GAINESVILLE – Although the letter itself has yet to be finalized, you can be certain it will speak in no uncertain terms.
That was the feeling conveyed by the Hall County Board of Education during its meeting Monday evening as the issue of municipal annexations, and the effect those annexations have on county school districts, is reaching a tipping point.
Hall County has two independent municipal school districts in addition to the county school district: one in Gainesville and one in Buford.
Hall County School Board member Mark Pettitt spoke strongly on the matter, implicating recent action by the City of Buford. “There is a school-of-thought to our south where, ‘We’re just going to go and annex parcels, and we’re going to cherry-pick high-tax revenue commercial pieces, and they don’t add any kids to the system and it’s no tax burden’…and I think it is legal theft.”
Board member Sam Chapman agreed. “One system cannot just do something deliberately just for a tax base and toot their horn and say it’s not going to increase their student body, just their tax base.”
Pettitt said after the meeting, “What we have seen through municipal annexation as of late in Hall County is that… there is some concern to our south that there is cherry-picking going on by our friends in Buford. They are not looking to pick up any additional students to serve via annexation but they are looking to annex potential commercial and industrial property for the huge amount of revenue, tax revenue.”
Hall County has also butted-heads with Gainesville City Schools as recently as three years ago when a longtime tax-revenue-sharing agreement between the two districts was not renewed.
Hall County School Superintendent Will Schofield says the source of the annexation problem has a long history. “It certainly was simply an oversight in the rewrite of the Georgia Constitution in the 1970s,” Schofield said.
Schofield said that whenever a municipality with its own unique school district annexes property into its city limits the school districts involved in that changeover are affected, sometimes adversely, and that provision should have been written out of the state constitution when it was rewritten over four decades ago.
“It was simply an oversight and we are drafting a resolution asking our local delegation to introduce legislation – not to stop municipal annexation – but to stop municipal annexation’s effects on county school districts, whether it is enrollment or a tax digest…decision,” Schofield explained.
School Board Vice-chairman Nath Morris says he has been concerned about the annexation problem for a long time. “If you just think about anybody going out and getting land and getting more tax digest, the county can’t do that. County borders are there. You can’t go and steal land; you can’t tax property that’s not in your area…and I’ve looked long and hard at this for twenty years, and this is not right.”
“I will be bringing you back a formal resolution,” Schofield told board members, “and I’ve already let our delegation know that that is coming.”
When asked what the letter to the Hall County delegation will say Schofield replied, “Basically, what it will say is when municipal annexation occurs in a county that has city school districts, that there be no effect on either enrollment or funding for the county system.”
As to what might happen to the current boundaries that delineate county or city school district, Schofield’s response was, “Freeze it where it is right now for school district purposes and get rid of the chaos for our parents and their families.”
