School district acted contrary to will of Athens-Clarke voters

By Jeb Bradberry

 I would like to address the CCSD opt out of House Bill 581.

First let’s get this straight, no one is against educating our kids and anyone who suggest this is being disingenuous. I want to say a word about your Finance Director Chris Griner. He has always been very responsive to any questions I have had pertaining to the Budget and recently HB 581. When I was meeting with the Tax Commissioners and the Assessor’s Office, they were both very complimentary about the professionalism and knowledge he has, so I wanted to say that, so you don’t think I am attacking him. He is a good person, professional and good for the Clarke County School District.

The citizens of ACC voted overwhelmingly to initiate HB-581. (62% For and 38% Against) I hope none of you are teaching a 5th grade Democracy class and I will leave it at that.  At your December meeting, a Board Member suggested that the voters didn’t understand what they were voting for. Really? Nothing could be further from the truth. This bill only limits increase on homesteaded properties to the rate of inflation. That doesn’t mean that taxes are not going up. Homesteaded properties will go up at the rate of inflation and Commercial properties and non-homestead residential will go up at Fair Market Value. Athens Clarke County has 42,681 parcels of which 15,984 are homesteaded properties, of those, 7,350 have the senior exemption meaning their school tax assessment is frozen at age 65 and the value will remain the same for the life of that taxpayer or the property changes hands. This means that HB 851 only affects 8,634 parcels of the 42,681 parcels in Clarke County. All new construction, personal property and tag tax increases the digest as prices go up. Your revenue for the school system will continue to rise pretty much like it has always.

Your public announcement states “by not opting out the district and BOE would lose local control over property-tax policies along with the ability to tailor tax rates and exemptions to specific community needs and fiscal conditions.” This statement is entirely false, obviously whoever wrote this doesn’t understand how Property Taxes work. In my opinion the person who wrote this statement is intentionally misleading the public and the Board of Education. The two things the BOE controls in the tax process are the millage rate and your own spending. You have no control over tax policies or the Assessments, and you never have. You do not lose any local control over rates or exemptions. The numbers that were presented in the chart from the Finance Director in November and December stating the loss of funds were and are wrong. I am sure the Finance Director will be updating the numbers but suffice it to say that the loss of revenue is 50% or less than originally reported.

For the past few decades your Finance Director has made a phone call to the Assessor's Office in January or February to find out what the digest increase is looking like. He is careful not to send an email as this would be subject to open records request. This should be illegal but it’s not. For the last few years that I was Chairman of the Board of Assessors I instructed the Chief Appraiser to be intentionally vague in his response. The Finance Director would then tell the BOE of the increase and you would budget for that increase. The last three years after you had submitted the budget for approval, you would find that the actual revenue would be larger than your budget. A handful of us came the Budget hearings telling you of the windfall, asking for a reduction in the millage rate and you always refused. Thus, now we have HB 581. The BOE has always treated this money as mana from heaven and refused to roll back the millage rate to give property tax relief. We are talking about 2 or 3 million dollars in each of the last few years. Frankly, you spent the money like drunken sailors.

If student spending were a direct correlation to success in the classroom, we would have the number one school system in the state. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Clarke County spends over $19,000 per student from the M & O budget, if you include SPLOST funds it is much higher. It is almost more than attending UGA including tuition, books, dorm room and a meal plan. You should think about that and let that sink in. The other systems around us Barrow, Madison, Oglethorpe and Oconee average less than $16,000 spending per student. I am not here to argue about school and student performance, we can do that another day. I am here to say we have a spending problem not a revenue problem. You have way more than enough money to run this school system.

For some reason about 20 or so years ago CCSD put more emphasis on raising our children than educating our children. You have filled our schools with para pros, school nurses, your own police force, councilors, not to mention the bloated administration, things that have nothing to do with educating the students.

HB 581 was voted by the citizens of ACC and it overwhelmingly passed. I cannot believe the CCSD Board and Administration is even considering not granting the wishes of the voters. It is an arrogant stance on your part and a slap in the face to every citizen of Athens Clarke County. Please reconsider your stance.