Members of the Coweta County Board of Education Tuesday night voted to maintain the 18.59 millage rate again this year. The board also received a report on sales tax collections that decreased 6.8 percent in the past year.
The board with little discussion voted unanimously to hold the Maintenance and Operation (M&O) millage rate steady at 18.59 mills.
Superintendent Blake Bass noted that this will be the seventh year that the millage rate has been set at that rate.
Also at the meeting, school system Financial Officer Keith Chapman reported that the past year has seen a reduction in sales tax collections. He said collections of $19.14 million for the period of August 2009 through July 2010 amounted to a decrease of $1.4 million, representing a decrease of 6.8 percent over the same period a year earlier.
Figures provided covering the August to July time frame beginning in July 2005 showed collections of $18.75 million during that one-year period. Collections increased during the 2006-2007 period to $20.86 million, or 11.3 percent.
But, following the recessionary trend, that is when things started going a bit south. Collections for 2007-2008 dipped slightly to $20.82, representing a -.21 percent decrease. Then the following year, in 2008-2009, collections dropped 1.35 percent to $20.54 million.
Bass during the discussion of sales tax collections also noted that there was no sales tax holiday this year in Georgia.
The recession continues to play havoc with sales tax revenues and other components of the overall economy in Coweta.
Coweta’s jobless rate in June held steady at 9.7 percent, while Newnan saw a slight decrease to 11.1 percent.
For Coweta, the 9.7 percent unemployment rate equates to 5,717 people out of work in a labor force of 58,753. Coweta’s unemployment rate in June 2009 was 10.7 percent.
Similarly in Newnan, the city saw a one-tenth percent decrease in the jobless rate, going from 11.2 percent in May to 11.1 percent in June. That figure compares to the 12.4 percent jobless rate a year ago.
Unemployment in the 10-county Three Rivers area saw a slight increase in the jobless rate in June. The May rate of 11.1 percent gave way to a jobless rate of 11.2 percent in June, representing 24,570 people out of work in a labor force of 219,572 people. Those numbers are far better than those of a year ago when the Three Rivers unemployment rate in June 2009 was 12.5 percent.
Statewide unemployment figures show that Georgia’s jobless rate increased in June to 10.3 percent, up from a revised rate of 9.8 percent in May. That number represents 482,758 people out of work.
And across the United States, the jobless rate also rose in June, with 9.6 percent of the workforce out of a job compared to 9.3 percent in May. That means 14.885 million people out of work.
But that is not the whole story. Official unemployment rates listed across America by states and the federal government do not account for those no longer looking for work and those who are underemployed by taking part-time jobs.
