Cobb School Board Pans Budget Proposals

Getting used to what's being called "the new normal" isn't going to be easy for the Cobb Board of Education.

After absorbing more details of a proposed fiscal year 2014 budget that recommends deep cuts in several key areas, school board members on Wednesday demanded more options as they try to solve a projected $86.4 million deficit.

That's because many of the suggestions provided by Cobb County School District officials were hardly to their liking.

During a long and at times heated work session, school board members told Superintendent Michael Hinojosa and the district's chief financial officer, Brad Johnson, that they weren't happy with a 13-point list of proposed cuts and changes to achieve a balanced budget.

"This board needs to be firmly focused on the classroom," said Post 5 board member David Banks of East Cobb, who pounced on some of the initial numbers before Johnson could provide details Wednesday. "The taxpayers gave us the money to be put in the classroom now."

The proposed budget, which contains $807 million in revenue against $894 million in expenses would be balanced by using reserves, cutting 295 teaching positions through attrition, cancel cost-of-living raises for district employees and impose five staff furlough days, among other cuts.

Banks was not the only board member to balk at warnings about drawing from the district's reserve fund to help balance the budget. Although Johnson's proposal includes using $22 million in reserves, he and Hinojosa cautioned about using a one-time funding source to pay for continued expenses.

"As you spend down that reserve, then you are out of money," Hinojosa said. "DeKalb's already done that." The district has an estimated $98 million in reserves after using $26 million to balance the fiscal year 2013 budget.

Even the small bit of good news that Johnson delivered -- that the district would be receiving an additional $8.8 million in one-time adjusted Quality Basic Education Act funding from the state -- didn't improve the mood in the room.

"If we're not in a rainy day situation now, when will we be?" asked board chairman Randy Scamihorn.

"This budget is a new normal, and we need to use our fund balance very wisely," Johnson replied. "Our revenue structure doesn't support what we have, and it's not sustainable."

Board member Kathleen Angelucci, of Post 4 in Northeast Cobb, objected to $1 million in transportation cuts, including eliminating bus service for magnet school students, saying that "you will be annihilating the very programs we're recognized for."

She also feared that larger class sizes would result in the continued reduction of teachers through retirement and other departures.

"It is just not acceptable," she said. "There's something else we have to do."

But board member David Morgan of Post 3 in South Cobb said there aren't many better alternatives.

"Unless we address the [district's revenue and spending] model itself, we're going to continue to have these agonizing discussions," he said. "What's worse than larger class sizes? How about next year we lay off 400 or 500 people? I still think we're just dancing around the edges."

Hinojosa said that one possible option not in the budget proposal is raising the property tax millage rate, "but I haven't heard one board member say they're willing to do that."