Education

DeKalb actually did lose value during the recession

By Ty Tagami
Feb 24, 2015

A Georgia State University group that reported only a slight decline in the per student net taxable “digest” values for the DeKalb County School District during and after the Great Recession now says it erred and that the county’s losses were actually about as high as that of other major metro Atlanta jurisdictions.

The decline for DeKalb was 24.25 percent from fiscal year 2009 to fiscal year 2014, the Center for State and Local Finance at Georgia State University said Monday.

The organization previously reported that DeKalb dropped less than a percentage point while the statewide per student digest dropped 17.5 percent and other major metro Atlanta jurisdictions fell much further: 31.7 percent in Clayton County and 27.8 percent in Gwinnett County, for instance.

About the Author

Ty Tagami is a staff writer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Since joining the newspaper in 2002, he has written about everything from hurricanes to homelessness. He has deep experience covering local government and education, and can often be found under the Gold Dome when lawmakers meet or in a school somewhere in the state.

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