Cobb uses reserves to prevent school furloughs

By MARY LOU PICKEL

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Cobb County school employees were saved this week from a three-day furlough that counties across the state are facing due to state budget cuts.

Still, Cobb County and other districts will face an additional 3 percent cut in state money this year, beyond the furloughs, because of the sour economy.

How Cobb will bear that blow is not clear yet.

“When you get into more than three days of furloughs, it gets difficult without going into instructional days,” Cobb County school district spokesman Jay Dillon said. “You’d have to reduce the school year. That may be the next thing we hear from the state.”

Cobb school board chairman John Abraham said the superintendent will make suggestions next month on how to slice about $10 million more from the school budget. One option is to leave more vacancies open, Abraham said.

This week the Cobb school board voted to take $10.4 million out of reserves in order to save all employees — teachers and staffers — from the three-day furlough. Gwinnett and Forsyth counties are among those that will institute the furloughs.

Cobb’s decision to skip the furloughs will leave the school district with a low reserve in October due to cash flow issues, Dillon said.

“Everybody wants to talk about how we value education, but when it comes time to put up or shut up, we talk about furloughs,” Abraham said. He urged school board members to take the money from reserves and pay teachers.

School board member Holli Cash agreed.

“I still say we have to do what’s right by our teachers,” Cash said. She blamed the governor and state legislators for the school funding mess.

Cobb has already cut teacher contracts by one day from 191 to 190 this year to deal with a $58 million budget deficit. Cobb also approved a 2-percent across-the-board pay cut for all employees and postponed the step increase that some teachers receive until January, cutting their pay raise in half.