APS parents ask Atlanta leaders for pledge to resolve Beltline debt

Response to APS parents’ letter from Anne Torres, Mayor Kasim Reed’s director of communications:

The timing of The Neighborhood Collaborative Group letter is questionable, at best. Current negotiations between APS and the BeltLine have been positive and collaborative. In fact, BeltLine financial documents were provided to APS just last month. If the authors of this letter were truly focused on the well-being of Atlanta’s children, they would allow the BeltLine and APS the space to continue their efforts to determine the actual amounts already paid and owed. The letter does not advance the ongoing work of APS and the BeltLine, but rather distracts from the greatest threat to APS - its unfunded pension liability. Unlike APS, the City of Atlanta prioritized fiscal responsibility by achieving comprehensive pension reform to ensure the City sustains its positive financial trajectory. The APS pension system has been critically underfunded for decades and currently cannot cover 82% of its pension funding obligations.

APS receives great benefits from the BeltLine. The BeltLine has already made a positive impact on the value and vitality of every neighborhood it touches. It’s a transformational redevelopment of the city’s core, and its success accrues to the bottom line of every partner at the negotiating table. The BeltLine is fundamentally changing the fabric of our city, drawing families with children, retirees, entrepreneurs and others energized by the unprecedented connectivity of the city’s diverse communities.

Mayor Reed has repeatedly shown his deep commitment to a strong public school system and the education of this city’s children. During his first year in office, as APS reeled from allegations of widespread cheating, Mayor Reed played a pivotal role in making sure the system did not lose its accreditation. That would have been a disastrous outcome for this city’s children, its business community and the state of Georgia as a whole. Mayor Reed led the effort to reform the previous school board, supporting a bill to remove board members who fail to achieve accreditation on their watch, and then actively recruited Erroll Davis to serve as Superintendent to stabilize the system. More recently, he drove the fundraising effort to raise $250,000 to fund new Superintendent Meria Carstarphen’s transition into the position and give her a foundation upon which to build a much stronger Atlanta school system.

While the letter perpetuates a manufactured controversy, BeltLine and APS will continue to work toward what is best for the City of Atlanta – both its students and its prosperity.

Several Atlanta school district parent groups are turning up the pressure on city leaders to resolve a multimillion-dollar dispute with Atlanta Public Schools over the Beltline.

In a joint letter sent to the Atlanta City Council this week, eight groups from throughout the city called on council members to sign a pledge to pay the district what it's owed, a figure the parents put at more than $8 million.

They also are asking council members to urge Mayor Kasim Reed to pay the school district. Reed took the helm of heated negotiations with APS over the Beltline debt earlier this year, and talks have at times been testy.

The exact amount the city owes is in dispute. But what’s clear is that the Beltline is behind on a $6.75 million payment that was due last January, and is set to owe an additional $6.75 million next month. The parents contend the city should also pay interest and attorneys fees associated with the debt.

“The city of Atlanta has received great benefit from this agreement with APS, in the form of tens of millions of dollars in revenue from the TAD,” parents wrote in the letter. “APS, on the other hand, has received no benefit.”

Abby Martin, co-president of The Council of Intown Neighborhoods and Schools, said: “Are we as parents ready to take a stand on this? My feeling is yes.”

Reed spokeswoman Anne Torres said the timing of the parents’ letter is “questionable at best,” describing recent negotiations as “positive and collaborative.”

“If the authors of this letter were truly focused on the well-being of Atlanta’s children, they would allow the Beltline and APS the space to continue their efforts to determine the actual amounts already paid and owed,” Torres wrote.

She repeated the city’s counter-argument that school leaders have failed to address serious financial headwinds, including a $550 million unfunded pension liability. “The letter does not advance the ongoing work of APS and the Beltline, but rather distracts from the greatest threat to APS - its unfunded pension liability,” she said.

School and city leaders have been at odds since early 2013 over an old agreement that created the Beltline tax allocation district, or TAD, which helps fund the greenspace project. Though the Beltline is operated by the nonprofit Atlanta Beltline Inc., the city manages the Beltline TAD. Under the agreement, the city agreed to make $162 million in fixed payments from the Beltline TAD to the school district through 2030 in exchange for using a portion of property tax revenue for Beltline development.

City and Beltline leaders have said the recession devastated the Beltline’s funding model and it now can’t make the payments without effectively halting the project’s development. In their view, the sooner the Beltline’s 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit comes to life, the better it is for communities and schools.

School leaders say the district, which relied heavily on its savings to fund its current budget, needs the money for district operations and board priorities such as early childhood education. In letters between the city and APS in October, school leaders dispute that paying the district would cripple the Beltline’s development plans.

The talks seemed at a standstill for much of the year as Reed and former APS Superintendent Erroll Davis, who is advising the board on the issue, warred over negotiations.

Under Davis’ leadership, the school board made the first steps towards a potential lawsuit this year, and the district later hired outside counsel over the issue.

Reed wasn’t pleased.

“If APS wants to litigate it, by all means do so. Tee it up, ” Reed said this summer. “Because that is the worst thing that can happen in my mind for the system because it will create a deep divide between the entity whose support it needs more than any other entity.”

Both parties have said little about the progress of talks in recent months.