The DeKalb County School Board voted Monday night to buy a little more time on tough budget-cutting decisions involving the school construction fund.
More than $30 million in school improvement work may be stopped because of a newly-discovered budget shortfall.
The projects were at the end of a five year sales tax-funded construction program that expires this summer. The Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax that began in 2007 was to generate $513 million, but, because of accounting oversights discovered recently, will actually come to around $508 million. That's only a small part of the problem.
The biggest problem: no one set aside money to cover $21 million in bond debt interest payments that will soon be coming due. Superintendent Cheryl Atkinson proposed scuttling three dozen projects at scores of schools to cover that deficit and to pay for another problem -- a $10 million overrun in projected costs for a new Chamblee High School.
Previously, Atkinson was asking to kill the projects, but late into a caustic debate Monday, she offered a temporary compromise: give her time to find out which of them she can legally move into the next tax-building program.
She hopes to free up $11 million over the next five years by issuing no bonds with the next sales tax, which begins this summer. Money that would have gone toward interest payments could conceivably go to the unfunded projects, she announced.
The projects that are in jeopardy include upgrades for the disabled, air conditioning systems, new toilets and numerous other small projects. There is also work at several high schools that could stop.
Kirste Young, a parent at Redan High School, is upset that her school may have to pay the price. Atkinson wanted $2.5 million in cuts from the South DeKalb school's renovation project while work at Chamblee High in North DeKalb was being pushed forward despite the budget overrun, Young said.
Young, who is president of the Redan parent-teacher-student association, said the proposed cuts contributed to a "sense of North versus South."
"I think it's just a perpetuation of inequities," Young said before Monday's meeting. "If you found that you were getting ready to go over budget at Chamblee, why couldn't things be cut back at Chamblee instead of going to other schools?"
During the meeting, board members battled over a decision in 2009 to add $47 million to the sales tax program, referred to as SPLOST III because it was the third sales tax-funded building program approved by voters.
"If we had not rushed out and added the $47 million to SPLOST III," said board member Paul Womack, "I don't think we would be confronted with this problem today."
Board member Jay Cunningham, who like Womack voted for those additional projects, was "offended" that his fellow board member would bring it up now. Back then, Cunningham said, the board voted based on what the officials reported: times were good and "the money was coming in."
All nine board members voted for Atkinson's proposal Monday. It allows the superintendent to move forward with each project until the money runs out or new money is found in SPLOST IV.
Projects that could be killed
● Improvements for the disabled at about 20 schools: $2.5 million
● Air conditioning and heating systems at eight schools: more than $11 million
● Emergency generators for security systems at several schools: $2.1 million
● New sinks, toilets and other fixtures at 13 elementary schools: $684,000
● New kitchens, ceilings, more HVAC work and other projects at various schools: $2.1 million
● Running tracks at four middle schools: $1 million
● Renovations at Dunwoody High, Redan High and DeKalb School of the Arts: $8 million
● New computers: $229,000
Source: DeKalb School District
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