Decatur school board/city commission to hold rare joint meeting

The Decatur School Board and City Commission will hold a rare joint meeting here at the Wilson School Support Centeron Oct 24, discussing annexation and the senior homestead exemption. Bill Banks for the AJC

The Decatur School Board and City Commission will hold a rare joint meeting here at the Wilson School Support Centeron Oct 24, discussing annexation and the senior homestead exemption. Bill Banks for the AJC

Decatur’s school board and city commission are holding a rare joint meeting 7-9 p.m. Oct. 24 (Thursday) on the first floor of the Wilson School Support Center, 125 Electric Ave.

The discussion topics according to Superintendent David Dude are “annexation policy” and the school system’s senior homestead exemption.

Regarding annexation, Dude and the board want to review Senate Bill 53 that emerged from the 2019 legislative session and was ultimately vetoed by Governor Brian Kemp.

The bill was intended to protect DeKalb County’s school district from losing students after Atlanta annexed 744 acres of the Emory area. The SB 53 impact on Decatur is that it would’ve resulted in separate boundaries for the school district and the city.

“SB 53 would have created two Decaturs: one for children attending our schools, and another for children not allowed to,” Decatur Board Chair Lewis Jones said after Kemp’s veto. “It would be especially unfair to those forced to pay taxes to support schools their children could not attend.”

After Kemp’s veto DeKalb Superintendent Stephen Green vowed to keep “fighting,” adding that, “Senate Bill 53 is coming back. This is encroachment, this is infringement on DeKalb County and the DeKalb County school district and it must stop. It must end.”

In a recent interview Dude told the AJC, “We were blindsided by [SB 53]. So we want to keep up to date [with any potential annexation scenarios]. We want to make sure [the board and Decatur’s city commission] are all on the same page as we move forward. It got vetoed, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be introduced again.”

Meantime Georgia State University has released its study of City Schools of Decatur’s homestead exemption for seniors 65 and over. Among several revelations the study concluded that the exemption hasn’t altered CSD’s K-12 enrollment growth, and that the district lost far more money than originally anticipated after the exemption took effect.

In Thursday’s meeting the two boards may discuss the possibility of revising the exemption when its five-year sunset expires in 2021.

This is the first joint meeting of the two boards since Nov. 2017.