Budget Details Reveal Good News

The wide smile that first appeared on Cobb County School District Chief Financial Officer remained Thursday night.

Addison told the Board of Education that his staff's sound planning and financial restraint the past three years have paid off and will allow the school district to avoid his March prediction of a $50 million shortfall for fiscal 2012.

The tentative 2012 general fund budget will help the school system stave off teacher layoffs, hold current class-size ratios, increase the school year by three days to 178 and cut this year’s five furlough days to two, all without raising the millage rate property owners pay. A year ago, the Cobb school system had to cut more than 1,000 positions to close a $137 million budget deficit.

The projected budget will also restore a half-year step salary increase for eligible employees. Two years ago, employees across the board endured a 2 percent salary decrease, and they have been without a pay increase since 2009, system spokesman Jay Dillon said.

Addison said the 2012 general fund budget is projected at $817,339,204 in revenue, mostly from property tax collections and state Quality Basic Education funding. The revised revenue for fiscal 2011 was $841,073,871.

The tentative 2012 budget anticipates $851,793,623 in expenditures, an increase of more than $20 million from this year's revised expenditures but almost $100 million less than the 2009 budget of $948 million.

The $34.5 million difference between 2012 revenues and expenditures will be made up through approximately $25 million set aside in the 2011 budget in anticipation of additional state cuts that didn't come and $9.5 million from the 2010 Federal Education Jobs Act.

Addison explained that the $25 million was available because the district experienced only $2 million in midyear state cuts instead of the $43 million it absorbed last year.  

“Last year was brutal, having to have so many people lose their jobs, but we had to do it knowing all these lean years were ahead of us,” Addison told reporters in an earlier 90-minute presentation held with Dillon and Budget Director Laura Bauer. The 2012 budget “is optimistic. It’s getting less bad. The state revenues are starting to improve, and we just hope that goes to school districts. Property values are still declining, but not as much as they had been.”

Based on projections from the county Tax Assessor's Office, Addison is estimating that property values will dip 7.6 percent, compared with his 9.5 percent prediction in March. That change netted $7.2 million for the budget.  

Board members will have six days to look over the budget and will be able to ask Addison questions at a 6 p.m. meeting Wednesday in the boardroom.

“I am very pleased to be able to present a budget to the school board that is focused as much as possible on our employees,” retiring Superintendent Fred Sanderson said in a news release.

During the public comment portion of the meeting, Sanderson received the inaugural PTA District 9 Visionary Award from Georgia PTA District 9 Director Karen Carter. District 9 covers Polk, Haralson, Paulding, Douglas and Cobb schools, as well as Marietta city schools, seven PTA councils, 88,000 members and 180 schools, Carter said.