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In my first column, I took issue with Dr. Steven Owens’ guest editorial in the AJC. In his editorial, Dr. Owens suggested that the funding Clayton students received was not “equitable” when compared to Fayette and by extension Coweta County. [Getting the facts straight on Fayette school funding (https://thecitizen.com/2023/12/31/getting-the-facts-straight-on-fayette-school-funding/)]
He cites an example where “Clayton County schools received $1,245 less per student in state and local funding than neighboring Fayette County, due to the uniquely American policy of tying school funding to local property values.”
In my last analysis, I pointed out that in FY 2023, Clayton had over fifty thousand students whereas Fayette and Coweta added together only come to less than forty-four thousand. In simple terms, Clayton has a denominator issue where the number of students outstrip the available tax base of the third smallest county in Georgia when measured in land mass, not population.
In the budget analysis I presented last time, my research provided prospective to the above facts. When you look at the “capital fund” of the school budget, Clayton is sitting on nearly four hundred million dollars or nearly 60% of one year’s operating budget, Fayette has one hundred two million (33%), and Coweta one hundred three million (31%).
Now these capital funds are typically ESPLOST or other capital revenue funds which are heavily restricted. However, I think its fair to wonder if it is time we reconsider how we restrict funds and why.
In the case of all three school systems, we have purchased new buildings, expanded/ refreshed others, acquired/renewed technology, and bought fleets of buses. Reasonable people may wonder at what point do these capital funds become an entity of their own. Our FCBOE administration is reviewing if we have added “too much” technology.
For years, I have been on these pages and others promoting the necessity of ESPLOST, given that Fayette got its first in 2008, one of the last systems to adopt the program. Now over fifteen years later, we reduced seventy school-based positions due to rising costs, but still have funds to put tennis courts and auxiliary gyms in each of our high schools.
Worse, while Clayton is set to spend almost seven hundred million dollars and has capital reserves nearly four hundred million (added together that’s over a billion dollars), nearly every Clayton student goes to a school where the parents can request a voucher from the state as their schools are on the bottom twenty five percent in all of Georgia.
While the above proves that money alone does not make good schools, it demonstrates that the school system has the cash, but it is not all available.
School boards can do only so much, and we need legislators to help with better and more flexible rules. While the Fayette Board of Education was able to grant themselves a brand-new middle school from the capital funds voted for by the public, it was unable to provide the resources necessary to keep our class sizes low.
The two neighboring systems of Fayette and Clayton discussed by Dr. Owens are dissimilar in so many ways but share the common fact that “helpful” state legislation is causing challenges.
Clayton has the world’s busiest airport and neighbors a NASCAR track with two races a year. The economic impact from those gives them all the capital necessary to build an endless supply of pretty school buildings, filled with teachers who do not have the resources they need to educate students who are failing by the state’s standards.
Fayette has always been near the top of Georgia’s public schools. Many suggest that our smaller neighborhood schools with lower class size contributes to that. Our tax base is limited by a higher senior population who have partial or total school tax exemption. In addition, the property value for school tax is limited to no more than three percent growth due to a homestead exemption the public voted itself after the school board granted themselves a middle school. Now FCBOE is expanding class size due to rising costs and lower revenue.
In this election season, it’s easy to talk about lower taxes, or reckless government spending, but I suggest it is more important to look beyond the slogans or hyperbole for a plan.
In the scrum for a solution, legislators from various branches of government have proposed their solutions and some have enacted pieces or parts without making sure they integrate for a better public-school solution.
More money by itself is not an answer, more tests are certainly not a solution, more disjointed plans are not helpful. In this election season ask for plans, details, and who are they planning to work with to help our schools.
[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. He has appeared previously on these pages in letters to the editor.]
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