Last Tuesday, the Coweta County School System (CCSS) presented their first of two budget workshops as part of the FY 2026 budget process, 

The Horton administration has presented a budget increase of approximately $19 million dollars or nearly 6%. A large portion of these increases are salaries, benefits, and pension costs. Many of these costs are mandated by the state. See the attached budget workshop documents nearby.

The local tax digest is projected to grow about 5% with the milage estimated to remail at the same as this year. To be clear, that 5% reflects a combination of growth as well as increase in the value of the tax digest. However, it’s important to remember that individual property tax owners do not normally get any more money from an increase in property value. 

Nearly $4.5M of the $19M total increase, is a two percent cost of living increase (COLA) for all employees. Chairman Glover stated that he felt that in today’s climate and economy, the increase is reasonable. As the husband of a long-term public-school teacher, I can agree with his point.

However, a reasonable person can wonder how Mr. Glover can have sympathy for staff yet have none for Coweta property owners when he decided to veto, the overwhelming vote of Coweta’s property owners. 

The budget document informs us that benefit costs were going from $1,760 per employee per month to $1,885 per employee for a 7% increase. There was no discussion whether the “employee portion” should  increased to offset some of this cost. There was a discussion that while the State of Georgia paid a portion of “Certified employees” such as teachers but not classified employees such as bus drivers, custodians, or other non-teachers.

During the presentation, it was stated that current enrollment projections, reflect that there is going to be a reduction of “at least” three teaching positions and as many as nine. While the comment was that this reflected redistribution among schools, there was no information presented or shared to examine this. 

However, this reflects another year of relatively flat enrollment with significant cost increase of providing a quality public school system. Reasonable people may wonder at which point does the superintendent and the board develop a plan to manage these costs given the lack of growth. 

Some will argue that the cost increases are driven by the State of Georgi which is true. However, many will ask whether is it reasonable to charge the Coweta County homeowners endless and unlimited property tax increases? At some point, this model will become unsustainable.

Later Superintendent Evan Horton stated that he was confident that his administration was being good stewards of the public money based on his conversations with other superintendents and documents he has seen. However, there was no document or analysis provided for the public (or the board) to examine this. At times like this, I am reminded of the wisdom of President Reagan who tells us to trust but verify. Here is the link for the presentation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBm5ACcSqoI . There will be a second workshop this Tuesday May 20 at 6:30 pm.