State pay grade may get knocked down level

Students may also attend school fewer days

Carly Farrell

AMERICUS — State employees’, including teachers’, may be taken down a pay grade in 2011, according to a report given by Sumter County School Board member Doug Goodin, who’s in charge of finance for the board.

The number of days children attend school may be reduced during the school year, Goodin said.

Goodin announced this at Thursday’s Sumter County School Board meeting, saying he’d recently attended a meeting of the Georgia Association of Tax Officials at which Georgia House Rep. Richard Royal spoke.

“He’s hearing at the state capitol that those may be options,” Goodin said.

According to Americus’ representatives, Sen. George Hooks and Rep. Mike Cheokas, Georgia’s facing a huge deficit, and state law requires that the budget is balanced at all times.

What Georgia’s Governor Sonny Perdue and Congress do to come up with a budget each year is to compare numbers, month by month, from year to year.

For example, Cheokas said that between October 2008 and October 2009, Georgia’s budget decreased approximately 15 percent over one year. The state lost $246 million in revenue between October 2008 and October 2009.

Georgia’s General Assembly is required to predict 2011’s budget in 2010 by 2009’s numbers, and judging by the numbers, there are mandatory cuts — that have to come from somewhere.

Both Cheokas and Hooks were unaware of proposals of any kind.

“At this time, I think it’s a little premature to predict what the governor will propose,” Hooks said. “We won’t get the proposals until we meet in January, and we can’t make any cuts into the budget until the proposal is on the table.”

Hooks said that Georgia’s budget between November 2008 and November 2009 is down 16.2 percent, though.

“We’re going to dig into (the budget,) though,” Hooks said, “and look under every rock. These are difficult times for everyone, and one thing we’re not going to do is raise taxes. We do, though, want to preserve people’s jobs.”

Cheokas went into a bit more detail on saving state workers’ jobs.

“(Hooks) and I know all state employees are extremely dedicated, and have already been through furloughs, and cooperated,” Cheokas said. “Because of the furloughs, Georgia’s saved 2,000 jobs. We have nothing but high regards and praise for state employees, from teachers to the department of natural resources workers to park rangers to prison wardens to DFACS workers — they’ve all been dedicated and pulled together, and should be congratulated on that.”

Cheokas explained that the final version of the budget went through a long process before it was approved by the governor.

First, the governor works through his economic advisors to come up with three numbers to predict revenue — a high, a medium and a low number — and the governor picks a number and gives that number to the General Assembly. The state House and Senate then use that figure to come up with a budget proposal. Of course, the both chambers will come up with two different versions. Members of each group elect members to combine the two budgets. After one meshed budget is approved by both the House and Senate, it’s given to the governor to approve.

Hooks said that there may be other options for the state to save money, though, in education, which he’ll address with his senatorial colleagues. This may be what Royal was speaking of when he said the number of days children attend school meant, because Hooks said that Georgia law requires children to have a certain amount of hours in a classroom.

Peach County, which Hooks also represents, has implemented a four-day school week, where children attend class longer, but get the fifth day off.

“It saved a lot of money (for the school system,)” Hooks said.

But, a four-day school week as opposed to the five-day school week would be up to each school district’s board of education.

Hooks said that 16 other school systems had implemented this in Georgia, as well.

“All of this, of course, is pure speculation until we get to Atlanta in January,” Hooks said.

Cheokas also mentioned that interest from bonds, that thereby was placed in a “rainy day” fund, has saved taxpayers more than $34 million, and attributed this to Hooks’ hard work on an economic committee.

The school board will have a meeting in January with Cheokas and Hooks to discuss the matter, and they hope to invite the other school systems in the area to attend.

In order to get more funding in the future for Georgia, Gloria Strode, senior partnership specialist with the U.S. Department of Commerce, is getting each person to fill out their U.S. Census in 2010.

Strode spoke to the Sumter County Board of Education Thursday, encouraging them to pass her information along to the district’s children. Strode had packets of educational material made for each school board member which had age-appropriate activities for children at every grade in which the children could participate.

“There are lesson plans for teachers online,” Strode said. “We’re conducting coloring contests and essay contests. The point is for children to learn about the census, how it works and why it’s important, and they’ll bring that excitement home to their parents.”

Accurate numbers on the census mean more money allotted to Georgia by the federal government each year, Strode said.

“There’s over $400 billion distributed to 50 states,” Strode said. “And the states with the most people in them get the most money.”

The superintendent application deadline is Dec. 15, and the school board will begin reviewing applications either Dec. 16 or Dec. 23.

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