Atlanta Decision Could Put Decatur’s SPLOST Funding in Jeopardy
Decatur Metro | February 21, 2011If a penny sales tax is added to the City of Atlanta’s current tax rate as a result of the transportation referendum in 2012, the city’s sales tax rate would jump to 9%, the highest in the state and higher than Charlotte’s current rate of 8.46%. That has Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed worried, according to the AJC.
With school capital improvement 1-cent sales tax (SPLOST) up for renewal by voters next year, Atlanta’s Mayor is rethinking his sales tax priorities.
How does this affect Decatur? Well according to the AJC, because Atlanta, Fulton, DeKalb and Decatur share borders, they all have to agree in order to put SPLOST on the ballot. (Uh, OK.) That means if Atlanta opts out completely, then the other municipalities can’t even ask their residents for the penny tax.
CSD’s Bruce Roaden is quoted in the article, saying that while a project list hasn’t been compiled, the Decatur school system plans to ask its voters to renew the SPLOST and if it wasn’t renewed, funding for capital improvements would have to come from “general funds or other sources”. This at a time when most school systems around the state are strapped for cash.
Worried Decatur residents have wondered how not renewing SPLOST might affect paying back the city’s new under-construction 4/5 Academy at 5th Avenue, as it is currently a main source of funding for the project. Mr. Roaden tells DM that 5th Ave is financed using Certificates of Participation (COPs) paid back with general funds. However, the school system has been thinking about including language in next year’s SPLOST renewal that would cover the costs of the COPs long term financial obligations.
But all is not lost. Atlanta Mayor Reed’s current solution is a “fractional tax” for his city, that would keep Atlanta’s tax rate down around 8.2% with an added penny sales tax for transportation. (Whether that would mean that Fulton, DeKalb and Decatur would also have to go with a smaller fractional tax is still not clear to me.)
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My huge, secret fear for CSD, even bigger than my fear of flood plains (or mystery springs in the case of Clairemont), the Westchester gym/auditorium/stage never being available for children again, no play equipment at Fifth Avenue, too few paraprofessionals, and no one ever rotating off the School Board in the next 40 years, is that CSD will miscalculate financially in a way much bigger than its off-base enrollment projections and either decline in quality or be absorbed into DeKalb County Schools. I can’t even take comfort in the fact that my kids may age out of the system before dire financial effects occur because a failed school system would affect our real estate investment, our retirement security, maybe even the quality of our community.
Is there someone in Decatur who is an expert in school financing? I’m thinking like a lawyer who wrote the definite piece on the topic, something along the lines of “Why Some School Systems are Thriving in These Tough Financial Times (and Others Aren’t)” . Could this person please post and reassure us, or not.
Karass, I share your concerns. One reason this topic is difficult to comment on is because it requires expertise, and trees keep me busy enough. Of course, that does not usually stop me, In the past both Pat Herald and Mark Arnold have uncovered erroneous assumptions made by CSD. Both these guys spent a part time jobs worth of time on it. Unless someone steps forward, we will have to depend on the experts that are being paid to figure this out, which makes sense given the fact that most people I know in this economy are busy keeping their head above water. I think that has more to do with the lack of response then “learned helplessness” that you mentioned in your bike rack blog.
Agree that folks are busy keeping their heads above water whether it’s the work climate or family life or both. This is all the more reason that we need clear, straight-forward updates on the financial status of CSD in light of SPLOST perhaps disappearing. The hard cold facts are less scarey than a sense that either info is being withheld or things aren’t being handled.
Karass, I share your concerns, too. I also appreciate Mark Arnold’s and other efforts. And mostly I appreciate the efforts of the school board to stay on top of the massive amount of information they have to read, analyze, make decisions on. No small task they’ve put their hands up for. Hope they are doing a good job with these problems that seem insurmountable at times.
I also hope they find a way to communicate their financial status to us adequately, and frequently, because that’s the piece I am disappointed in so often.
And if there are ANY school systems actually thriving while the money dwindles and dwindles, I’d be surprised. Are there?
Remember CSD? SPLOST Applied To Debt Service. You made the chart yourself and presented it to the school board showing how SPLOST 4 through 9 was going to be the funding for the 10 Million dollar lease purchase from 2012 to 2036 for the 4/5. You could have declined to comment and it would have been better than what was printed. That’s my vent.
Hopefully there’s a record on eBoard to help us understand