Charter School's Renewal in Trouble

The faces a opposition from the administration this morning when its petition for a charter renewal comes up before the county Board of Education.

Five charter school petitions are on the agenda for discussion when the school board meets for its monthly work session, and the administration recommends rejection of four of them, including the five-year-old Mableton school. The Imagine school seeks a two-year charter extension.

The administration is still reviewing the request from the to receive a five-year charter extension as the International Academy of Smyrna, ending Imagine Schools’ management of that school. That's the only petition not carrying a negative recommendation.

The Board of Education is expected to approve the fiscal 2012 budget this morning.

The budget for the year starting July 1 calls for spending $851.8 million from the general fund in the coming 178-day school year. The budget includes two furlough days and delays the annual step increase in salary for teachers and other certified employees by half a year but avoids layoffs or other dramatic cuts.

The plan raises the millage rate from 18.9 to 20 mills on paper. But in reality the board will avoid that increase by buying down the rate using more than $22 million in excess money from SPLOST II, the 1-cent Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax for the schools that expired at the end of 2008. The school system now collects SPLOST III.

The to approve that use of SPLOST money, with Chairwoman Alison Bartlett of Post 7 and members Tim Stultz of Post 2 and Kathleen Angelucci of Post 4 opposed. The board had the same 4-3 split when it last month.

The dissenters complained about the , which depends on more than $34 million in one-time leftover money from this fiscal year: $25 million set aside in anticipation of state austerity cuts that never came, and $9.4 million in federal stimulus money.

The district’s chief financial officer, Mike Addison, had predicted a deficit of as much as $50 million heading into the budget process in March, but that when the county Tax Assessor’s Office revised its projections and said property values wouldn’t fall as much as expected.

This first post-school-year regularly scheduled meeting of the school board also was expected to include the as superintendent, but the board instead for that purpose.

The school district announced that meeting Thursday and met legal requirements by notifying the Marietta Daily Journal, as well as other media, spokesman Jay Dillon said.

The board met Sunday instead of waiting three days for today’s meeting as a courtesy to Hinojosa and his current employer, the school board in Dallas, Dillon said.

“The Dallas school board was interested in moving as quickly as possible to name an interim superintendent, ensure a smooth transition, and begin its own search,” Dillon wrote in an email to Patch, but none of that could happen until Hinojosa received final approval.

The Cobb school board therefore wanted to make the hiring official as soon as possible after the state-mandated 14-day comment period. The first legal day was Friday, but Dillon said neither Friday nor Saturday worked for the board.

The result was the rare Sunday meeting, attended by all members except David Banks of Post 5 in Northeast and East Cobb. Banks has said he can’t attend Sunday meetings because he has to work.

That leaves the budget as the only action item on the budget for the work session. The meeting at the Central Office on Glover Street in Marietta starts at 8:30 a.m. with a public comment period.