said, “is not enough. . . We need a raise. It’s time, the money is there and frankly many people out there support it.”

School board member David Morgan of South Cobb agreed, saying even with the recommended raises Cobb is 9th out of 12 public school districts in metro Atlanta in terms of starting pay scale.

 

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Low bid for Walton gym and performing arts rebuild is $31.7 million

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The original Walton High School building has been torn down, and new gymnasium and performing arts space will go in its place. According to an early look at next week’s Cobb Board of Education meeting, a low-bid contract for $31.7 million is being recommended for approval.

The school board will hold a work session at 1 p.m. Thursday and a business meeting at 7 p.m., also on Thursday. Both meetings take place in the board chambers at the CCSD Central Office (514 Glover St., Marietta). Here’s the full agenda packet for the meetings.

Before the evening session, a public budget forum will take place in the same place starting at 6:30 p.m. Citizens can comment on a proposed $1.2 billion fiscal year 2019 budget. That figure has grown from an initial figure of $1.059 billion in March.

Board members also are scheduled to tentatively approve that budget, and future public hearings will be held before formal adoption in May.

Walton students moved into a new $48 million classroom building in August, and demolition of the original 42-year-old building has taken place over the winter.

The new 151,000-square-foot project will include main and auxiliary gymnasiums, a wrestling room, a weight room, locker rooms, a main theater, a black box theater and band, orchestra and choral suites.

Cobb-based Evergreen Construction is the low bidder, and its proposal comes in at nearly $3 million less than the estimated cost of $34.69 million. The funding is earmarked in the current Cobb Education Cobb SPLOST IV, and the projected completion date is November 2019.

(In January, Pope High School christened its new $24 million gym and theater with a basketball doubleheader sweep.)

The new Walton project isn’t the only major rebuilding contract on the school board’s agenda Thursday. A rebuilding contract totaling $47.4 million will be considered for Osborne High School, as will a new gym and theater project at Harrison High School for $22.3 million.

 

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Proposed FY 2019 Cobb schools budget includes bonuses, no pay raises

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A summary of a proposed $1.059 billion fiscal year 2019 Cobb schools budget was presented to the Cobb Board of Education on Thursday, and it reflects a slight increase from the present fiscal year 2018 budget of $1.023 billion.

David Banks, Cobb Board of Education
David Banks

The FY 2019 proposal includes a 1.1-percent bonus for annual employees, district police officers and high school secretaries, also known as “238-day” employees. There are no pay raises included for any Cobb County School District employees.

At a board work session Thursday, district officials laid out a budget plan that doesn’t raise property taxes, but uses $7.8 million in reserve funding to pay for the bonuses.

On a more long-term level, the budget forecast for the 112,000-student district, the second-largest in Georgia, is a bit grim.

Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said that “revenue has not changed,” and that “while we always try to guard against crying wolf,” the district’s tight fiscal situation does not appear to be changing any time soon.

“We have cut until we are at the bone,” Ragsdale said. “We have nothing left to cut.”

The one-page budget presentation (below, or click for PDF version here) also includes $12 million in salary step increases for eligible employees and an increase in the employer contribution to the state teacher retirement system from 16.81 percent to 20.9 percent, or a total of $25 million more.

Of that amount, the state is contributing $16 million, according to Cobb schools chief financial officer Brad Johnson.

He added that state austerity cuts for FY 2019 will take another $10 million in funding away from Cobb. The district also will have to contribute $155 million in state “fair share” funding that is spread around other school districts in Georgia, up from the present $145 million.

Johnson also said that flat student enrollment growth figures in Cobb also figure to reduce the funding the district receives from the state.

This is all in spite of Cobb coming off a record tax digest in 2017, and a net estimated digest growth of six percent for this year that would yield an additional $24 million in school revenues.

The current Cobb school millage rate is 18.9 mills, and is capped at 20 mills. Residential property owners in Cobb age 62 and over are eligible to apply for an exemption from paying school taxes, which the district estimates costs around $100 million annually.

“We have very little additional state revenue coming in next year,” Johnson told the board members. “We have a revenue problem. We have a problem with state revenue.”

The current FY 2018 budget includes the use of $18 million in reserve funds to purchase property adjoining the school district’s Marietta headquarters ($4.2 million) and $5.6 million for school building additions and modifications in the south Cobb area.

Ragsdale said the district is still down around 900 teaching positions. Estimating that the average teacher cost is $90,000 a year, he said there’s “no way we can even attempt to think about” how to close that gap.

The proposed budget includes a total of six new instructional positions across the district, at a cost of $542,000.

Saying that revenue sources aren’t just “tapped out,” but that “we are taking on water,” Ragsdale said that “it’s really a shame that we cannot do anything more with our budget as it is now. It is what it is.”

Board member David Banks of East Cobb, who represents the Pope and Lassiter districts, admitted during the presentation that “we’re in a danger zone.”

Later on Thursday, Connie Jackson of the Cobb County Association of Educators said the budget “isn’t pretty, it’s not what we were hoping for” and urged board members to include pay raises.

“We need a raise, and we need it this year,” she said, referring to information provided by school officials that Cobb is ninth out of 12 metro Atlanta school districts in recruiting new teachers.

She said “we are slipping” and fears Cobb will slide in other indicators for paying and retaining teachers and school administrators.

There hasn’t been a millage rate increase for Cobb schools in 10 years, Jackson said, and while no one wants a tax increase, boosting the millage rate to the full 20 mills would cost homeowners an additional $80 a year on a home valued at $200,000 and would yield a 2.5 pay raise.

“That’s not much to ask for . . . for a living wage,” she said.

Johnson said more detailed budget information will be available soon, and will be posted on the district’s website as well.

The school board will hold a public hearing on the budget on April 19 at 6:30 p.m., shortly before tentative approval.

Formal adoption is scheduled for May 17, following a second public hearing at 12:30 p.m. The Cobb schools budget goes into effect on July 1, and the final tax digest figures are determined later in July.

 

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