District choosing common sense over common cents

Schools and students of DeKalb County would wait that long to recover tax revenue lost by signing on to support the Doraville Tax Allocation District (TAD).

Proponents of the TAD want our school system to financially assist in redeveloping the former General Motors factory and the downtown area in Doraville. On paper, The Assembly creates thousands of new jobs.

But to secure $247 million in TAD infrastructure bonds, our school district, plus local city and county governments, have been asked to partly finance this project. The debt service for the entire project could well exceed $600 million over the life of the bonds. Our district, unfortunately, is being asked to pay more than half of the public funding.

We’re under increasing pressure to take revenue from a proven economic engine, the DeKalb County School District (DCSD), and risk it on this project.

Schools? An economic engine? Yes. The DCSD is the number-two employer in the county and a huge contributor to the economic health of the metro area. For starters, we prepare students for college and careers, so they become future job-creators, wage-earners, taxpayers, and responsible citizens.

To make this happen, we employ 15,407 worthy employees – 6,543 are our talented and dedicated teachers. Most of the $553 million these good people earn annually in competitive salaries goes back into our local economy, not to corporations in other states … or speculators.

Since 2013, DCSD has spent $128,322,288 with local businesses in metro Atlanta. If we include a multiplier effect for local subcontractors and services, we’ve infused $210 million to $255 million into the local economy in the last three years.

The quality of our schools plays an economic role too, attracting new residents and businesses. When Mercedes-Benz recently announced the relocation here of its U.S. headquarters, that company partly based its decision on the quality of local education.

Thank you, DeKalb schools.

Our position is about people priorities: The proposed GM site redevelopment is not a bad idea, but paying for it with much-needed tax revenue diverted from schools is bad public policy.

I have met with local officials, including the mayor of Doraville and the developer, nearly two dozen times in the past three months. I have walked The Assembly site, despite concerns about pollution from battery acid, paint, chemicals, and other potential carcinogens. Still, those can be cleaned up, but I’m not sure anything could clean up damage from underfunding our DeKalb students, schools, families, and staff.

The DCSD must stay focused on system recovery. Until 2013, we operated at a deficit. At one point, our district was on probation, one step from losing accreditation.

We’re financially stable now, but we already need a new 1,600-student, $60 million high school in Doraville to relieve overcrowded Dunwoody High School. And how many more schools will children in our fast-growing system need in the next 34 years?

The political pressure we’re getting makes us wonder if TAD supporters really hold schools and students as a high priority.

If the project is so important to the region and state, then why aren’t region, state, and MARTA administrations putting their money into it? Only Doraville, DeKalb County government, and DCSD are asked to fund the project — and schools at 56 percent of that total.

Leaders found hundreds of millions of dollars in state-local tax revenues and breaks to construct Mercedes-Benz Stadium for the Atlanta Falcons and SunTrust Park for the Atlanta Braves. Some years, the Falcons will play only eight games in that billion-dollar building. The Braves play just 81 regular season dates a year.

Our DCSD team? We show up 365 days a year to develop the potential of our kids — and the economy of tomorrow.

We choose common sense for our common cents – taxes should benefit the public sector, not the private. We choose the business of developing students — not property.