The DeKalb County school board voted unanimously for a tentative budget Monday that adds new teachers and school safety officers, gives small across-the-board raises and returns students to a full, 180-day attendance calendar after cuts had shortened the school year.
At $800.1 million, the spending plan for the year starting July 1 is about $44 million larger than the budget approved this time last year, a nearly 6 percent increase.
The brightened prospects in fiscal year 2015 are due to recovering tax proceeds and to savings from cutbacks on some costs, such as legal fees. Districts across metro Atlanta have seen similar reversals from harsh economic conditions that forced job cuts and pay freezes.
Last week, the Cobb County school board approved a $900.2 million budget with a $44 million increase, no furlough days, 300 new teachers and a 1 percent pay raise. Last month, the Gwinnett County school board authorized $9 million in bonuses.
If the DeKalb board finalizes the budget as expected June 25, teachers and other employees will get a 1 percent cost-of-living raise. The more than 6,000 teachers will also get four days more pay because of the elimination of all remaining furlough days. One of those furlough days was for training and didn’t affect students. The other three, however, shortened the academic calendar to 177 days. DeKalb, like many other districts, has been operating with a waiver from the state’s mandatory 180 days of instruction.
DeKalb has enough extra money to hire 100 new teachers. That should reduce class sizes a little, though the school board also on Monday authorized a request to the state for another year of waivers from class-size caps. The budget also adds six school resource officers at elementary schools and 10 new police cars. And the budget funds new support staff, including several media specialists in school libraries.
David Schutten, president of the Organization of DeKalb Educators, praised Superintendent Michael Thurmond for tucking those new librarians into the budget. “It’s a drop in the bucket in the budget,” Schutten said, “but really it’s one of the most important things.”
DeKalb’s fortunes began to change last year after a financial crisis that drew attention from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. SACS placed the district on probation in December 2012 after state auditors reported that the district was running a $14.5 million deficit. Earlier this year, amid signs of a financial turnaround, SACS improved DeKalb’s rating but withheld full accreditation.
There is room for improvement. The new budget puts aside about $20 million, less than a third what a district DeKalb’s size should have in reserves. “We still have a very long way to go,” district finance chief Mike Bell said.
But Thurmond was optimistic, noting that a year ago DeKalb was projecting only about $3 million in reserves.” Now that we’re at twenty,” he said, “things begin to look different.”
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