Cobb school superintendent Chris Ragsdale said Thursday his priorities for the fiscal year 2020 budget are for across-the-board employee pay raises and increases in the teacher allotment pool to reduce class size. 
He and Brad Johnson, the chief financial officer for the Cobb County School District, briefed board members at their monthly work session.
There’s not a formal budget proposal now—that’s expected in April—so the size of the raises and the number of new allotments haven’t been determined.
The district is waiting on estimates for the Cobb tax digest for 2019 and monitoring the final days of the legislative session.
“The numbers are still changing,” said Ragsdale, who said he will not be recommending employee bonuses for FY 2020 and called the upcoming process “definite creative budgeting.”
Last year, Cobb employees got a late 2.6 percent raise to go with 1.1 percent bonuses in a $1.2 billion FY 2019 budget that included no millage rate increase.
Ragsdale said he’s emphasizing raises this year over bonuses because the raises can be figured into Georgia Teachers Retirement System calculations.
“It’s best for the employee to maximize that raise,” said Ragsdale, adding that he sought feedback from teachers. This decision, he said, “wasn’t made in a vacuum.”
Last year marked the end of education austerity cuts in Georgia that lasted more than a decade. That freed up $10.2 million in restored funds for Cobb, and Ragsdale immediately applied most of it to employee raises.
Johnson estimated that Cobb lost an estimated $586 million in revenues due to the austerity cuts since 2003.
“I’m not sure how we did balance the budget during some of those years,” he told board members.
The reference was part of a larger financial picture district officials painted as the board prepares for the budget process.
Cobb allows for a senior property tax exemption for homeowners aged 62 and older. Johnson said all exemptions totaled $146 million in FY 2019, with $111.9 million of that due to the senior exemption.
At the board’s Thursday night business meeting, the two newest board members asked about the senior exemptions. Jaha Howard, who represents the Campbell and Osborne clusters, asked if budget information presented to the public will clearly include the funding Cobb is not getting due to that exemption.
Ragsdale said he does explicitly mention that when he speaks in public “as a point of education.” He said while the senior exemption is “is a benefit to our constituents in Cobb,” the larger issue for the district is addressing state “fair share” funding issues.
The Cobb schools millage rate is 18.9 (there’s a state cap of 20 mills), and 5 mills goes right back to the state for what’s called “fair share” funding.
But with the senior exemption, Ragsdale said, Cobb actually can’t touch 6.4 of that 18.9 mills. Last year, Cobb’s fair share contribution rose by $10.7 million, to $155.3 million.
“If we could get a cap on that . . . that would go a long way” in easing local budget pressures, he said.
Charisse Davis, who represents the Walton and Wheeler clusters, noted that voters in Forsyth County last November voted to eliminate a senior tax exemption for homeowners who still have students living with them but who are not legal guardians. That change will net Forsyth schools an additional $500,000 in revenue a year.
Cobb is Georgia’s second-largest school district, with nearly 112,000 students.
After the formal budget proposal is presented to the school board, it will hold public hearings before adoption, which is slated for May.
The Cobb schools fiscal year is from July 1-June 30.
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