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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