If You Only Have $20, You Can’t Spend $30

The obstacles and challenges of the FY23 BOE proposed budget

On April 26, 2022, the Board of Education met for a preliminary FY23 budget presentation. This was the first meeting where the board was able to ask questions about the Superintendent’s proposed budget. It was a work session. So, I hope that our questions will be taken to heart and we will see a different budget presented at the next BOE work session on Tuesday May 10 at 7:00pm (please come and see how your tax dollars are being budgeted.)

The link to the public meeting is here (or you can watch below). I implore all Newton citizens to watch and weigh in. We need stakeholder input.

I ask a lot of questions. I’d love to hear any questions you might have. Click the email button above and let me know what you think.

If you only have $20, you can’t spend $30.

Here is a synopsis of a couple of statements I made in regard to spending more than we are currently collecting in revenue (your tax dollars):

General statement: the primary concern I have about the FY23 budget is that we cannot continue the spending pace that we are currently on without increasing our revenue (which means raising taxes) or spending all our fund balance. 

• This year (FY22) we are on pace to spend $12,077,435 MORE than we collect in revenue. [See budget proposal below.]

• The projection for FY23 is that we will spend $20,351,280 MORE than we project to collect in revenue. [See budget proposal below.]

At this rate we will expend the entire “savings” fund balance by 2025.

This does not seem to be fiscally responsible, especially with the current financial outlook and an almost certain impending recession. The current real estate values are inflated and will correct themselves in the next few years. We all lived through 2007-2009 to know this reality. We might debate the economics, but the fiscally responsible CONSERVATIVE approach is to spend less than we collect in revenue. To do otherwise is risky at best, and caviler at worst.

We might debate the economics, but the fiscally responsible CONSERVATIVE approach is to spend less than we collect in revenue. To do otherwise is risky at best, and caviler at worst.

If I am mistaken about my financial forecast, I’d love to see something in writing with projections that counter my conservatism or misunderstanding. 

Personal statement: I will not be voting for a millage rate increase. As a matter of fact, I’ll be advocating for a full roll-back this time. Our citizens have seen an exorbitant increase in a short time on their property taxes. As a BOE, we have done our part to help alleviate that tax burden on our citizens in the past few years. In my six years on the BOE we have lowered the millage rate twice! However, we have NOT made any headway in lowering the tax rate on senior citizens, many of whom are on a fixed income that does not change based on property values. We are anticipating a “study” to see if we can “afford” a staggered approach to ending the senior school tax. With this in mind, I cannot faithfully support anything short of a full roll-back of the millage rate. Until we do something to help our seniors, I cannot be a part of increasing the tax rate in Newton County. Also, we are “researching” to see if we can create a new “fine arts/liberal arts pathway” by eliminating one of our current elementary schools and relocating those students back into 4 or 5 elementary schools that are already near capacity. And with the building permits already approved in Newton County, to move forward on this initiative in this climate appears to be short-sighted. This arts pathway will also occupy space in one of our middle schools. This is an added expense to the taxpayers that is NOT essential at this time. I do not believe we need to be entertaining this added expense when we are currently overspending based on our revenue (and projected revenue). We must figure out how to fund the fundamentals of education and drop any extra-curricular programs on the radar and any that are not currently completely effective.

FY23 Proposed BOE budget (working draft)

[From the above budget proposal overview notice the FY23 Revenues = $197MM and the FY23 Expenses = $217MM. We can’t keep spending more than we are collecting.]

I have a document that I submitted to the Superintendent that listed 37 questions by line item in the FY23 budget proposal. I asked the bulk of them in the video above. Here is a sample of the questions:

• Is a Newton County Virtual Academy necessary if the state already has a program for families that prefer a virtual environment? (The Georgia Connections Academy is a tuition-free public virtual school offered to all Georgia students and paid for by your tax dollars. Why would we recreate something specific for Newton County if this service already exists? Remember, your tax dollars would then be spent on TWO cyber academy options.)

• A new central staff position is being proposed, Humanities Specialist. I’m all for the humanities, but my question is whether this central office position is essential at this point in time?

• Why were ESPLOST projects (Sharp Field upgrades and 20 new school busses) shifted from using ESPLOST dollars to the General Fund? This effectively increases the tax dollars needed from property taxes to increase by $5 million, rather than that tax burden being shared by all consumers in Newton County with the ESPLOST 1% retail tax. (I think this topic might get a separate blog. Stay tuned.)

• Please see the video for more specific questions about the budget proposal.

I realize these are big questions. And many, if not all, probably have a great and reasonable answer. I also know that I am down in the weeds right now. I’m just trying to do my due diligence, especially when I see a large increase in the budget, and an increase over the amount we project as revenue. I fear with all these budget requests we will not be able to roll-back the millage rate giving our property owners a much-needed respite from their continued and increasing tax burden and give a tax break to our most vulnerable in our community, the senior citizen. If we continue to increase the budgeted expenses, we will effectively force out the citizens on whom we desperately depend for financial support. AND with the “research” we are doing to add even more programs (i.e. Fine Arts Pathway) to, what I deem, an already overly packed set of system initiatives, I don’t know how we will maintain this increase in spending year-over-year. I believe we need to pay our teachers top-dollar. And if that means we need to scale down our program offerings to the essentials of teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic…then that’s what I’ll advocate for. I believe classroom management and discipline issues are MUCH more important than most of the new programs we are looking at funding. Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I believe we need to get back to the basics and spend our money on the people who are teaching and managing these kids in the classroom.