Tuesday, March 5, 2024–11:14 a.m.
-David Crowder, WRGA News-
Funding a school system is a little more complicated than most would think, with various formulas and different funding sources.
On Monday, members of the Rome Finance Committee got an update on the budget process for the Rome City School System from Superintendent Eric Holland and Chief Finance Officer Greg Studdard.
“We are a federally funded district so we get federal funds, we get IDEA funds for special education kids, we get CTAE funds, which are career tech funds, and we get funding from the state, as well as from you guys,” Holland told the committee. “We do training on that. Last year, we did a Budget 101 meeting with our board because if they are going to be making budget decisions, they need to be educated on the money. So we spend a whole day doing Budget 101—where we get the money, where it comes from and where it’s going.”
According to Studdard, state funding is based on the Quality Basic Education or QBE formula.
“That’s what they fund is a basic education—reading, writing, arithmetic, and maximum class sizes,” he said. “We’ve decided, as a community, that we want to live in a place where kids get more than just a basic education, and that’s where the levy of property taxes comes in. You’ll hear the governor say we have fully funded education again, and that’s great, but that’s a 1980’s formula.”
Studdard added there is a misconception about property taxes and the millage rate.
“Let’s say our rate is 17 mills, we’re only going to get 12 because the state is going to hold back 5 mills from every school district in the state,” he said. “They call it having skin in the game. So they will figure out how much we earn, they will take off their 5 mills from that and the rest is what they will send us. So, we are not getting the full property tax that we collect.”
According to Studdard, with the exception of the school nutrition and Pre-K programs, all federal funds the school system receives are on a reimbursement basis. That means the federal government approves the budget, the school system spends the money, and then requests to be reimbursed for those funds.
Another important funding source is the special purpose, local option sales tax for education. Total ELOST V collections for Rome City Schools as of January were $36,749,115.
“This January is the final collection number for SPLOST V,” Studdard said. “Starting in February, those will be SPLOST VI collections that we will collect for a year and then we will make the first payment next March on the bonds that we sold in December to build the new middle school.”
The $108 million middle school is being funded with the bonds that will be paid back from ELOST funds. $17 million in state capital outlay funds are also going toward the project.
