When the DeKalb County School District went to voters in 2016 seeking taxes for school improvements, it did so without a list detailing how at least $500 million in additional revenue would be spent.
The move — unusual for a metro Atlanta school district — was panned by critics who felt the district was deliberately being vague in how it would spend money from its Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax V request, offering a resolution that gave voters an idea of the types of projects that would take place. Typically, school districts seeking E-SPLOST dollars presented a list of projects and needs the money would go toward addressing.
“It will ultimately play OK,” the DeKalb County Board of Education’s then-Chairman Melvin Johnson said in 2016. “We still will have transparency. Nothing’s going to be done where the public is not aware.”
Fast-forward three years and the district is considering asking DeKalb voters for up to $265 million more through a general obligation bond that would cover, among other things, construction cost overruns and additional projects.
The penny-tax resolution said funds would be spent enhancing surveillance systems, modifying and replacing some schools and building new ones, as well as purchasing buses and classroom furniture. District officials have said it would cost more than $2 billion to address all the district’s facility woes, and E-SPLOST only provides about 25% of that every five years.
“The major lesson learned of the E-SPLOST V program was the desire to do too much, to stretch the program as far as possible to address urgent facility needs,” a district statement said. “With estimates for these projects growing so much more than anticipated, we are now faced with having to make difficult choices to balance the program budget and ensure that the projects that remain can be successful.”
In 2016, district officials said forgoing a project list was necessary to stay in line with the past practice of putting the E-SPLOST on the ballot at the same time as neighboring jurisdictions: City Schools of Decatur, Atlanta Public Schools and Fulton County. In 2013, the district was $14 million in debt and facing the loss of its accreditation, and the lack of information about specific E-SPLOST projects stoked fears about further mismanagement.
Steve Green, who had been with DeKalb Schools less than a year when the proposal was put before voters, said not having a list would allow the district to engage parents and other DeKalb residents in the decision-making process.
Some parents and residents said that if the district had provided a starting point to discuss potential projects, it likely would not find itself in its current situation.
Kay Colson, a DeKalb County resident, said the district engaged few residents in its project-planning process, which included a public survey that “could have been filled out by multiple people multiple times.
“From the very beginning of the entire process, there’s been a lack of transparency, poor process, poor decisions that are made, and at the core as you watch them talk, you see that more and more,” she said. “Nobody’s listening. There was nothing well in the beginning that worked well for gathering information.”
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