Cobb School Budget Vote on Tap

The first major step in what figures to be some painful budget-cutting decisions by the Cobb Board of Education begins tonight. 

The school board is slated to vote on a tentative fiscal 2013 budget that includes a recommendation to shrink the teaching staff by hundreds of positions to help eliminate a projected $62 million deficit. 

Mike Addison, the 's chief financial officer, is suggesting that cutting 350 teaching jobs by attrition, imposing five furlough days, increasing class sizes, and other measures, including using $21 million in reserve funds, be undertaken to balance the budget. 

But school board member David Banks, in East Cobb Patch and Northeast Cobb Patch, questioned most of the proposed cuts. 

Banks, who represents the , and districts, said that $50 million in reserve funds should be used to trim the deficit. 

School board Chairman Scott Sweeney of East Cobb, who represents the and districts, pointed out this month that the school system if the state was fully funding the Quality Basic Education formula. 

The final budget is scheduled to be approved May 17.