Do you want to pay more local taxes for state-dictated and state-run
charter schools?


In

HB 797,
one of the state laws we’re being asked to ratify with the charter school referendum
on the ballot in November,
in addition to the magic accounting rules that would

grant charter schools much more money per student than public schools,
it would create a state-wide charter school board that will take away
all oversight from the local school board for any charter schools the
state imposes on any locality.
Yet it does not provide additional state funding for the extra
money per student for charter schools, and it does
explicitly address assessed valuation of local taxes.

The state takes all control over local chartered
schools from the local school board in section 2A(7), last paragraph:

The local board shall not be responsible for the fiscal management,
accounting, or oversight of the state chartered special school.

Yet the state provides no additional funding for the additional money
per student for charter schools:

2A(5) No deduction shall be made to any state funding which a local school
system is otherwise authorized to receive pursuant to this chapter
as a direct result or consequence of the enrollment in a state
charter school of a specific student or students who reside in the
geographical area of the local school system.

(6) Funding for state chartered special schools pursuant to this
subsection shall be subject to appropriations by the General
Assembly and such schools shall be treated consistently with all
other public schools in this state, pursuant to the respective
statutory funding formulas and grants.

The bill also inserts each of those paragraphs again elsewhere,
in case the point wasn’t clear enough.

So where is the extra money to come from?
Here’s a hint:

20-2-2089 (a)(3)(A) ‘Assessed valuation’ is defined as 40 percent of
the equalized adjusted property tax 307 digest reduced by the amount
calculated pursuant to subsection (g) of Code Section 308 20-2-164.

What isn’t appropriated by the General Assembly?
Federal taxes, but there’s language that seems to say federal
money can’t be allocated differently for charter schools.
What’s left?
Local property taxes and local sales taxes.
So the extra money per student to charter schools would have to come
from local property tax millage and E-SPLOST.

The last sentence of section 2A(7) sums it up:

Where feasible, the state board shall treat a state chartered
special school no less favorably than other public schools within
the state with respect to the provision of funds for transportation
and building programs.

Nowhere does it say public schools shall be treated no less
favorably than charter schools about anything.

And we get to pay for the state’s favorable treatment of state-dictated
and state-controled charter schools
through our local property and sales taxes.
The charter school referendum on the November ballot isn’t about
improving education.
It’s about using centralized state control to funnel our local tax money
to private companies running charter schools.
We can vote that down in November.

While voting, it could be useful to remember who said Yea for HB 797
in the legislature.
In the

House,
Ellis Black (R-174), Amy Carter (R-175), and Jason Shaw (R-176) voted for it.
In the

Senate,
Tim Golden (R-8th) voted for it.

-jsq