After a fiery debate Wednesday that exposed ideological cracks on the Cobb County School Board, members tabled a sales tax idea some see as a potential answer to years of large budget deficits.
Unlike some tabled items, however, the sales tax plan — which would change the state constitution to give school boards the power to put a 1 percent sales tax before voters — isn’t dead. Indeed, it’s expected to be a hot topic when the board meets at 7 p.m. on Oct. 24 at its Marietta chambers.
Board Member David Banks conceived the plan as a way that Cobb and cash-strapped school districts across the state could make up for declining support from the state government.
Banks had hoped to get his colleagues on the board to approve sending a letter of support for the plan to the Georgia School Boards Association and the Georgia Schools Superintendents Association, a pair of groups whose backing could hold some sway with state legislators who would be asked to vote on it in the General Assembly.
But in Cobb, like much of Georgia, plans that impose a tax — or even opens the door to new taxes — draw heated opposition.
“As a Republican and as a conservative, I will not support another tax,” said board member Kathleen Angelucci. “I’m not going to support it, and that’s pretty much it in a nutshell.”
Banks’ plan — he firmly opposes any description of it as a tax plan — would allow local school boards to put a 1 percent sales tax before voters. Money from the tax would be used for K-12 education. But unlike money from a special-purpose local option sales tax, or SPLOST, the funds from this proposed sales tax would not be limited to construction projects.
Districts in counties with 50,000 or more residents would be required to roll property taxes back by at least 30 percent of what the sales tax collects. Districts in smaller counties would be under no such requirement.
Banks estimates that the sales tax, like a SPLOST, would generate somewhere around $120 million per year. That means property taxes would be reduced by at least $36 million, leaving Cobb schools with $84 million in new revenue.
During a budget presentation earlier Wednesday, district staff gave board members a glimpse of what fiscal 2015 will look like. The district faces an estimated deficit of $79 million.
School districts in Georgia are prohibited from running deficits, and Cobb, like other districts, has balanced its books through furloughs, pay freezes and staff reductions.
That painful past spurred some of the conservatives on the Cobb board to contemplate the unthinkable: a plan that could, eventually, lead to new taxes.
Board members excoriated state legislators for not providing more funding to school districts and said they had a responsibility to try to step into the financial breach to protect the district’s schools.
“We do not have any tool in our bucket that’s going to close this gap,” board member Scott Sweeney said.
Board Chair Randy Scamihorn added: “The ship’s taking on a lot of water. I don’t see anyone trying to help us. Do we buy more buckets? Our dilemma’s the same whether we like taxes, don’t like taxes.”
Changing the state constitution requires a two-thirds vote of the state House of Representatives and the Senate and then the approval of Georgia voters.
To Banks’ mind, that means his proposal is not a tax. It gives voters the option to tax themselves.
In unusually strong terms, however, board member Tim Stultz wasn’t buying that description.
“It’s a cop-out,” he said, “for people who don’t have the spine to stand up and say, ‘We’re not going to take more money out of your pocket to fund government.’”
Despite the vehement objections of Stultz and Angelucci, the plan seems to have the support of a majority of the 7-member board.
Banks, Scamihorn, Sweeney and Brad Wheeler all indicated they back the concept of the plan.
It is not known where David Morgan stands on the issue. He left as the debate unfolded, offering no public remarks one day after refusing to give his impression of the plan when asked by a reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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