Hall BOE expects tax roll-up for new budget

GAINESVILLE - Some property owners may expect to pay more school tax, some less as Hall County School board members approved a tentative $194.4-million FY2013 budget at a called meeting Monday afternoon.

School Superintendent Will Schofield said he hopes to make more changes before the budget is up for final adoption June 25th.Those changes would come in personnel.

"We still continue to look at every single vacancy we have before we hire," Schofield said. "We want to make sure there's absolutely no way we can do with even less in terms of personnel. I anticipate we may be able to cut another five to 10 before it's all over."

The budget already $3.3-million less than 2012 with 22 positions cut, and the board is looking at a tax roll up.

"Some people will pay more, some people will pay less depending on what's happened to their assessments," Schofield added. "The maximum roll up rate is 19.316; I don't anticipate us using all of that roll-up rate."

Board Chairman Nath Morris said state austerity cuts are making education funding unsustainable but 'we're making it work'.

"We had over $19-million cut for two years, before that it was $18.3-million and before that, $19.3-million," Morris said.

Morris said that adds up to almost $80-million in state education cuts.
The state cuts plus a $200 increase in health employee insurance premiums and a 7.75 percent drop in the tax digest likely means a tax roll up, but at this point he could not say how much.

"I'm frustrated over losing state money but I also don't even want to do the roll up because a lot of people do see that as a tax increase, Morris added. "Some assessments went up, some of them went down. Most of them went down because the digest went down but some property tax went up."

Morris said the school system had the same millage with no tax increase for a long time, and for 2013 is dipping into its $7.9-million fund balance by almost $7-million.

In his 2013 budget summary Schofield points out that in addition to the $19.2-million state austerity cuts, equalization funding is $1.9-million less than last year because of a state formula change. The employer portion of teacher retirement costs are up $1.3-million for fewer employees and the system has fewer classified and certified employees with more students.

The system lost over $2-million in local property tax appeals after last year's budget was set and are projecting another million dollar loss this year.

Schofield recommends 10 reduced school calendar days with the possibility of adding two days back later; the Board felt it was important to maintain teacher pay scales and steps and 10 days would allow the Board to use less than the full roll-up rate.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2012/6/249340