Cobb School Board Passes Budget with Teacher Raises

MARIETTA — The Cobb County Board of Education voted 6-0 to approve the district’s budget for the 2024-2025 school year Thursday night, granting raises to all employees in the district.

Board member David Banks merely voted “present.”

All Cobb Schools staff will receive between a 4.4% and 9% raise, with an average 6% bump, according to Superintendent Chris Ragsdale.

The approved budget keeps the district’s milage rate flat at 18.7%, which Ragdale noted, is one of the lowest in the metro-Atlanta area.

"... My intent is to bring an employee-centric budget,” Ragsdale said at the April meeting of the school board. “This is exactly that.”

The board approved a budget of $1.85 billion, which is an increase of $400 million over last year’s budget.

The budget also includes $2.7 million to add 20 positions in the district and $2 million to pay for an experimental math and science program that involves virtual reality (VR).

Cobb school board member Becky Sayler echoed Ragsdale's excitement after the meeting and clarified that the $400 million increase from last year is largely due to Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) and grant funding drying up.

"I'm really excited that we can give employees raises and continue to be folding in things from other pots, like the summer school being offered at no cost because it used to be CARES funding and special ed teachers were provided by grant funding," Sayler said. "Even though I know it's increasing, really, it's a reallocation of funds that we've already used. So I'm excited about the growth that the budget shows."

Before the board voted to approve the budget, the district held the second public forum that is required by law.

At Thursday's budget forum, seven citizens spoke out. One called for a rollback of the millage rate, five people spoke about the controversial $50 million event center the district is building.

One of them was Steven Lang, who told the MDJ Thursday morning that despite the fact that the event center is not included in the 2024-2025 school year budget, the forum is the only time the public is invited to speak to the board specifically about finances.

"This represents really the only opportunity for citizens to say anything about the budget, specifically," Lang said. "The sad news is that we only get 30 minutes ... and it's only two minutes each. We're in the position of trying to make sure people's voices are heard."

Jeff Hubbard, president of the Cobb County Association of Educators, once again called on the district to add an additional public hearing on the budget. Cobb Schools held both forums on the same day the board was asked to give tentative and final approval of the funds.

"We would greatly appreciate three budget hearings, one in the middle (of the tentative approval and final approval) so that the citizens of the county do have the ability to look at the budget online, and if they do have any questions they are able to ask their representatives in the interim,” Hubbard said.

He also congratulated Brad Johnson, the district's chief financial officer, for presenting a balanced budget that made no staff cuts and added raises for employees across the district, and expressed teachers' excitement for the Prisms of Reality, the VR program that will be rolled out to 10 middle schools and 10 high schools in the fall.

“We are thankful that there are raises that will be able to be made, even in this time of economic uncertainty," Hubbard said. "... There are systems all over the country that are having to cut jobs. And Cobb is not."