Memorandum from Mary Kay Murphy
Mary Kay Murphy, Ph.D. District 3  School Board Member marykaymurphy@aol.com

September 12, 2005

   Residents of Peachtree Corners, Norcross, Duluth, and Berkeley Lake will want to follow three significant initiatives related to funding public education. Each of the issues will have impact for Gwinnett County.

   The first initiative is Governor Sonny Perdue’s Task Force on Funding of Public Education in Georgia. In 1985, then Governor Joe Frank Harris oversaw development of the Quality Basic Education Act that serves as the current formula for funding public education in Georgia. Not since 1985 has there been a revision of the QBE, addressing academic, extra-curricular, transportation, special education, and other components. 

   In 2004, Governor Perdue launched a multi-year Task Force to study an adequate public education and a corresponding funding formula. Gwinnett County Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks is the only school superintendent in Georgia to serve on the Task Force. 

   On October 26, 2005, at 7:00 p.m., another “Community Conversation” will be held at Peachtree Ridge High School to provide residents of Gwinnett County to join others around the state in voicing their views about funding public education in Georgia. This will be the second in a series of public meetings linked by telecommunications to promote a statewide conversation about funding public education.

   An additional initiative is HB 58, a proposal now under consideration that would eliminate the property tax as a source of public school funding and replace it totally with a dedicated statewide sales tax of 3%. This tax would be applied to all sales in Georgia and be added to the sales tax currently in place across the state.

   Five public meetings about this proposal are being held around Georgia for interested parties to comment on this funding option. The last meeting will be held on Wednesday, September 28, 2005, at the Dorothy Benson Senior Citizens Center in Sandy Springs. 

   The meetings are being held in advance of the 2006 session of the Georgia Legislature. It is the view of many that funding education with a statewide sales tax would place education in the hands of the legislature and eliminate local control of public school systems. Also, the statewide sales tax would increase taxes of many Georgians who currently are exempt from property taxes to support schools, including senior citizens and disabled taxpayers. Non-profit corporations, including churches, which do not pay property taxes, would have to pay the much higher level of sales taxes. In Gwinnett, sales tax would rise from 6% to 9%, for example. 

   A number of organizations, including the Georgia PTA and the Georgia School Boards Association, as well as taxpayers, are working to ensure that the funding of Georgia’s public schools is not based on sales tax which is unpredictable and often regressive.

   For local school systems such as Gwinnett County Public Schools, having the stability of property tax revenue has allowed offering students an education above and beyond what the State provides—locally funding extra programs, teachers, resources, and time. If property tax were eliminated as its major source of funding, Gwinnett County Public Schools would be forced to eliminate locally-funded programs and services.

   Included would be several hundred additional teachers who keep class sizes low and offer extra instruction; additional curriculum materials and textbooks; more staff development opportunities; programs such as Reading Recovery, International Baccalaureate, and transition classes for struggling students; school bus transportation service that far exceeds what the state provides; and technology support personnel in schools. 

   State funding allotted to GCPS under the proposed sales-tax plan would not cover the costs of these and other programs and services. Also, it would eliminate the local Board of Education’s options to fund these locally. 

   The third funding initiative is a law suit filed against the State of Georgia by 51 school systems alleging that public education is not equitably funded and requiring that the state change its funding formula. The law suit was filed in 2004 and is one of three concurrent efforts to change the way that the State of Georgia funds public education.

   At the heart of each of these initiatives are questions about the future of public education in Georgia. As the District III School Board member, I urge our community to become informed about the critical issue of how we fund public education, how we ensure that local control of schools remains at the core of this funding, and how we work to provide access and equity to all students in Georgia through their local public schools.

091205

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