School SPLOST Meeting at Dodgen
The upcoming Cobb education sales tax referendum and project list will be discussed at a Feb. 11 informational meeting.
The Cobb Education SPLOST IV referendum is the subject of a Feb. 11 community meeting at East Cobb's Dodgen Middle School.
Local parent leaders will address educational funding issues and Cobb Board of Education and Cobb County School District officials will be available to answer questions about the $717 million project list at the meeting, which takes place at 6:30 p.m.
Dodgen is located at 1725 Bill Murdock Road.
Cobb voters will go to the polls on March 19 on whether to renew the one-cent sales tax to pay for school construction and maintenance projects. The current SPLOST III collection period ends at the end of this year; SPLOST IV would cover 2014-18.
Among the big-ticket items is $40 million for the rebuilding of Walton High School, including a new gym and a new fine arts center, as well as a replacement for East Cobb Middle School.
Other renovations call for a new gym at Wheeler High School and the possibility of a replacement elementary school in the East Cobb area.
To view the entire project list, please see the attached PDF file.
Previous East Cobb-related school SPLOST coverage:
In This article
-
Dodgen Middle School
1725 Bill Murdock Road, Marietta, GA -
Cobb County School District
514 Glover St SE, Marietta, GA -
-
Walton High School
1590 Bill Murdock Rd, Marietta, GA -
East Cobb Middle School
380 Holt Rd NE, Marietta, GA -
Wheeler High School
375 Holt Rd NE, Marietta, GA
Steve Hopper
3:26 pm on Monday, February 11, 2013
We are taxed more than enough already, at the federal, state, and local levels. Government growth and tax increases are both getting out of control. Let's say NO to any more SPLOST. Instead of throwing more money at the government, let's start with streamlining government operations and agencies to make them more efficient.
If I recall correctly, when I moved to Cobb County in '77, the sales tax was only 4%. We had a smaller population then, yet the public schools were quite good, even without all the SPLOST add-ons.
Let's leave this money in the hands of the taxpayers, who need relief.
Frank
12:09 am on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Before SPLOST (BS) Cobb schools were built using bond financing, in other words property taxes greater than paid in property taxes for school operations. Bottom line - property taxes, not sales taxes were used to fund schools capital expenditures.
In 1980, Cobb's population was less than 300,000. Today, it's approximately 700,000. SPLOST allowed the county to keep up with the demand for new schools without increasing property taxes. Today, there are many older schools in much need of improvement.
There's not enough room in the operations budget to fund improvements. The alternatives are to do nothing, or use bonds or SPLOST.
Steve Hopper
1:23 am on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Property taxes are out of control, too, Frank. I own three residential properties in Cobb, and the property taxes have consistently risen at a pace faster than inflation. Plus, they certainly haven't been reduced along with the drop in market values in recent years.
Back to SPLOST...I have two children in Cobb schools, and I am a graduate of the Cobb school system myself. I've seen first-hand the unnecessary projects that the SPLOST funds have paid for in recent years. They do not support the primary purpose of schools, which are basically the 3 "Rs": Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmetic. Many SPLOST projects are truly unnecessary. If the schools can't fund the basics, then one might legitimately say we have a revenue problem, but recent history proves that this is obviously not the case in Cobb. SPLOST is unnecessary for the schools.