On Monday the Bremen Board of Education voted to approve the school system’s budget for the 2008-09 fiscal year, which included raising the millage rate to 14.95.

The board approved the budgets for the general fund, food service program and after-school programs for the new fiscal year, which begins on July 1, 2008. Next year’s general fund budget calls for a total revenue of $14,280,349.38, with $383,334.38 being drawn from fund equity, with expenditures totaling $14,280,349.38. The budget also calls for a 2-mill increase in local taxes.

Currently, the millage rate is set at 12.95. A home valued at $100,000 at 40 percent tax valuation would incur $518 in taxes at the current rate. At 14.95 mills, the same home would incur $598 in taxes, a difference of $80. The 2-mill increase will raise approximately $375,000 for the school system.

According to Bremen Superintendent Stanley McCain, the average millage rate in Georgia is 15 mills, so even with the 2-mill increase, Bremen’s rates are still lower than most communities.

According to McCain, the increase is partially due to the opening of the new middle school and fourth- and fifth-grade academy. The school system has had to hire new employees to staff the school. The salaries for an assistant principal, a media specialist, a school nurse, a book keeper and secretary, a teacher office support paraprofessional, a bookkeeping paraprofessional, a registrar, a secretary at the middle school, a full-time substitute teacher, a part-time band director, a media clerk, two full-time custodians, two part-time custodians and a special education paraprofessional will all be funded by the new budget.

“We’re anticipating about a 2-mill increase in taxes,” McCain said. “This is coming because of increased costs, the additions that we had to have to staff the new school, and the additions due to maintenance and operations of our schools.”

Utilities for the new building have also increased overall costs, with the school’s yearly electric bill being estimated to exceed $100,000.

The budget also takes into account the rising cost of fuel, and McCain has asked principals to cut back on unnecessary field trips.

“We raised the price per mile for use of busses to $1, but Marietta City raised there rate to $1.85.”

McCain also attributed increased costs to the fact that the state government now requires local governments to contribute a larger portion of funds to public education. According to McCain, the ratio of state to local funds for public education used to be set at 80 percent and 20 percent respectively. However, the state has been shifting that balance, which is now nearing 70 percent from state funding and 30 percent from local funding, creating a larger burden on local governments and local taxpayers.

An example of this shift can be seen in the annual 2.5 percent cost-of-living raise mandated by the state government. The state funds the 2.5 percent raise for the school system’s certified employees. However, the state does not fund the additional contributions to social security and pension plans that result from the increase. Furthermore, the state does not fund a cost-of-living raise for non-certified employees.

“We always try to give our non-certified employees the same increase as our certified employees, because I feel it’s fair to do it that way,” McCain said.

In another example, changes to the state curriculum have resulted in many students being required to attend summer school due to poor performance on the Criterion Referenced Competency Tests (CRCT). The state government has allotted approximately $12 million for summer school programs for the entire state, placing most of the cost of summer school on local school systems.

The Bremen Board of Education is a member of the Consortium for Adequate School Funding in Georgia, a non-partisan group that represents approximately one-third of all school systems in Georgia. The Consortium believes that the state is currently not meeting its constitutionally mandated requirements to adequately fund education.

According to a press release issued by the consortium, the state is underfunding education by 20 percent of the state’s own guidelines, roughly $1.1 billion. This has created a greater tax burden on local communities and made it difficult for school systems with small tax bases to make up the difference through school taxes.

The Consortium filed suit with the State of Georgia in 2005 in an effort to force the state to provide what the consortium feels is adequate funding for Georgia schools. The state tried to have the lawsuit dismissed twice, once in state court and later in the Georgia Supreme Court. In each instance, the motions to dismiss the lawsuit were rejected, and the suit is expected to go to trial in October of this year.