Category Archives: Budget

DeKalb Schools Announces Proposed Property Tax Increase

Question: How much is enough? The DeKalb County Board of Education announces its intention to increase the property taxes it will levy this year by 5.06 percentage points over the rollback millage rate.

.pdf link icon  FY2018 DCSD Proposed Budget
.pdf link icon  2017 Tax Digest Five Year History of Levy
.pdf link icon  2017 Notice of Property Tax Increase


DeKalb Schools Proposed Property Tax Increase
When the total digest of taxable property is prepared, Georgia law requires that a rollback millage rate must be computed that will produce the same total revenue on the current year’s digest that last year’s millage rate would have produced had no reassessments occurred.
The budget to be tentatively adopted by the DeKalb County Board of Education requires a millage rate higher than the rollback millage rate, therefore, before the DeKalb County Board of Education may finalize the tentative budget and set a final millage rate, Georgia law requires three public hearings to be held to allow the public opportunity to express their opinions on the increase.
All concerned citizens are invited to the public hearings on this tax increase to be held at the Administrative & Instructional Complex, J. David Williamson Board Room, 1701 Mountain Industrial Blvd., Stone Mountain, Ga., on June 12, 2017, at 6:15 p.m.; and on June 27, 2017 at 11:30 a.m. and 6:15 p.m.


Annual Operating Budget Development Process Calendar for FY2018
Monday, March 20, 2017 (5:30p.m.) – Public Budget Input Hearing to solicit feedback from the public regarding the 2017-2018 school district’s budget.
Monday, April 17, 2017 (2:00p.m.) – Committee of the Whole to allow the Superintendent to present the Proposed FY2018 Budget to the Board for discussion.
Monday, May 15, 2017 (2:00p.m.) – Committee of the Whole to allow the Superintendent to present the FY2018 Tentative Budget/Revenue Projections.
Monday, May 15, 2017 (5:30p.m.) – 1st Public Budget Hearing to solicit feedback from the public regarding the 2017-2018 school district’s budget.
Monday, June 12, 2017 (5:30p.m.) – 2nd Public Budget Hearing to solicit feedback from the public regarding the 2017-2018 school district’s budget.
Monday, June 12, 2017 (6:15p.m.) – 1st Millage Rate Hearing
Monday, June 12, 2017 (7:00p.m.) – The Board of Education will adopt the FY 2018 Tentative Budget.
Tuesday, June 27, 2017 (11:30a.m.) – 2nd Millage Rate Hearing
Tuesday, June 27, 2017 (6:15p.m.) – 3rd Millage Rate Hearing
Tuesday, June 27, 2017 (7:00p.m.) – Final FY2018 Budget Adoption and Adoption of Tax Levy

Flooding Failing Schools With Money And Employees

These are some of the most interesting data points I’ve published. You can read into this table the politics and philosophies of the school district. That includes what the school district is doing about failing schools.
Superintendent Green has been charged with fixing DeKalb’s failing schools. To do so, the school district has flooded these failing schools with paraprofessionals (parapros), social workers, teacher coaches, etc … DeKalb Schools has added over 1,000 school house full/part time employees across the district since 2014 driving the student/employee ratio down in those schools.
The table below shows the enrollment and number of school house employees in every school since 2015. It is ranked by the school with the largest change in the student to school house employee ratio. For example, schools like McNair Middle and High School have seen a large change in the student/employee ratio. Enrollment is half of what it was 3 years ago, but the number of school house employees has roughly stayed the same. The result is that there is a significant increase in employees in the school house per student. Interestingly, at schools where enrollment has increased, the student per employee ratio has remained flat.
If DeKalb Schools can’t address student academic achievement at failing schools now, it is never going to happen.

Note: Demographics are 2015-2016 school year data.

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