Fayette School System’s money woes can be solved starting with our local legislators

Last week, I reported that our excellent Fayette County schools are reducing 73 positions with 70 of those being in school positions. In fairness, its important to note that our school system is dealing with financial issues that are somewhat outside their control.

I have written before about how Fayette’s property tax base skews toward a higher percentage of senior citizen property owners which limits the amount of school property tax available. And recently we have all heard how the homestead exemption voted in by we taxpayers have further limited the available funds.

However, when the state of Georgia deducts the “5 Mills Fair Share” as our minimum local cost of public education, it deducts 5 mills of the gross digest before considering that over 20% of our tax digest is locked away by homestead exemptions for the seniors and now the 3% growth limit. Based on the FY 2024 QBE allocation, over $35 million was deducted from our state funds.

Simple math says $7 million less ($35 million x 20%) should have been taken given twenty percent of our digest is locked away in homestead exemptions. Even simpler math says that if each school based position costs $100,000 with pension and benefits cost, the seven million dollars over deducted equals the 70 school based positions we are now reducing.

To be clear, this is a simplification of a overly complex situation, to provide context to the taxpayer. With the recent bills based by our legislature, these problems will begin to manifest in other districts over time unless we partner with our legislative leaders to address this flaw.

In simple terms, the QBE needs to be fixed so that the “Five Mill Fair Share” is based of the net digest (what is actually taxable) verus the gross digest (without exemptions). This is not arguing for anything more than what is fairly due from the state of Georgia based on the existing law.

For many years, Fayette’s taxpayers have paid higher taxes to provide our schools with the resources they need. Now, we taxpayers are still paying the higher tax rate and having to cut school resources.

Enough.

Below are the representatives both Senate and House for Fayette County. I have purposely left out party, because it should not matter. Good schools are something we all can come together and agree on.

While I am certain that there are ways we can more wisely spend our school dollars, we can’t let a broken system cause us to unnecessarily reduce our wonderful schools.

Please contact this legislators and ask them to work to fix the QBE and make the “Five Mill fair share” based on net digest after homestead exemptions.

[Neil Sullivan is a finance/accounting executive and CPA. He has lived in Peachtree City over 20 years with his wife Jennifer, a Fayette County History teacher, and son Jackson, a student at Erskine College. He has been active in public school related issues in Fayette County, leading three E-SPLOST initiatives as chairman of Fayette Citizens for Children.]