SEPARATE BUT UNEQUAL?
Posted by klaing on March 1, 2007
Are tax dollars for education fairly distributed between North and South Fulton County?
by Keith Laing, Atlanta Tribune: The Magazine
March 2007
These days, it is hard to buy much with just a penny. However, the Fulton County school system says pennies are enough for them to buy 14 new schools and drastically improve 11 others.
School officials are promoting their third Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST), dubbed “Pennies for Progress,” which it says will raise $1.4 billion by 2012. According to Fulton County School Board officials, the SPLOST money will be split between Fulton and Atlanta Public Schools, but first, the tax must receive a passing grade from Fulton County voters, who will get to weigh in on the proposal in a special election Mar. 20.
That means the schools must convince voters to continue to tax themselves, which Superintendent James Wilson acknowledges is a sometimes-dicey proposition. However, Wilson believes the system will get the benefit of the doubt because of the results of SPLOST I and II, passed in 1997 and 2002 respectively.
“We’re proud to have had previous SPLOST programs for students,” he says. “It allows us to maintain our schools and build new ones.”
Wilson says that in 10 years of collecting pennies on all purchases made within the county, 29 new schools have been built. He added that, in the next five years, 20,000 more students are expected to enter a school system that already has 600 trailers on its school grounds.
“Before we ever presented this program to the community, we had a responsibility to identify whether there was a need or not,” he says. “We’ve been about the business of doing that and have surveyed all our schools to determine what the needs are. This will allow us to properly house and educate our students as long as our facilities’ needs are there and growth continues.”
That notwithstanding, since its inception, the SPLOST program has at times displayed traits familiar to Atlanta politics: Divisions along geographic and racial lines. Since first being enacted, roughly a third of the projects completed have taken place in South Fulton County, home of several predominantly black schools. The majority of the work so far – 30 of the 47 projects – has taken place in North Fulton and Sandy Springs, home to most of the county’s predominantly White schools.
With statistics like that, it is easy to reach the conclusion that there have not been enough pennies for all of Fulton County’s residents, Wilson admits reluctantly. But that does not make it true, he says.
“I’m cognizant of that opinion,” he says. “Anytime you look at a five year program, during that time frame, you can have that perception. It’s a distribution based on need. We identify where the growth is and try to make sure we understand it. If subdivisions (are developed) in one area faster than another, you could easily get into a situation where one school has trailers and another doesn’t.”
“But what’s really important is that we completed the work on time and on budget,” he continues. “We do an inventory of all of our classrooms and make sure we’re replacing and upgrading equipment as a need rather than as a want. That should be more of the focus than whether or not one (school) got more than another.”
South Fulton PTA Council president Michael Pittman, who supports the SPLOST program, agrees with Wilson’s assessment.
“I’m a South Fulton resident,” he says. “I’ve been fighting for school improvements for awhile, but you have to build schools where the kids are. The (SPLOST) legislation doesn’t allow you to be proactive. You have to have at least 90 percent of (a school’s) enrollment before you build.”
That’s why this SPLOST will be different for South Fulton County, Pittman says.
“Now that we’re experience growth in South Fulton, that’s where the schools will be built.”
Current plans released by the county call for eight new South Fulton schools, compared with four new North Fulton buildings and two within the newly incorporated city of Sandy Springs. Additionally, three South Fulton schools will receive major additions, along with eight North Fulton facilities.
That’s the reason Pittman says he supports the Pennies for Progress program. He contends that it is the best mechanism for improving schools, he says.
“The SPLOST funding is for the entire county,” he says. “Right now, it’s the major vehicle that we have to increase funding for new schools and the expansion of existing schools. There’s a plan out there that says that every school is going to get something.”
Still, he cautions, approving the SPLOST will not be a cure-all.
“If growth keeps happening in South Fulton, we’ll be close to capacity by the time the schools are a built and we’ll have trailers,” he says. “People don’t understand how you can open a school and have trailers on day two, but it’s inevitable. They make assumptions that a school can be built in a day, but a middle school takes 12 months and high school takes 18. Imagine how many people can move to Fulton County in that time.”
Pittman adds that for residents concerned about the allocation of SPLOST resources, the time to ask questions is now – before its enacted – not when buildings are being constructed.
“If you want to say that (South Fulton) didn’t get what it deserved last time, part of that is a lack of involvement,” he says. “If you’re not involved, you can’t ask the tough questions and get the tough answers.”
But plenty of Fulton County residents were not involved in the debate proceeding SPLOST I and II. According to April Pye, interim director of the Fulton County Board of Registrations and Elections, only eight percent of the county 436,000 voters participated in the first SPLOST election. Even fewer – five percent – participated in the second, she says. She adds that she does not expect many more to cast ballots this time.
“My guess would be (that turnout will be) somewhere between there,” Pye says. “I’m estimating seven to 10 percent. It’s a question election. There are no candidates out campaigning, so sometimes people aren’t even aware there’s an election. Some people don’t take interest if they don’t see billboards and signs. You general find turnout is highest in presidential and governors races. For whatever reason, turnout is not high during special elections.”
Some might argue that is just what Fulton County is counting out, but that is another charge Superintendent Wilson refutes. He says the school system has no ulterior motive for holding the election in March instead of during the July primaries or the November general elections.
“If I understand it correctly, as soon as the legislation approved school districts moving on local option taxes, which was before I got here, the first available date was March,” he says. “Fulton and several other counties moved forward right away.”
South Fulton PTA president Pittman adds that this year, the vote’s timing could do more harm than good.
“Annexation and incorporation (of areas surrounding Fulton) has created so much distrust that this comes at the worst time when you’re asking people to do something long term,” he says. “The timing is not good with the possibility of the county reconfiguring itself. There’s a fair amount of debt the county has that people are not going to want to be left with, like Grady and MARTA specifically. We’ve been paying for those since their inception and all of Fulton has benefited.”
Another worry, Pittman says, its that voters who do not have children in the school system will not see the SPLOST’s merit. But even they would gain from its approval, he says.
“If you’re an elderly person and your kids are long gone, you should be concerned with quality of life,” he says. “Quality of life is associated with the quality of schools. You can’t (individually) not pay for new schools. You can’t tell the local jurisdiction ‘hey, I don’t have kids, don’t use my tax dollars.’ Everybody benefits.”
Given SPLOST’s past uneven distribution and Atlanta’s spotty track record of geographic and racial equality, time will tell if that’s true.
