School Board Sets 2012 Budget

A week after a local website, haltthetax.org, accused Forsyth County school officials of breaking a promise not to raise taxes if voters approved a March 15 special purpose local option sales tax (SPLOST) education referendum, school officials were very hard to find.

Emails to school board members Kristin Morrissey and Ann Crow went unanswered, although School Board Public Information Officer Jennifer Caracciolo did call to say that school board members would not comment. Caracciolo indicated that Chairman Tom Cleveland would talk but, two days later, he still had not returned a phone call or responded to an email.

The haltthetax.org website states that, "We were promised that if we renewed SPLOST, the Board of Education would not increase our millage rate-which in turn increases our property taxes."

On Feb. 26, School Superintendent Buster Evans told CummingHome.com: "Our district is required to make the payments on the 2005 and 2007 bonds. The two options we have to pay these bonds are SPLOST, which is funded by everyone that shops in Forsyth, regardless of where they reside, or property taxes."

A PowerPoint presentation produced by the school system helps to explain why citizens feel they were misled. It states: "Making the Bond Payments Two options: SPLOST or property tax."

There may be a perfectly good explanation for the miscommunication, but school officials have yet to provide it.

Meanwhile, the school board has approved the $263 million FY 2012 budget, although published reports indicate there is an $11.4 million budget shortfall. The system can pull approximately $6.5 million from a federal education grant. The rest could come from the school system's reserves, but officials seem reluctant to take that route.

The question is will school officials raise the remaining $4.9 million by raising taxes?

Taxpayers don't know and school officials won't say.

The board is expected to hold a called meeting later in the month to announce its decision.