Cobb schools may have to cut budget deeper than expected

By Jeffry Scott

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Cobb County school board on Thursday became the latest in metro Atlanta to lose more ground to a lousy economy and hear worse budget news from its superintendent.

Enlarge photo

Hyosub Shin, hshin@ajc.com Cobb County School District Superintendent Fred Sanderson speaks as the school board chairwoman Lynnda Crowder-Eagle (left) and a board member David Banks (right) look on during the budget meeting Thursday at Cobb County schools headquarters in Marietta.

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Cobb schools chief Fred Sanderson told the seven-member board that the system’s budget shortfall will likely be $137.7 million next year because of declining revenues. A week ago the working shortfall figure for the budget year that begins July 1 was about $100 million.

On the Southside on Monday, Clayton County schools Superintendent Edmond Heatley told his nine-member board that its system likely be in the hole $119 million by July 2012. Last month Heatley predicted the Clayton school deficit would be about $103 million.

Cobb, Clayton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Fulton, Atlanta and other school systems have all been hammered by state cutbacks in funding and declining property tax revenues as a result of a real estate bust that has reverberated through all sectors of the economy.

Cobb schools chief financial officer Mike Addison told the board on Thursday he projects the deficit next school year will be worse than first expected because he doesn’t believe Cobb will receive as many funds from the state as Georgia’s “optimistic” budget projects.

“The governor is assuming an increase of 4 percent in revenues,” Addison said. “We really think that the governor’s budget is very, very optimistic. ... As a conservative accountant, I would expect us to have a 10 percent decline.”

The budget Addison presented the board based on the state’s projected 4 percent increase shows that next school year the Cobb school system would get $820.4 million in revenues and have expenditures of $922.6 million -- a shortfall of $102.2 million.

Sanderson said has recommended cuts to reduce that shortfall, including six furlough days for all school district staff, which he said would save $19 million, and increasing the maximum class size, which would save $53 million. That means fewer teachers.

Those increases could mean that the student-to-teacher ratio would go from 19 students per teacher to 22 students per teacher in kindergarten; from 20 students per teacher to 23 students per teacher in the first through third grades; from 27 students per teacher to 30 students per teacher in fourth through fifth grades; and from 23.5 students per teacher to 30 students per teacher in the sixth through eighth grades. The student-to-teacher ratio would go from 26 students per teacher to 32 students in grades nine through 12.

Sanderson said the last thing he wants to do is take the budget cuts into the classroom and tamper with the ratio of students to teachers and the learning environment.

“Nobody wants to protect the classroom more than I do,” he said. “But there’s also the realization that 90 percent of the budget is personnel, and you can’t have it both ways.”

School board member David Morgan said that if teachers have to lose their jobs he doesn’t want the decision based on seniority.

“My big concern would be human capital and making sure we keep the best and the brightest,” Morgan said. “If we are raising class size we have to make sure we have the best and the brightest in front of those pupils.”

Sanderson also has recommended reducing positions in the central office and the number of work days for campus officers; charging for transportation of athletes; and reducing contract days for noninstructional positions. That would save $8.1 million.

He said that by state law if the system decides to cut certified employees they must be notified by May 15, and he hoped that reductions in staff could largely be handled through attrition and retirements.

The Cobb County school system has 114 schools and about 106,000 students.