Cobb school board to vote on $1.4 billion budget with raises of 8.5% to 13.1%

May 18—The Cobb County Board of Education is scheduled to vote Thursday night on adoption of Superintendent Chris Ragsdale's $1.4 billion budget proposal. The proposal includes raises ranging from 8.5% to 13.1% for district employees.

All non-temporary staff will receive raises of at least 8.5%, if approved. Employees who are eligible for a salary step will see even higher increases.

The general fund millage rate of 18.9 mills would not change under the proposal.

The district's fiscal year runs from the beginning of July through the end of the following June. The board gave Ragsdale's budget tentative approval in April. A public hearing held before the vote saw no residents speak for or against it.

A second public hearing on the budget will be held at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, sandwiched between the board's 2 p.m. work session and its 7 p.m. voting session.

Included in the 8.5% to 13.1% figure are $2,000 raises for all Georgia teachers, courtesy of Gov. Brian Kemp. On the campaign trail four years ago, Kemp pledged to give teachers a $5,000 raise if elected. The first $3,000 of that raise came in 2019, with the remainder postponed until this year due to the fiscal uncertainty caused by the pandemic.

Brad Johnson, the district's chief financial officer, said in April that Georgia's rapid economic recovery following the pandemic downturn has been a boon to state coffers. The state provides a significant chunk of the funding for public schools throughout Georgia, and legislators have restored the education funding that they slashed at the start of the pandemic.

The district will see a net increase in state funding of $43 million, Johnson said.

Local revenues have also surged. The Cobb County Board of Tax Assessors expects the county's tax digest to grow by 10.5% this year, the first double-digit increase in more than two decades. Staff project that to bring in an increase of $65 million over the previous year.

In the current budget, fiscal year 2022, all permanent CCSD staff received $2,000 bonuses at the end of this April. The state had already committed to giving the bonuses to cafeteria and custodial workers and bus drivers — CCSD announced in March it would use federal COVID-19 relief funds to make the bonuses universal.