AJC Reports from Annexation Work Session
Decatur Metro | November 18, 2008 | 9:36 amI couldn’t attend last night’s meeting, but the highlights from this morning’s AJC article seem to reiterate all the same points we’ve been hearing over the past year…
1. Property taxes will go up without it.
2. No decision has yet been made by the commission.
3. I my opinion the school system still sounds pretty reluctant to take on sizable influx of new students, regardless of the number, especially since its already dealing with a $2 million deficit for this fiscal year.
The next step is for the city comission to hold a public hearing on December 1st and then vote on whether to seek approval on December 15th.
Anyone else have a report from the meeting?
It sounds like property taxes will go up with or without it, since the schools can’t absorb the additional students without spending even more money. So this addition to the city’s tax rolls does not come without costs.
I was really puzzled by the article. It wasn’t my take on the meeting at all. I don’t have time to go into the details today, Metro, (too busy at the FixIt Shop) but I think that the reporter may have been at a different meeting.
Maybe someone else can comment.
Weird.
I’m not surprised MrFixIt…the AJC has a pretty lackluster history of reporting on the annexation issue over the past year. For about 4 months they kept saying that the city had “put off” the annexation issue due to resident concerns in January…when actually it was just the preliminary report….nothing had been “put off”.
Maybe they just phoned it in…it wouldn’t be the first time.
No, Metro. The City’s math is way off. THis is a big financial loser for the city and especially for the schools. A disaster for the schools. I don’t have time to give detailed reports, but I’ll come back and do so later. For now, here the text of a flier I’m working on. Just bullet points, aimed at the school issue.
Note that this is no small endeavor. Annexation would in one move increase the population by over 45%. (The city is still using numbers from old maps, while the new maps cover more residential areas.) FLier:
==> City’s projection of 450 new students is based on a badly flawed study, counting children ONLY ages 0-6 by birth records – not up to age 18. It should be at least doubled to 900. That’s a 33% increase, or the equivalent of Oakhurst, Clairemont, and Winnona Park COMBINED.
==> City’s Report says if “areas being annexed are similar to City of Decatur, a top end estimate would be 600” new students (“Annexation Report” 11/17). Wrong. The City’s current student-resident ratio is 1 in 6. Of 7800 new residents = 1200 new students. That’s a 45% increase, or the equivalent of THREE new Glennwood Academies. Annexed areas will attract more families.
==> The same study grossly underestimated 2008 incoming Kindergarteners. At 263, the number is higher than the study projected after annexation.
==> Once the projection of incoming students increases past the City’s artificially low projection, all proposed annexation options quickly become a financial loser of up to $4,700,000 per year – not including the massive construction and restructuring costs to accommodate a huge sudden influx of students.
==> “Commercial-only” option in fact contains large numbers of apartments and condos not counted in the City’s demographic study. “Commercial only” option actually loses more money than full annexation.
==> The City Manager says revenue from commercial properties will not materialize for up to 15 years. (Public comments, Joint Work Session, 11/17)
==> Annexation would include Methodist Children’s Home, paying no taxes and bringing 70-80 special-needs children, whose education the Decatur school would then have to contract to DeKalb County, which is already educating them. Cost to Decatur Schools: $20,000-50,000 per pupil. That’s up to $4,000,000 annually not accounted for the in Report.
==> The City Schools of Decatur is already overwhelmed with current and incoming enrollment, without adding 900- 1200 new students. Where will they go?
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
1. Contact ALL members of the City Commission and School Board, as well as offices of the City Manager and School Superintendent.
2. Attend Public Hearing. Monday, December 1 in the City Commission Meeting Room (check website for time)
3. Spread the word. Time is running out. Annexation CANNOT be reversed.
If anyone is interested in looking at the numbers on this or helping out, please email me.
One more example of what we’ve found. The city’s report, on which the figure of 7800 new residents is based (already a 43% jump), is based on 2000 census data. FOr the DeKalb Industrial corridor to be annexed, the 2000 census show under 300 people total. THere are now over 1000 apartment/condo units in that area.
Another, while I’m at it: THe city projects that with a “commercial only” annexation (which includes all these apartments and many more in other areas, plus houses), the school’s expenditures would be not one dime higher than if there were no annexation. THis despite the fact that their own study predicts 193 new students in that area — which (see flier above) needs to be at least doubled to 386 before even considering the hundreds of apartments missed.
ANd the more I think of it, the issue of the Methodist Children’s Home is mind boggling. Again, see my previous post for the basics.
Judd, you bring up a lot of valid concerns…I always love to see data to back up arguments.
Personally I think that its in the city’s interest to respond to this prior to the Public Hearing. First and foremost I’d like to know if they still stand by the 450 number (and the reasons why), or whether they concede there is an issue. If they don’t address it before Dec 1st, everyone’s going to show up for a meeting where the only thing dicussed is the 450 calculation.
But maybe there are rules that prevent the commission from saying anything prior to an open meeting…oh well, I guess I can try to be patient.
The AJC neglects to say that according to the October report, most Midway Woods residents, when asked in a survey, were in favor of annexation. But when they were asked if they were in favor of annexation if their taxes went up $1000, the majority said no. Furthermore, the Forrest Hills residents were asked the first question but not the second question. Hmmm…..
Here are some notes on the meeting that I received as part of an email from a member of the Winnona Park Neighborhood Association:
50+ community members and I attended last night’s joint city/school board work session. Peggy Merriss presented reports for the city and Dr. Edwards presented the reports for the school system. Ms. Merriss’s report included some revised numbers that were updated yesterday.
Mayor Floyd stated that he thought it was important that the city and the school system work together to determine if the annexation would be in the best interest of the community. There were several issues/questions raised by both Commissioners and School Board members.
Valarie Wilson spoke from the school board, stating very serious concerns about the implications of the annexation on the schools, especially from residential annexation and from future redevelopment.
Next steps: the school system would like to have a meeting to discuss the annexation issue (and wants to hold a public input session as well) before making any decisions.
Bottom line:
The entire work session lasted only an hour, and it seemed like there was perhaps not enough information for either group to make a decision. Both the city and the school system seem to be very open to hearing what residents have to say. They did not discuss pushing back the December 1st or Dec. 15th meetings.
Since there are many passionate voices on this topic, want to make sure everyone is going to the Open City Hall on the city’s website and stating their position. If they’re serious about wanting to hear from citizens — and, at least, I think they are — that’s one forum you know they’re paying close attention to.
There’s a link on their intro page.
Like others who have posted insightful critiques of the Annexation Reports from the city manager, I see some big holes in both reports. Based on these spotty reports, how can we expect our elected officials to make knowledgable and prudent decisions, unless there is other information that hasn’t been circulated ?(which I believe there isn’t)
Both reports say that the assumption is that city services should remain the same.
But revenue is going over a cliff and the city managers “analyses” of annexation show us nothing substantial. According to some here on this blog, it may even COST us.
I’d like to go a step further and suggest that given the projected shortfall of revenue and threatened tax increase, EVERYTHING gets put on the table – not just annexation: services, overhead including vehicle purchases, staff, salaries and benefits, real estate, etc.
Some here will say that the city wide survey shows that Decaturites are extremely pleased with just about everything that is happening here. And for the most part I agree. However, survey questions can be engineered so that responses tend to be favorable. For example, A question can simply ask if you would like to have wi-fi. Most would answer yes. But if the question were asked and an associated cost were given, it is expected that fewer favorable answers would be given. An example of this is shown in the October Annexation report when Midway Woods residents were asked if they wanted to be annexed, most said yes. When they were asked if they wanted to be annexed if it cost them $1000/yr in higher taxes, most said no to annexation.
Also note that just over 400 people responded to the recent survey. In a city of 20,000 that’s just 2.5% of the population.
We need to use the upcoming public hearing (Dec 1) to reiterate what has been said here and let the city manager and the commission know that we are reading along and watching closely. I hope there is enough seating for the turnout.
Taxus, you have every right to argue for lower taxes by cutting city services. Its an actual solution to the problem facing the city commission…that being keeping taxes from suffocating the population. Personally, I don’t believe that most folks are willing to cut back on services and schooling in order to get a tax break.
I cite the Survey…believe what you will. All statistical surveys only ask a small sample of a population. If its done randomly, its accurate. The entire television industry is based on this fact. The questions don’t ask if you want hypothetical things…it asks you to rate existing city services on a scale.
However, I continue to strongly disagree with your assertion that the city of Decatur acts like New York under Mayor “Boss” Tweed…with lots of backroom deals, power-grabbing and selfishness. I’ve never seen any evidence of this. Go hang out at city hall for a few days and tell me these folks don’t have our best interests at heart.
“Also note that just over 400 people responded to the recent survey. In a city of 20,000 that’s just 2.5% of the population.”
Not all folks got a survey. The professional, independent, company that did the survey sent it to a demographically selected sample (I didn’t get one) and the response rate from that sample was considered quite good for such a project. Based upon statistical techniques which are far beyond me (remember math is not my strong suite), the results represent an accurate response within the published margin of error.
Mr Metro
Your comparing my statements to Boss Tweed is a fabrication and irresponsible. I demand a retraction.
I made no such assertion as you have stated.
A retraction?
I might have over-stretched to make my point…but I’m not sure a retraction is appropriate. I could have used Chicago’s Mayor Daley…is that less severe?
All I’m trying to assert is that you are constantly implying that the city uses shady practices to make themselves look good. And I just don’t see it.
This is scary… Again, if Judd’s numbers are even close to accurate, I think that the only move for CSD in the event of annexation may be to dissolve/merge with Dekalb County Schools. We all have to be realistic here.
There has to be a firm who can do a more complete demographic study than Rosser did. Isn’t it possible to contact the DeKalb County schools that house children in the annexation areas and get the numbers of students enrolled that live in the annexation areas – street by street? I believe that we could get this done ourselves with an Open Records Act Request. We would then have to add in a certain percentage of families who are not currently enrolled in the DeKalb schools but would decide to enroll their kids in the Decatur schools.
According the the Methodist Children’s Home website, they house a total of about 150 children (12 and older) a year in their residential program, 70-80 at at time. They also have housing for eight families in transition. I guess that this might add another 16-20 children for a total of 86-100 at any one time. Most of these kids are late middle school to high school aged so Renfroe and especially Decatur High would bear the largest responsibility for them. My guess is that on average, these kids would cost Decatur about twice the normal 13K allotment for non-exceptional children. My recollection from Dr. Edwards’s report at the meeting Monday was that special needs children cost about $25K to $50K or more per year each. Some of the Methodist Home kids probably have no special needs and others may have profund needs.
That figure may be wrong – it’s just a starter number. For 93 kids (75 residential + 18 family transition), that totals $1,209,000 per year (93x$13,000) over the cost of a non-exceptional child. The total cost to educate these kids might be around $2,418,000 excluding special program start-up costs. This would not be supported by property taxes since the Methodist home does not pay them.
Actual costs would probably be far greater b/c there likely are enough kids there with enough serious issues to warrant a special program/facility, and this would have significant start up costs. The most frustrating thing would be that we would not have any of these kids for a long enough time to really make a difference in their lives. According to their website, the average stay at the Methodist home is 12-14 months. After that, the kids are usually placed in foster care or transitional housing which almost always would be outside of the City of Decatur.
I’m not against taking these children in philosophically, it’s just that we need to account for the cost of educating them and we need to make a calculation of whether we can help them in any significant way when we only have them for a school year at best and on a revolving door basis.
I understand that the City wants the Methodist home because they feel that they can somehow convince the owners of the property to let them build tennis courts and whatnot there. Is that a guarantee? Is it worth nearly 2.5 million a year for greenspace/tennis courts/soccer fields? Is it fair for the city to pass this “cost of greenspace” to the school system?
Also, for those who do not have children in the school system. This affects you too. You pay school taxes and could very easily see an enormous increase in your taxes if the Rosser demographics are low (and they already are low on just Decatur kids).
Also, I’m not a huge fan of the “property value” argument b/c it seems like such a suburban obsession and I think there is more to life than the value of my house on any given day. However, for those that are concerned about property values know that school quality substantially affects home values.
Interesting thread and one that does indeed affect us all. I’m a current city resident (since 1974) and have had 3 children spend their entire school years in our system.
I’m not sure what the statistics are today, but I can remember when there were roughly the same number of non-resident, school-age kids whose parents paid tuition to attend public City schools as there were residents’ kids who attended private schools.
I still think our school system is one of the main reasons Decatur is what it is today, and a merger with the DeKalb County school system would be a desperate, last resort option only — and one likely to hurt, not help, overall city finances long term.
Mr Metro
Your assertion falls flat. It is hyperbole. I like your blog here but your credibility has plummeted.
I challenge you to show the connection that you’ve established.
I’ll put it in simple language for you: the folks responsible for running the city need help because funds are becoming scarce and the options appear to be severely limited.
I intend to help them by learning all I can about the problems that have gotten us all to this point. I hope others are willing to help by going to the annexation hearing Dec 1st
Can you answer a couple of questions:
Are you related to anyone in the city government?
Are you receiving funds of any sort from the City or CSD?
“I intend to help them by learning all I can about the problems that have gotten us all to this point.”
We would all welcome that, but so far all you have said on several forums are generalities about how taxes are too high and you think we can save many $$ without any specifics. It’s time for specifics.
BTW, I think it is an insult to DM, who’s trying to run an open forum here, to imply that he is influenced by any relationship with the City or CSD.
Taxus, No and No.
I’ll try this one final time and you can tell me if my assertion still falls flat.
Many times you’ve implied that the city was being purposefully dishonest with its residents. Above you said, “survey questions can be engineered so that responses tend to be favorable” implying that the city intentionally fudged its own report card. Additionally, you just asked me if I was being paid by the city…another statement that implies the city is trying pull strings and operate in a dubious manner.
I’m not saying that there aren’t governments out there that do this sort of thing, but I’ve seen no evidence of that in Decatur. And unless you have evidence to support it, I choose to challenge you when you make these statements on my site.
Okay, I promised a report from the Monday meeting. A few big issues were raised, but not addressed — the concerns chiefly coming from the school board. Many major problems were not addressed at all, and based on conversations afterward, no one was aware of the major problem with the 450 figure from the Rosser report.
My sense from that meeting and conversations since is that this is far from a done deal. I think annexation has the advantage right now. But if there is vocal opposition from the public against it — voiced to both the commission and the school board, it can still be defeated. THe most disastrous impact of annexation will be on the schools, and the school board seemed from their comments at the meeting to be aware of the massive challenge they face with enrollments and facilities right now. The more clearly they see how vastly underestimated the number of new students from annexation is, the less likely I think they’ll be to accept annexation — especially when they see that their financial situation will be worse than it is now. But I doubt they want to be left holding the bag for scuttling a plan that is (falsely) believed to lower taxes — the line being fed, it seems, to the AJC.
So it’s now up to vocal public opposition. Or even if you just want to know who’s projections are right — take a look at the flier I posted above and ask around.
THere is a public hearing December 1 in the City Commission meeting room. (There is, for some reason, nothing about this on the city’s website — at least not that I can find. Shouldn’t it be advertised prominently?)
Did I say Decatur engineered the survey? No. I believe you inferred that.
My point is that in the October Annexation report, Midway woods residents were asked two questions. One asking if they favored annexation and one if they favored annexation if it came with a $1000+ price tag. The majority responded yes to the first question and the majority responded no to the second.
Forest hills residents were asked ONLY THE FIRST QUESTION and not the second. So all we know is that they favor annexation. What we don’t know is whether they favor annexation if it comes with a $1000+ price tag.
That we don’t know is significant to the question of whether this residential area can or should be annexed. There is not enough info to make a decision, in my opinion.
Others have said they too find the annexation reports flawed. I’m not alone on this. I’m surprised that you don’t because its really very obvious and it makes me wonder about your analytical abilities.
taxus, you are confusing your surveys. First, you refer to the city-wide survey that asked nothing about annexation, complaining that it had responses from only 2.5% of the residents. Then, you speak of the surveys of the possible annexation areas and complain about their wording. It’s an apple tree versus an orange tree.
I also noticed that, as you usually do, you just ignored the issue about implying that DM has some connection with the City. You truly are the master of deflection.
So you weren’t inferring that Decatur engineered the survey when you said “however, survey questions can be engineered”? Interesting.
And Steve is right, you referenced the city wide survey…not the annexation area surveys. Here’s the full quote…
“Some here will say that the city wide survey shows that Decaturites are extremely pleased with just about everything that is happening here. And for the most part I agree. However, survey questions can be engineered so that responses tend to be favorable.”
Judd…”But I doubt they want to be left holding the bag for scuttling a plan that is (falsely) believed to lower taxes — the line being fed, it seems, to the AJC.”
So you don’t believe that the “mostly commercial annexation”, which excludes the neighborhoods to the south, would lower taxes? Even if it inched up the total % of commercial within the city limits?
I was at the meeting on Monday night. Nobody mentioned the areas that don’t want to be annexed in, like the areas behind Suburban Plaza. (Medlock Place, Medlock Commons, Charleston Oaks, Ridgeland Park) The majority (actually 100%) of the people we have spoken to oppose the Annexation. Peggy Merriss, the City Manager acts as if she never heard of it. We were pretty vocal about it at the meeting in February. Even though I had called her office in the last couple of weeks, she seemed to want to forget that we oppose the Annexation. I have set up a survey for those in the area behind Suburban Plaza. So far the response has been 100% against Annexation. If you are in the proposed area and want your voice heard, please fill out our survey, check yes or no and let us know where you live, so we can break down the data. Thanks.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=7s1ZmG2pmYYUUtkXXkmvcg_3d_3d
Jen, anyone who wants, in the City or outside, can speak at the meeting on the 1st, so don’t feel slighted that you have been “forgotten”.
Thanks Steve. 11Alive news is coming out to interview me and my neighbors. We just have to wait for the City Manager of Decatur to get back from her retreat so they can hear the City’s side as well. My concern is that the City is not doing anything to notify the people in the proposed Annexation areas. I asked the City Manager’s office about this and was told it’s on their website. I don’t think that’s fair for non-City residents to have to review the City’s website to see what’s going on. I think the City of Decatur should at the very least send out a notice to the homeowners to let them know about the meetings that affect them and their future. Many of my neighbors were surprised by this Proposed Annexation.
Jen, Decatur is going to use Forrest Hills and perhaps the Midway area to vote you in. My neighbor was there and said that they talked about it at the meeting. Apparently Forrest Hills is strongly in favor and over here in Midway it’s more mixed. We have had a lot of notice about meetings here, but it’s been through neighborhood channels mostly. My suggestion would be for you to organize and notify neighbors yourselves.
Talk about a biased survey Jen!
“Are you for or against the City of Decatur Annexing your property into the City Limits of Decatur and raising your taxes?”
How about “Are you for or against the City of Decatur Annexing your property into the City Limits of Decatur and improving city services?”
I would rephrase, otherwise there’s going to be a really good argument to completely ignore your results.
Probably the reason the city manager didn’t call you back is because she’s not making any decisions…so talking to her is relatively fruitless. You need to state your opinion to the commission, as Steve said.
DM, sounds like the truly objective question is “Are you for or against City of Decatur annexing your property and improving city services while raising your taxes./” DM’s question was very biased too. In fact, there is an argument that city services will not necessarily be any more beneficial in real life than what they now receive from the county… particularly in that neighborhood. There is no argument about whether their taxes will go up though – even the City concedes that.
I know CPN…I was just showing how it could be just as biased in the other direction too.
Your phrasing of the question is the correct approach.
I agree that the neighborhoods have not been sufficiently notified. The first I heard of annexation was on one of the local blogs.
No one can explain to me what extra city services I will be receiving in return for much higher taxes. With no children in the school system, the quality of Decatur schools means squat to me.
I know for a fact that there are people in the Midway Woods area who have had private meetings with Peggy Merriss to talk about the annexation. They are putting a lot of pressure on her about this (being FOR annexation). I don’t know about the rest of the neighborhood, but some Midway Woods residents are fighting passionately for annexation and have been for a couple of years.
From a purely selfish standpoint, school quality should still be important to you, even if you don’t have kids in the system. Neighborhoods served by good schools are in higher demand by more people, making them much more resilient and able to hold/increase in value over time.
Metro: in answer to your question about “Commercial Only” (read “commercial-residential mix north of the tracks), the answer is yes, it is a financial loser once you corrected the Rosser study’s projections. They project 193 new students in those areas, which corrected comes to 386. The City estimates 2.675 million revenue from those areas, and at 9300/student, the expenses become 3.59 million. A major net loss. If the number of new students in that area is in proportion to the current city, or become so over time, then we’re talking 540 students at a loss of 2.4 million per year. That’s before considering construction and other capital costs, the new fire station etc.
Last night I talked to people in the School System office and no one was aware of the flaw in the Rosser study’s methodology projecting 450 new student. They simply had accepted the number, as one person told me, “on blind faith.” They were very shocked and are now following up with Rosser to see if they can justify the number.
We speculated that what happened may have been this. Rosser was hired to do a study projecting incoming enrollments to the K-5, whcih is where the log jam is. In the middle of that, annexation came up, and they were asked to take annexation into account. Which they did in a way, but only covering incoming classes — hence they limited their study to birth records 2000-06. They or someone began using their result (450) as the total for ALL incoming students up to age 18. THat number was “agreed upon” by the schools and the commission, and everything else has been based on this bad and way too low number.
That’s what I THINK happened. We’ll see how in the world Rosser tries to explain it. And how our public officials respond.
Thanks for the response Judd. And I appreciate you trying to get an answer from Rosser. That’s the one thing I’ve been hankering for.
No one else can really tell us how they came up with that number. If you ever hear their response, I would love to hear it.
And I think your speculation sounds possible.
And to think…. DM thought I was a hysterical ranter who was making stuff up.
Where’s my week of dinners?
Well, you were a hysterical ranter…
And I’m still holding out to hear Rosser’s response.
I am worried if it is true that no one but Rosser can really tell us how they came up with the numbers.
This annexation is a very major undertaking for the City. Seems like officials at City Hall and CSD should have already asked detailed questions about how the numbers were dervied and be able to explain it to interested citizens. Simply taking numbers at face value without understanding exactly what they show can lead to big problems.
Yould be amazed at how much gov relies on things provided by folks that have a vested interest in the outcome.
Sometimes innocently sometimes not.
Just a question, if the annexation goes through, could Decatur accommodate the increased number of students by decreasing the enrollment of children who live outside the city? If so, this could decrease the concern about the space issue, but I’m not sure how this would impact costs since my understanding is that children from outside the city have to pay a tuition to attend.
children do pay a tuition, but can only attend a school if there is room for them. also, csd parents who do not live in decatur are allowed to au gratis send their kids to a csd, but may not get their choice of elementary schools.