By Angie Thompson/senior reporter
TIFTON — Recent word that an additional $3 million in state funding to the Tift County Board of Education can’t be expected has sent the school board and the superintendent back to the drawing board in an attempt to make deeper cuts to what it called a “bare-boned” 2008-2009 budget adopted in June.
Superintendent Patrick Atwater said Tuesday night during the BOE’s regular session that he would have preferred the state’s mandated 2 percent pay raises for certified staff had been withheld and not “passed on to the local school boards.”
“I feel the state should have cut my raise and I’ll give mine back,” Atwater said.
Atwater e-mailed a letter to all Tift County public school system staff Wednesday morning and explained the financial “crisis.” He asked in the letter that all school system employees submit “constructive ideas for additional ways to decrease our expenditures without decreasing educational services and preferably without losing job positions” by Friday. He said Tuesday night that faculty and staff also forward their suggestions for cutting expenses to their individual principals.
Atwater said the state has slashed the K-12 budget by 2 percent during the last week. For Tift County, that equates to $760,000.
“In addition to the 2 percent, we have also been notified that the school system will not be receiving our homestead reimbursement in September. We have no idea how, when or if the homestead money will be reimbursed this year,” he said.
A portion of the homestead exemption given to land and homeowners in Tift County has traditionally been refunded by the state. The BOE’s portion of that expected state reimbursement is approximately $786,000.
“Adding insult to injury,” Atwater wrote, “the money we were entitled to for the construction of Omega School and J.T. Reddick has been put on hold until at least January, leaving approximately $1.4 million we have been cut over the last several years due to incomplete funding of QBE.” Those cuts, Atwater noted, were from state sources, “all of which must be made up by local taxpayers or cut services.”
The BOE adopted a $55 million budget in June and voted to raise the millage rate by .5 mills and use some of the system’s fund balance to balance that budget. Atwater said Tuesday that law prohibited the BOE from raising the millage rate again to fund the budget.
Talking to board members during Tuesday’s meeting, Atwater said that he has a stack of purchase orders on his desk at least two inches thick and that he is “sitting on some of them to see exactly how the state” funding issue is resolved. He also said that he has talked with contractors working on several construction projects for the system and the groups were working together on financial difficulties.
“We are still making payments but we are being very, very cautious,” Atwater said.
BOE member Todd Gann, who serves on the system’s finance committee, reported that the committee had met recently and discussed the state’s cuts in funding. He said the situation was difficult to describe and likened it to working in a watermelon field, growing a good crop and then getting ready to harvest when a hailstorm comes along. This hailstorm, he said, was caused by the state.
BOE member Tommy Lindsey, a pharmacist, said, the financial blow was particularly painful because of zero growth in the tax digest and that “It looks like the governor is trying to balance the state budget on the backs of the counties.”
“He’s either on drugs and needs to get off or needs to get on some,” Lindsey said.
Chairman Rita Griffin said that it seemed odd timing to her that the system’s test scores had improved and the system had met all state mandates and then the state cut funding.
The BOE’s finance committee has scheduled a meeting for 8 a.m. Wednesday.
“The recommendations brought back from the finance committee will require full board action and much consideration,” Atwater said.
The City of Tifton and Tift County Board of Commissioners had also set their 2008-2009 budgets when they heard the news of state cuts. All three local government entities are continuing to ponder whether or not to give qualifying taxpayers the current homestead exemptions on this year’s property tax bills in hopes that the state will have the money to reimburse them or go ahead and collect the money fearing the state might not come through and pay them back.
Gov. Sonny Perdue announced two weeks ago that the state wouldn’t fund the Homeowner’s Tax Relief Grant, estimated at $428 million statewide. Under the grant, first implemented in 1999 by then-Gov. Roy Barnes, those who qualify for the exemption get a tax break and the state reimburses a portion of the tax cut to the counties, cities and school boards in the state.
Tift County’s portion of that tax credit equals $1.5 million for the 7,212 people in the county who qualify to receive it. The City of Tifton received approximately $101,000 in reimbursements from the state to cover the homestead exemption last year. All three are anticipating that if they are given the state reimbursement again this year, the amounts would be comparable to last year’s because there is no anticipated change in the tax digest.
To contact senior reporter Angie Thompson, call 382-4321.
